Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and the author of critically acclaimed books on design, including Hello World: Where Design Meets Life, Design as an Attitude and, most recently, Design Emergency: Building a Better Future. She is a co-founder with Paola Antonelli of the Design Emergency project to investigate design's role as a force for positive change. In all her work, Alice champions design's potential to address complex social, political and ecological challenges.

An influential public speaker and social media commentator on design, Alice has participated in important global events including TED and the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Her TED talk has been viewed by over a million people worldwide. One of The Big Issue's 100 Changemakers 2023 for her work on Design Emergency, she was awarded an OBE for services to design and the arts.

Born in Manchester and based in London, Alice graduated in art history from Cambridge University. She was an award-winning journalist for the Financial Times for nearly twenty years, working as a foreign correspondent in Paris and pioneering the FT's coverage of the creative industries. For over a decade, Alice was design critic of the international edition of The New York Times, writing a weekly Design column, which was syndicated to other media worldwide.