With over 25 years of combined experience as a digital designer, creative technologist and educator, Safir has had the opportunity to tackle a number of challenges across multiple spaces, ranging from product innovation to immersive brand experiences and game-changing creation tools. Safir was an early adopter of 3D design and prototyping tools and carried his experience from the automotive world into the fashion and footwear industry. As Head of Innovation for the industry’s leading Action Sports brand, Vans, he oversaw a number of initiatives that spanned across product and experiences, among which highly technical footwear and equipment for action sports as well as the Vans Customs platform.

In his latest role, leading Digital Innovation for VF’s Apparel, Footwear, and Accessories brands (among which Vans, Timberland, The North Face and Dickies) he has been exploring opportunities offered by digital tools and workflows and helped imagine the future of Product Creation.

An advocate of purposeful and responsible design, Safir believes that our society has an incredible opportunity to harness its collective creativity and today’s technological affordances to tackle the world’s social and humanitarian challenges.