Matt is the CEO of MG Strategy + Design; he leads projects and works hands-on with both clients and internal teams. Matt has held senior leadership roles for a few decades now. He’s been a frequent speaker at design events since founding the agency with Scott Goldman in 2002.
Matt has extensive experience leading content, design, multimedia, and product teams at CQ Roll Call, the San Jose Mercury News, and National Geographic. He taught as a professor and program leader at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Matt led the team that supported The Onion with its digital, print and membership reinvention in 2024. That work is ongoing.
Matt also serves on the leadership team of Chicago’s M. Harris & Co. which MG partners with in building a growing design practice.
As a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for News Design, Matt was celebrated as a design pioneer, a lifelong volunteer, and a mentor to a generation of creative professionals.
From 2008-2013, he was a professor at Northwestern and co-director at the Medill program in Washington, D.C. Ask Matt about his former students at Medill — he’ll proudly be able to tell you what they are up to now. He’s also the co-editor, with NU colleague Ellen Shearer, of “Truth Counts: A Practical Guide for News Consumers” (CQ 2018).
Matt built the annual energy jobs report with NASEO, the EFI Foundation and BW Research after the first Trump administration abandoned it, served as the design director of two political magazines for Bloomberg, and was the project lead for multimedia work for the American Academy of Pediatrics aimed at Covid vaccine hesitancy. He is also a distinguished fellow with the Climate Equity Foundation.
Matt has worked with The Onion, NPR, Stanford University, NORC at the University of Chicago, RMI, the Mission Possible Partnership, the McCormick Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Poetry Foundation, the National Governors Association and many other clients. He and his teams’ work has garnered hundreds of awards, including World’s Best-Designed™, the Pulitzer Prize, Best of the West, and the National Magazine Awards.
Matt Mansfield
Founder + CEO
