Domo announced that its Chief Design Officer, Chris Willis, received the Executive Excellence Award from Utah Business Magazine. The annual award recognizes exceptional leaders within Utah’s vibrant business and technology ecosystem. Willis was honored for his transformative contributions to AI-driven data platforms and his innovative “emotional design” approach.
Award: Utah Business Magazine’s 2025 Executive Excellence Award.
Recipient: Chris Willis, Domo’s Chief Design Officer.
Key Contribution: Pioneering emotional design and AI Chat feature for accessible data analytics.
Impact: Developed an AI framework supporting multiple large language models.
Stock Context: DOMO’s current price is $15.095, up 781.82% YTD (see finance card above).
Domo’s Mission: Democratizing data and AI for all users, from practitioners to CEOs.
With nearly 15 years at Domo, Willis has been instrumental in building one of the first cloud-native, mobile-first data platforms. His “emotional design” philosophy prioritizes understanding individual customer needs, moving beyond generic solutions to create intuitive, human-centered tools. This approach has transformed how organizations interact with data, making analytics accessible and actionable.
“Over my nearly fifteen years at Domo, I’ve had the privilege of helping build one of the first cloud-native, mobile-first data platforms from the ground up,” Willis said. “What drives me every day is our mission to democratize data and AI for everyone – from everyday practitioners to CEOs. By focusing on emotional design principles, we’re not just making data accessible; we’re making it genuinely useful for solving real, human problems.”
Willis’s leadership has driven significant advancements in Domo’s platform:
AI Chat Feature: Launched to enable natural language database queries, broadening accessibility across technical backgrounds.
AI Framework: Allows customers to integrate nearly any large language model, offering unmatched flexibility for building and scaling AI tools.
Industry Impact: Enhanced data analytics in sectors like healthcare, retail, finance, and logistics by addressing specific customer needs.
Daren Thayne, Domo’s CTO and EVP of Product, praised Willis’s contributions: “Chris is an invaluable asset to Domo. Design is an integral part of the business – it transforms how users interact with complex technology. Chris’ ability to make complex, technical ideas digestible, and to do so with strong leadership, mentorship, and collaboration has a profound impact on our evolution and growth at Domo.”
Domo’s stock (Nasdaq: DOMO) has seen a remarkable 781.82% year-to-date return, with a current price of $15.095, as shown in the finance card above. Recent milestones, including a deepened partnership with Snowflake (June 26, 2025) and recognition as a leader in Dresner’s 2025 Business Intelligence Market Study (June 16, 2025), underscore Domo’s growth trajectory. Willis’s AI innovations, like the flexible AI framework, align with Domo’s mission to deliver measurable value through data and AI.
With over 25 years of design leadership, Willis has a rich history, including co-founding HOUR Detroit magazine and Footnote.com (acquired by Ancestry.com for $27M). His patents in data visualization and UX design further highlight his expertise. As a Forbes Technology Council member, Willis advocates for human-centered AI, influencing industries beyond Domo through events like the Data Universe Conference (April 2024) and Domo’s AI Innovation Summit 2023.
Willis’s award reflects Domo’s commitment to accessible, AI-driven analytics. The company’s partnerships, such as with GUIDEcx and Later, and its Domo Central community platform, which saw a 136% increase in forum visits in 2023, demonstrate its focus on customer-centric innovation. As Domo prepares for Domopalooza 2026, Willis’s leadership will continue shaping the future of data-driven decision-making.
Domo is an AI and Data Products platform that helps companies of all sizes leverage data and AI to drive value in today’s data-driven world. Built around our customers’ preferred data foundation, powered by our award-winning Domo.AI solution, and enriched with our partner ecosystem, the Domo platform enables users to prepare, visualize, automate, distribute, and build end-to-end data products that provide solutions across the entire data journey. From hydrating your data foundation, to building fully embedded applications that can be shared with your employees and customers, to deploying AI models across a variety of providers, Domo gives users the ability to build data products that generate measurable value for the business.
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