About our Institute

Our People

Lauralee Alben is the Founder and CEO of the Sea Change Design Institute. She is known for her insatiable curiosity, which is why her childhood nickname was Twenty Questions.

The intriguing questions Lauralee currently centers her life around are, “What is design?” and, “What is the nature of water?” These converge at this epic time on Earth with the emergence of the Sea Change Design Institute. The Institute evolved from AlbenDesign LLC, which developed and disseminated the Sea Change Design Process over fifteen years. AlbenFaris Inc., its precursor, was well known for providing pioneering interactive services and designing Apple’s Mac OS brand.

For four decades Lauralee has been designing, consulting, coaching, speaking, writing, and teaching. She is an AIGA SF 2020 Fellow, the first recipient of the Design Management Institute’s prestigious Muriel Cooper Prize, and a member of the I.D. Forty: “one of the most influential people in design.” Lauralee has guided sea changes at the Environmental Defense Fund, Apple Computer, Procter & Gamble, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, to name a few. Lauralee gives keynotes on designing sea changes to corporations, professional conferences, and academic institutions. She has presented at TED, the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, Procter & Gamble, SUN, Adobe, Walker Art Center, HOW, AIGA, MBARI, Montessori Foundation, and many others.

She received her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and her master’s equivalent from the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland. She is an alumna of the Prince of Wales’s Business & the Environment Programme, as well as a graduate of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies’ Three-Year Program of Advanced Initiations in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing. Lauralee serves as a wisdom-keeper, healer, and poet. She loves living on the mercurial and majestic Monterey Bay.

Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Marie Rilke

The Sea Change Design Consortium consists of seasoned professionals, who are committed to surfacing solutions to the serious economic, social, and environmental challenges we face today. We seek to attract clients—including B-corporations, non-profit organizations, governments, NGOs, and schools and universities—working on complex or cross-sector issues. Each Consortium member is trained and licensed in the Sea Change Design Process to deliver our services: consulting, coaching, speaking, and teaching. The Institute is advised and shepherded by the Sea Change Design Council, who are committed to the direction, growth, and well-being of our Institute.

The Sea Change Design Network offers a rich mix of talent and experience in diverse disciplines to manifest sea changes. These individuals and organizations include expert advisors in the areas of sustainability and water, social and global issues, and spirituality. Also allied with us are firms who deliver additional design services including branding, media, interactive experiences, the arts, and technology. To meet today’s formidable challenges, we forge strong bonds, connecting business with sustainability, science with spirituality, well-being with ecology, politics with human rights, and communications with technology.

Do you belong in our Sea Change Design Consortium or Network? We would love to hear from you.

Our Clients and Community

Sea Change Design has been used to inspire ocean conservation, protect human rights, build innovative organizational cultures, humanize technology, design brands, and transform lives.

Each client comes to us with unique circumstances, yet a common thread weaves through them all—the commitment to transform problems into pure potential, and opportunities into lasting outcomes. Based on our collective experiences over many years, we believe that Sea Change Design is uniquely suited to respond to a wide range of challenges, some far outside the purview of traditional design. That’s because we define design differently. We assert that design is the conscious planning and meaningful action that creates relationship—with humanity, nature, spirit, and time. So, whether your challenges are strategic, cultural, or environmental, we can co-design robust and resilient connections that foster a dynamic and adaptive flow of results.

The Sea Change Design Community is a growing body of individuals and organizations that have engaged with our Institute in meaningful ways. Because they value the transformations they have co-designed in their lives, organizations, and the world, they continue to engage with us and each other. Our intention to is to build an interconnected web of design change agents who support each other in courageous and compassionate leadership of our evolving world. Sea Change Design forms the common ground for our clients and community to effectively collaborate. We generate a shared, cohesive body of experience and wisdom that is created, applied, and enriched over time.

Are you seeking to presence personal, organizational, or planetary potential? We would like to contribute.

Selected clients