Bart Ahsmann graduated in 1988 with a degree in Industrial Design at TU Delft, followed by 13 years of professional design experience for Dutch design consultancies. This is where he developed his skills in developing sustainable consumer and industry products for major (inter)national manufacturing and SME clients. In 2001 he joined Syntens, working on innovation consultancy for Dutch SMEs. While there, he initiated partnerships with knowledge institutes and was involved in developing new innovation methods.

In 2009 he joined Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft to stimulate and professionalise knowledge transfer in design research. He was responsible for initiating and developing a number of large-scale research and innovation projects, industry partnerships, design start-ups, and the 3TU Research Centre Design United. Amongst others, he was one of the architects of the major Dutch research programme CRISP (2011-2015). Since March 2016, Bart works as Managing Director of CLICKNL, the Dutch Creative Industries knowledge and innovation network. CLICKNL is responsible for the Knowledge and Innovation Agenda for the Dutch Creative Industry.

In line with the leading role of Dutch creative industry, he is regularly asked to advise on European policy development and innovation programs and projects. He served as president of BEDA (Bureau of European Design Associations) from 2017-2019 and is part of the Design Declaration Summit Steering Committee.