Matt Holmes, designer
Matt Holmes graduated with a Bachelor of Design from the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design in 1989.
Like many top students he was then employed by Fisher & Paykel and was a member of the design team mentored by Mark Elmore, which worked on the multi-award winning Fisher & Paykel DishDrawer, amongst other design concepts.
Moving to the USA, Matt interviewed at IDEO, Sony, Tonic and Apple, but it was the intervention of Jonathan Ive at Apple that changed his career pathway. He noted Matt’s passion for designing sports products, connected him with a former Apple director who had recently moved to Nike—and fifteen years later Matt has designed over 150 shoes for Nike.
Matt has moved from creating some of Nike’s most iconic and successful shoes to directing Creative Strategy for Nikes 100+ footwear designers. He has won numerous awards, including the 2007 Runners World Shoe of the Year, and most recently he was part of the team that set the direction for Nike at the 2012 Olympics. Matt has worked with sporting celebrities like Roger Federer, Serena Williams and Rafa Nadal.
His personal passion has led to an outstanding career that is highly valued by one of the world’s largest global firms.
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