Rachel Whitlow A’94

Running for: Alumni Trustee

Campaign Statement

Biography

Rachel Weatherford Whitlow is an artist, environmental activist, industrial designer, brand strategy consultant, and CEO from New York City and Mt Desert Island, Maine.  Whitlow received her BFA from Cooper Union in 1994 and graduated from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business Executive Leadership Program in 2010.

For 25+ years, Ms. Whitlow, as Creative Director and COO, has been able to turn around companies and brands facing industry disruption because she understands that even the best creative ideas can fail when the strategy for implementation and functional design is not defined proactively.  After many years designing products and visiting global manufacturers in diverse cultures, Whitlow realized that design has a broader ability to improve people’s lives, communities, and the planet’s future.

Whitlow’s work as Executive Director of the Haverstraw Brick Museum was recently featured in the Cooper Union Alumni News. Whitlow is also CEO/Founder of Circlworks LLC, —a zero-waste lifestyle brand with an innovative approach to product transformation that is committed to the remanufacturing and design of unique products from the end-of-life textiles and other materials such as food waste to drive pull-through demand and help shift the economy from linear to circular.

Whitlow’s industrial product design for well-known luxury designers has been sold to numerous retailers and hotel companies in Europe, the US, Latin America, and Canada. She has been published and featured in The New York Times, Elle Decor, Home Furnishings News, Home Textiles Today, LDB Home Interiors, Eyewear News, Women’s Wear Daily, House & Gardens and Better Homes & Gardens magazines.

Whitlow also continues to show her paintings regularly.  The Upstream Gallery represents whitlow in Hastings on Hudson, and her work is available on Artsy.