Suzanne is an entrepreneur, design strategist, and expert in digital learning whose work focuses on transforming individuals and organizations. As a partner at IDEO, Suzanne founded and served as Dean of IDEO U. Prior to IDEO U, she was the Managing Director of IDEO’s Systems and Organizational Change Studio. She also grew IDEO’s Design Research and Strategy capabilities globally. Suzanne pioneered many of the techniques now at the forefront of how business understands human needs.

Suzanne started her career as a cultural anthropologist working across tech startups in Silicon Valley. Her passion is to catalyze bold change by unlocking others through education, empathy and insight. She teaches in the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program and serves on the board of Education Design Lab. Masterful at advising and coaching leaders while they are navigating change, her work has been published in Inc Magazine, Fast Company, Quartz at Work, and Rotman Magazine. Suzanne has innovated across public, private and social sectors with clients including The Gates Foundation, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, York University, Apollo Group and Google. She has a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, and an M.A. from the University of Chicago. Outside of work, Suzanne is a passionate traveler, educator, research geek, climber, sailor, and mom.

Coe Leta teaches global audiences the skills of design thinking, human-centered research, rapid prototyping, and storytelling. Since joining IDEO in 2006, she's led numerous creative teams across diverse organizations including Microsoft, Target, Intel, Wells Fargo, Ford, eBay, Hasbro, Sesame Street, and Government and Healthcare groups. Known for expertise in digital design, play, and data, her work has won international awards, patents for clients, and been featured in the New York Times and Wired. Coe Leta has a Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley and guest lectures at Stanford University's d.School.

Tim frequently speaks about the value of design thinking and innovation to business people and designers around the world. He participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and his talks Serious Play and Change by Design appear on TED.com.

An industrial designer by training, Tim has earned numerous design awards and has exhibited work at the Axis Gallery in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He takes special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well-being of people living in emerging economies.

Tim advises senior executives and boards of global Fortune 100 companies. His book on how design thinking transforms organizations, Change by Design, was released by Harper Business in September 2009 and revised and updated in March 2019.

David Kelley is the founder and chairman of the global design and innovation company IDEO. Kelley also founded Stanford University's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, known as the d.school.

Kelley's most enduring contributions are in human-centered design methodology and design thinking. He's most passionate about using design to help unlock creative confidence in everyone from students to business executives. A frequent speaker on these topics, Kelley and his brother co-authored the New York Times best-selling book Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All.

Kelley was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2000. He holds honorary PhDs from both the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth and Art Center College in Pasadena.

Melanie helped lead IDEO’s design for change work, which focuses on helping organizations and leaders realize their creative potential. In over a decade at IDEO, she played several roles leading different areas of the business, including those where design is bringing value to new and emerging markets. Her client portfolio includes the North Face, Gaiam, Citibank, Chase, and T-Mobile. She previously led a one-year initiative focused on bringing design and innovation to the aging space resulting in a project with the Scan Foundation.

Melanie is a Harvard College and Harvard Business School alumna, on the Board of Directors of The Steve Fund, and on the Board of Regents at Samuel Merritt University where she is focused on helping the institution meet its goal of advancing the future of patient care.

Amy helped clients and design teams approach innovation from a holistic, go-to-market perspective, using business design to bring new ventures successfully to market. An avid supporter of digital fluency in the world of business, Amy is a mentor to startups in the tech and wellness worlds, and has previously advised at accelerators in Singapore and Brazil. Amy earned an MBA from IMD in Switzerland and holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of New Hampshire. In business and in life, Amy believes that we learn from failure. Outside of the office, she's recently been applying this principle with regularity in the ocean, as she attempts to master the art of surfing.

Brendan Boyle believes that play is the key to innovation. This philosophy guides his work as a toy inventor, consulting associate professor at Stanford University’s d.School, and Partner at IDEO. He founded the Toy Lab to explore kid-centered solutions to the challenge of boredom. Under his leadership, the Toy Lab has invented and licensed hundreds of toys and archetypes, including the best-selling app Elmo Calls with Sesame Street.

Brendan also consulted with companies about redesigning their organizational behavior to include space for play, wrote the course From Play to Innovation offered at Stanford’s d.School, and co-authored the award-winning encyclopedia of never-before-seen inventions, The Klutz Book of Inventions. Brendan holds an M.S. in the Joint Program for Design from Stanford University, as well as a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University. A much requested speaker, Brendan is known for his interactive talks that stress the joy of innovation.

Joe leads work centered on helping companies organize to build their future—creating the cultures, communities, structures, and systems they need to succeed. That means Joe is often tangled up in building new innovation labs, rethinking product development, and scaling new capabilities. Joe has also helped several dozen companies become purpose driven—not just creating purpose statements, but bringing purpose to life at every level of the company.

Prior to IDEO, Joe taught courses in Marketing and Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he also earned his MBA. Before that, he edited textbooks for the SAT, moonlighted as an interaction designer, and sold art in several New York galleries.

Deirdre was an Executive Design Director and co-lead of the Systems & Strategy practice at IDEO. As a former architectural designer with a background in business and psychology, she has a knack for breaking down complex systems and finding simple levers to drive lasting change. Passionate about the power of systems design to create a more equitable future, much of her work at IDEO had focused on designing education systems—from reimagining student services at a community college in Ohio to creating programs to deliver quality, affordable education at scale in Peru.

Deirdre holds a B.A. in Cognitive Science from Yale University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. In her spare time, she can usually be found outside with her dog or off on an adventure. She's ridden her bicycle across the U.S. twice and hiked the 211-mile John Muir Trail.

Heather led IDEO's Global Learning & Development Team and the strategy, design, and implementation of a promise—to ensure IDEO is an organization that offers everyone, regardless of role or level, the opportunity to become a world-changing creative leader. She believed that there is a present, emerging, or future leader inside every one of us. She made it her mission to ensure everyone finds their authentic expression, expanding the definition of what goods looks like, and inspiring the world to grow a little more every day.

Heather has an MFA from The New School and a bachelor’s degree in English from Barnard College. She led the creation of IDEO’s first global leadership development programs—beacon events that target moments of career transition. What catapults her out of bed every morning is the chance to help others to find their strengths, seize agency, see opportunities that were previously unimagined, and make a plan to achieve it.

As a former intelligence officer in the United States Marine Corps, Dwayne empowers organizations to navigate complexity and engage with people in real and lasting ways that support business and society. This can look like new products, services, or capabilities designed for human needs. Before joining IDEO, he worked as a product manager at Volvo Cars of North America where he helped develop Volvo’s subscription model and built stronger relationships between retailers and customers.

Dwayne received his MBA from the Yale School of Management, a master’s degree in Criminal Law and Procedure from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Law from Binghamton University.

Alex is a designer, theater artist, and journalist. Throughout his career, Alex has been figuring out the things audiences need and how best to bring them to life. He’s presented stories on theater stages in London and New York, in broadcast journalism for the BBC, and across the world with IDEO.

Alex currently leads the New York wing of IDEO’s Design for Food studio. He’s worked with major clients in hospitality, media, government, financial services, and beyond. He’s also taught design thinking, storytelling, and research at New York University, The School of Visual Arts, and The New School. A former correspondent for US public radio and the BBC World Service, he’s a past Fellow at the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins. Alex studied philosophy at Oxford University and trained in classical acting at LAMDA. He’s performed Shakespeare in Tokyo and written music for plays in London’s West End. In New York, Alex performs improv, plays drums for the city's only improvised rock'n'roll storytelling band, and hosts as many dinner parties as possible.

As a leader in SYPartners' consulting practice, Sara worked with clients to set bold visions and strategies and achieve their potentials. Her clients included Swisscom, American Express, Planned Parenthood, Huawei, Girl Effect, and Kohl's. As Managing Strategy Director in New York, Sara focused her coaching and mentorship skills to deepen SYPartners' bench of strategy leadership. In 2015, Sara began developing a new SYPartners product, Leadfully, which helps emerging leaders everywhere be their best selves. Sara holds a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from ESADE Business School.

Ann is a design researcher with roots in anthropology and journalism. Her portfolio spans the design of HIV prevention products, digital tools to help kids build emotional strength, and the re-design of the US digital immigration experience. Prior to IDEO, she worked for over a decade as a filmmaker and journalist; her latest documentary, “Lovesick,” is about matchmaking for HIV+ singles in India. Filmmaking taught her how to visually tell stories as well as how to find, edit, and shape them. At IDEO, she does the same thing, taking the raw materials—interviews, data, observations—and crafting them into stories that inspire.

From 2016 to 2017, she served as the Chief Design Officer for U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Ann holds a joint degree in Anthropology and the Study of Religion from Harvard College. She’s a board member of Noora Health and the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship, and a past fellow of the Sundance Institute. Ann is an avid traveler, with the Okavango Delta and Tibet among her favorite spots, and an obsessive photographer.

Jenn’s career as a storyteller began at age seven when she penned (well, actually, penciled) her first novel—a 75-page, double-spaced, spiral notebook tour de force entitled “Shark!”

Since then, she’s worked as an agency Account Planner, Copywriter and Associate Creative Director. She’s helped tell the stories of clients like HP, Oregon Chai, Microsoft, Red Envelope, and Snapple. Her writing has been recognized by The One Show, Clios, and others.

Jenn holds a B.A. in Women’s Studies from Smith College. She led brand strategy and storytelling work with an equally diverse group of IDEO clients, including Marriott, Mattel, ConAgra, and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

Roger Martin is a trusted strategy advisor who’s worked with CEOs of companies worldwide, including Procter & Gamble, Lego, and Ford Motor Company. In 2017, he was named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business gurus.

He has published 11 books, including Creating Great Choices co-authored by Jennifer Riel, The Design of Business, and Playing to Win with A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble.

Roger is Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Rotman School of Management. A Canadian from Wallenstein, Ontario, he received his AB from Harvard College and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

With a focus on interaction design, Chris provided guidance to a community of visual, systems, and user experience designers, as well as software developers at IDEO. He played an active role in shaping IDEO's portfolio of digital work and pushed the craft of interaction design both inside and outside the company in industries such as consumer web, mobile, e-commerce, digital health, and social media. He has elevated design thinking for major tech corporations and government agencies, and has helped to launch successful, design-centric tech startups in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Chris has been awarded a number of patents in the U.S. and Japan for mobile interface and interaction design. His work has been recognized by The Webby Awards, IDEA Awards, IXDA Interaction Awards, WIRED, Fast Company, Metropolis Magazine and major online tech blogs. Chris holds a B.A. in Graphic Design and Art History from the University of Florida. As a faculty member in the undergraduate program in interaction design at the California College of the Arts, Chris is constantly reinforcing his philosophy of unobtrusive technology.

As a leader in the Business Design discipline at IDEO, Kerry developed new and sustainable ways to monetize innovations. Her training in linguistics and anthropology gives her a unique understanding of people and the cultural context in which they live. Passionate about designing for women, Kerry co-founded Materna Medical, a medical device startup focused on maternal health. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology, with Honors, from Boston University and an MBA from Stanford University. She completed a fellowship at the d.school at Stanford, and continues to be involved there through lecturing, coaching and mentoring students.

Mike founded and oversaw IDEO in Japan and greater Asia, leading key client relationships, guiding projects, and mentoring design teams. He was a visiting lecturer at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID), Tokyo University, Keio University, and Kyushu University and previously worked as an adjunct professor at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, teaching public policy, urban planning, and nonprofit management students how to use design thinking to solve complex problems.

Prior to joining IDEO, Mike worked as a senior lab informatics analyst at Johnson & Johnson. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in cognitive science and an emphasis in neuroscience. In his spare time, he plays tennis competitively (his high-school court is named after him!) and is an amateur hip-hop dancer who finds solace in reality TV and celebrity gossip.

More than a decade ago, Ilya noticed an emerging pattern about IDEO's clients. While many were still looking for innovative product, service, and experience designs, more and more were coming to IDEO looking for something intangible but essential: to build creative cultures from within their organizations. In response to this need, Ilya launched Organizational Design, a discrete group within IDEO dedicated to helping leaders drive lasting change in their organizations.

Ilya's work includes helping Kaiser Permanente and Mayo Clinic build the capability for continuous innovation; working with the Gannett Corporation create new products and services that redefine media corporation offerings; and building a joint design studio in Lima, Peru with Intercorp (one of the largest conglomerates in the country) to design world-class services for the rapidly growing middle class.

He holds a Bachelor's of Science in product design from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he is now a member of the Board of Advisors.

As Former COO of IDEO, Iain helped the company navigate organizational complexity and worked to give designers the creative agency to make a positive impact in the world. He applied this mindset to IDEO’s increasingly divergent business models.

Throughout his tenure at IDEO, Iain has led multiple design practices and stewarded some of IDEO’s largest relationships with Fortune 100 companies. Over the course of a 15-year partnership with Ford Motor Company, Iain has helped Ford tackle game-changing questions, from the role of smartphones in vehicles, to the role of vehicles in the sharing economy, to the role that Ford can play in a mobility revolution.

Jennifer has led strategy processes at large public and private sector organizations around the world. She also serves as a strategy and innovation advisor to senior leaders at several Fortune 100 companies. She is an adjunct professor at the Rotman School of Management, where she teaches strategy, innovation, and integrative thinking.

She co-authored Creating Great Choices with Roger L. Martin. She has published articles in Harvard Business Review, the Globe and Mail, Businessweek, and Strategy Magazine. Jennifer received her MBA from the Rotman School of Management. Her undergraduate degree is in English Literature and History, from Queen’s University.

David has been a practitioner of entrepreneurship, design, and innovation for over 20 years. He is a Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management, where he teaches courses on new venture creation, design thinking, healthcare innovation and creativity. He is also the Faculty Director of Kellogg's Zell Fellows Program, a venture accelerator program designed to help student entrepreneurs successfully launch or acquire new businesses. David has previously been honored on Crain's Chicago Business’ 40 Under 40 list.

David currently serves as an Operating Partner at 7Wire Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture capital firm and a Venture Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, a consumer and enterprise-focused fund. He is an advisor at IDEO-affiliated venture capital fund Design for Ventures (D4V) and co-founded MATTER, a healthcare technology incubator. His articles on corporate entrepreneurship, innovation, and business design have been published in Forbes, Fortune, Inc., and Harvard Business Review. David earned an MBA from Northwestern University and a B.A. in International Relations from Boston University.

Trained as an architect, Katie understood that a systems approach to problem solving can be applied to complex problems and situations. Her work at IDEO included innovating with clients across the retail, hospitality, automotive, civic, and financial service spaces. She was passionate about the future of work and supported organizations on their transformation journey by creating jobs that are fulfilling, rewarding, and sustainable.

Katie received a master’s degree in Architecture from Harvard University and a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the University of Florida.

Jane founded IDEO’s practice of human-centered insights, pioneering approaches that spread throughout organizations across the globe. To increase access to this approach, Jane published IDEO’s Method Cards and Thoughtless Acts? Observations on Intuitive Design, a collection of snapshots that depict the subtle and creative ways in which people interact with the world.

As a popular public speaker, she regularly addresses design and business audiences, and lectures at Stanford, Harvard and other universities internationally. Jane holds a B.A. (Hons) in Psychology at the University of Manchester and an M.Sc. in Architecture at the University of Strathclyde.

Bryan leads the Design for Change studio, helping leaders transform their organizations’ cultures and businesses in pursuit of innovation, adaptability, and impact.

Bryan is curious about the future of work and how design can affect and support change within complex human systems. Together with his clients, he’s exploring what corporate leaders can learn from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists; how technology, a new generation of employees, and a shifting marketplace is redefining the workplace experience; and how leaders can drive change by movement as opposed to mandates.

Bryan earned a master’s degree in social anthropology from Oxford University and a bachelor’s degree in design and environmental analysis from Cornell. Outside the office, he can be found chasing the perfect wave.

For the past two decades, Keith has led SYPartners, working with leaders at companies including Apple, eBay, IBM, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Facebook, Nike, OWN, and Starbucks to bring unique, human-centered approaches to business and social challenges. From 2009 to 2011, Keith served as The Charles and Ray Eames Brand Fellow at IBM, working to build a culture of design across the organization. He is also an author and essayist on leadership and design, with articles in the Harvard Business Review and several journals. Keith has lectured at the Yale School of Management, Stanford Business School, and the Jack F. Welch Leadership Center, and was an on-air commentator with Maria Bartiromo on the Business of Innovation. Keith holds an MA in organizational behavior and a BA in quantitative economics from Stanford University.

Bo works at the intersection of data science and human-centered design, and is passionate about using data as a resource to improve the way we work, play, and think. She co-leads IDEO’s data science practice.

Prior to IDEO, she was a partner and data scientist at Datascope, a cutting-edge data science consultancy based in Chicago. Bo led a series of engagements with deep technical expertise, including partnering with P&G to systematically surface subject matter experts and collaboration opportunities, and with Steelcase to prototype the next wave of smart workplace and employee engagement tools. Bo holds an MS in Statistics and a BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and was named one of Crain's 2019 Tech 50.

Andrea co-led IDEO’s data science practice, with a particular focus on research and insights. Whether improving financial wellbeing or designing citizen-centric technology, the heart of Andrea’s work has always been about helping people use data and data systems to make better decisions.

Prior to IDEO, Andrea worked as a Senior Behavioral Researcher at Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight. She managed applied field projects seeking to increase financial well-being for low-to moderate-income Americans. Andrea has a MA in Sociology from UCLA and a degree in Sociology and History from Rice University.

Michelle Lee is a Partner and Managing Director at IDEO, where she has applied her passion for play to leading interdisciplinary teams of designers and researchers in bringing engaging, interactive, and playful experiences to market. She believes in leveraging the principles of play to connect with people on a deeper emotional level that captivates, delights, and empowers.

Through her work, she has helped clients enhance workplace culture, championed responsible digital design, inspired underrepresented students to pursue careers in STEM, and supported organizations as they adopted practices in line with a circular economy. Michelle has shared her passion for play at SXSW, The Delight Conference, The Culture Summit, Circularity 23 and through numerous podcasts and articles.

Kate Schnippering is an Executive Design Director at IDEO, with a focus on creative technology. Kate brings ‘build to learn' experimentation to make real the futures we imagine. She creates conditions for teams and partners to immerse in imagination as a collective act—uplifting dreams and rigor in equal measure. In nearly a decade at IDEO, Kate’s developed teams, leaders, and organizations.

Her work investigates pathways to positive, systemic change for people and nature—by harnessing expressive technologies to make science & data relatable, and grow the power of everyday people. She’s built a real-world ‘magic school bus’ that teaches rover engineering to middle schoolers on Mars, designed a product for patients to partner directly with medical researchers in the study of rare diseases, and guided a youth mental health platform from proof of concept to delivery.