About Us | Culture Design Lab

Our Mission

To work with CEOs and leaders to design great company cultures on purpose.

Why Culture?

Let’s start with a simple truth: in your business, a culture exists. It seems obvious but it’s important to say it. In any organization, a culture will emerge by default without anyone doing anything other than being there. How would you describe your organization’s culture? Are you happy with it? Do you think you fully understand it? Do you know the risks and opportunities your company culture creates? Most important, have you done anything to shape or change that culture, by design? If you have, that’s a good start. If you haven’t, you must. It’s time to get intentional about organizational culture and to make it strong. Strong company cultures, deliberately shaped, are the difference between businesses that are great versus those that are just good enough. We’re here to do the work with you, and guide you how to intentionally design a culture that is resilient, inclusive, powerful, and effective.

Meet the Team

James D. White

Co-Founder and CEO

James White is a transformational leader with more than 30 years experience as an operating executive in the Consumer Products, Retail, and Restaurant industries. He is the former Chairman, President and CEO of Jamba Juice, where he led the successful turnaround and transformation of the company from a made-to-order smoothie shop to a global, healthy active lifestyle brand. In his experience at Jamba Juice and at companies including Gillette, Safeway Stores, Nestlé-Purina PetCare, and Coca Cola, James has gained invaluable experience that has enabled him to become a coveted board member on over 20 private and public boards including Panera Bread, The Honest Company, Simply Good Foods, CAVA, Affirm and Medallia to name a few. Throughout his entire career, James has demonstrated his commitment to designing inclusive workplaces and is the Co-Founder and Chair of the Director’s Academy, a national not-for-profit with a mission to identify, develop and advance the next generation of diverse corporate board members and board leaders. He previously served on the non-profit boards of the NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center, The Organic Center and the Network of Executive Women.

Krista White

Co-Founder, Partner and Head of Communications

Krista White is a published author who has co-written two books with her Dad, James. Her work at Culture Design Lab focuses on research, in-depth interviews, and harnessing her writing and storytelling skills to craft powerful narratives. She collaborates with James and Rhonda to weave their incredible combined experiences into digestible communications, reports, and publications for Culture Design Lab’s clients. In addition to her work with Culture Design Lab, Krista has consulted with individuals and companies on their strategies for intentional culture design, inclusion, and racial justice. She is also the founder and CEO of Kiki for the Future, a platform for LGBTQIA+ sex education, and a fiction writer completing her MFA in fiction at Sarah Lawrence College. All of her work ultimately centers around her values of liberation, connection, and joy.

Rhonda White

Co-Founder and COO

Rhonda White is a 30 year marketer and CMO, a board advisor and director, business executive in consumer products, technology, financial and cybersecurity industries. Rhonda is currently an independent board member for Kiteworks, a secure content communications company. She is a customer-oriented leader with a track record of operationalizing strategy, and developing go-to-market growth strategies and category development for Fortune 500 and privately held companies including HP, Symantec, McAfee, Qualcomm, PeopleSoft, Centrify and MobileIron. Rhonda was also a partner and GM at Porter Novelli, an Omnicom company, for 10 years where she specialized in corporate and crisis communications, category design, and brand and product positioning. Rhonda has advised CEOs, created and executed C-level internal and external communication platforms, led and scaled global GTM growth strategies, deployed digital transformations for B2B and B2C companies and executed M&A. Throughout her career Rhonda has used her platform in marketing to build intentional cultures and brands.