About IDEO U
IDEO U is an online school that equips you with skills, mindsets, and tools to help you stay relevant and adaptive in our modern world.
We're part of IDEO, an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations innovate and grow. IDEO U was created to teach the methods we have practiced for decades and to help individuals, teams, and organizations across the globe become more resilient, creative, and innovative.
IDEO U builds on a long history of teaching at IDEO. IDEO Founder, David Kelley, is also the founder of the d.school at Stanford, where many IDEO practitioners bring their experience from the field into the classroom. At IDEO U, you’ll learn from these experienced practitioners and educators who apply these methods every day in their own work, and who have a passion for teaching at IDEO U as well as at universities including Stanford, Oxford, Northwestern, University of California at Berkeley, and TsingHua University.
IDEO U instructors are subject matter experts who’ve led thousands of projects across industries and around the globe in areas including business, technology, education, and design. They tap into their diverse experiences and their insights from applying these methods and mindsets in real-world projects to teach these concepts.
The IDEO U teaching team leverages applied industry knowledge and deep topic expertise to help learners practice and apply what they learn during our cohort courses. The teaching team includes a diverse group of practitioners from all over the world.
About IDEO
IDEO has practiced design thinking for over 40 years. Every day, hundreds of designers, builders, entrepreneurs, engineers, data and behavioral scientists, teachers, researchers, and other specialists come together at IDEO to use the methods and tools of design to solve challenges alongside some of the world’s most forward-thinking global companies.
In the beginning, we used design thinking to design products—the first mouse for Apple, the first laptop that folds, kitchen products, medical devices, and more. Over the years we’ve asked ourselves, what more can design do? And that question has fueled us and led us to places we never anticipated.
Today at IDEO we design products, services, brands, experiences, and systems. We help organizations build creative cultures, sustain innovation, and launch new ventures to fuel growth. Recently, we’ve tackled bigger challenges like launching a new school system in a developing country, making a more inclusive voting system, designing the first all-in-one, wearable breast pump, and launching a nationwide venture that redefines and simplifies how customers engage with their pharmacy.
IDEO U Leadership
Coe Leta Stafford
Managing Director at IDEO U & Partner at IDEO
A founding member of IDEO U, Coe Leta is a creative executive with more than 20 years of experience leading innovation teams in the design and launch of human-centered products, services, and systems. She has worked with leaders across a range of organizations, including Microsoft, Target, Intel, Wells Fargo, Ford, eBay, and Sesame Street. Coe’s superpower is stakeholder engagement and facilitation, which includes designing and leading collaborative co-design or strategic activities with diverse groups of people. She hosts IDEO U’s Creative Confidence Podcast, and her design work has won several international awards and patents for clients and has been featured in the New York Times and Wired. Coe has a Ph.D. in Education from U.C. Berkeley.
Coe Leta Stafford
Managing Director at IDEO U & Partner at IDEO
A founding member of IDEO U, Coe Leta is a creative executive with more than 20 years of experience leading innovation teams in the design and launch of human-centered products, services, and systems. She has worked with leaders across a range of organizations, including Microsoft, Target, Intel, Wells Fargo, Ford, eBay, and Sesame Street. Coe’s superpower is stakeholder engagement and facilitation, which includes designing and leading collaborative co-design or strategic activities with diverse groups of people. She hosts IDEO U’s Creative Confidence Podcast, and her design work has won several international awards and patents for clients and has been featured in the New York Times and Wired. Coe has a Ph.D. in Education from U.C. Berkeley.
Dawn Taketa Riordan
Managing Director at IDEO U & Partner at IDEO
Dawn guides marketing across product, digital, e-commerce, content, media relations, brand, and partnerships at IDEO U. She has deep roots in marketing and e-commerce, including growing Peet’s Coffee & Tea’s online business as general manager and pioneering Gap Inc.’s digital marketing and e-commerce presence. Working at the intersection of technology, business, and creative, she is exploring how human-centered design applies to marketing. Dawn earned a bachelor's degree in Political Economics from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the Haas School of Business.
Dawn Taketa Riordan
Managing Director at IDEO U & Partner at IDEO
Dawn guides marketing across product, digital, e-commerce, content, media relations, brand, and partnerships at IDEO U. She has deep roots in marketing and e-commerce, including growing Peet’s Coffee & Tea’s online business as general manager and pioneering Gap Inc.’s digital marketing and e-commerce presence. Working at the intersection of technology, business, and creative, she is exploring how human-centered design applies to marketing. Dawn earned a bachelor's degree in Political Economics from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the Haas School of Business.
Divya Balakrishnan
Managing Director at IDEO U & Partner at IDEO
Divya leads product, operations, customer service, and strategic planning at IDEO U. Having spent a lot of time inside both startups and large companies, she brings engineering, data, product, research, and marketing teams together to launch and scale new products and services. She enjoys combining top-down approaches for figuring out opportunities in the market with bottom-up approaches to identify unmet needs and create products that customers love. Divya is particularly passionate about companies in the early growth phase looking to deliver greater value to customers by solving iteratively harder problems and building mission-based teams.
Divya Balakrishnan
Managing Director at IDEO U & Partner at IDEO
Divya leads product, operations, customer service, and strategic planning at IDEO U. Having spent a lot of time inside both startups and large companies, she brings engineering, data, product, research, and marketing teams together to launch and scale new products and services. She enjoys combining top-down approaches for figuring out opportunities in the market with bottom-up approaches to identify unmet needs and create products that customers love. Divya is particularly passionate about companies in the early growth phase looking to deliver greater value to customers by solving iteratively harder problems and building mission-based teams.
