Ayse Birsel is the Co-founder and Creative Director of, Birsel + Seck,  the award-winning design and innovation studio working with Herman Miller, GE, Nissan, Tiffany & Co., Colgate-Palmolive and Philips, among others. The Turkey-born, New York-based designer is the creator of Design the Life You Love, a book and coursework that teaches non-designers how to create a meaningful life using her design process, Deconstruction:Reconstruction™ (DE:RE™), and its tools.

Born in Izmir, Turkey, Ayse came to the US in 1986 to attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, on a Fulbright Scholarship. Since then she has called New York her home, living here with her husband and partner, Bibi Seck, and their three children, who continue to inspire her life's design.

Ayse was identified by Fast Company as one of the world’s most creative people and is on the Thinkers50 Radar List of the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of organizations.  She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2001 Young Designers Award from the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Athena Award for Excellence in Furniture Design from Rhode Island School of Design. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and Philadelphia Museum of Art.