Consulting Associate Professor, Stanford d.school
At the d.school, Diego uses design thinking to think big about the future of marketing, business strategy, and innovation. He believes that successful, innovative business ventures need not happen by chance – they can, and should be, designed for success.
Diego brings a wealth of real-world experience to classrooms at Stanford. With a career spent doing the messy work of bringing good stuff to market in both Fortune 100 companies and startups alike, he’s passionate about creating classroom experiences which are transformative in nature because they encourage students to design real solutions to real-world challenges. People in his classes don’t waste time and energy talking smart about abstract scenarios. Instead, they dive in and get their hands, marketing plans, and spreadsheets dirty. They learn about viral marketing by trying to spread Firefox, about meaning and brands by hanging around Ducati motorcycles, and about human psychology by trying to convince people to save some change instead of sipping that next latte.
Outside of the d.school, Diego is a member of the team at IDEO, a world leader in design and innovation. He leads IDEO’s strategic business initiatives, working with senior executives from industry and government to create organic growth via innovation. Diego is a veteran of IDEO. You may have seen a (younger) Diego advocating the idea of a “SUV shopping cart” on the celebrated Nightline Shopping Cart episode, which is used globally in management education to teach basic principles of human-centered, team-based design thinking and innovation.
Diego speaks and publishes frequently on the value of design thinking and innovation to audiences around the world. He is a columnist for BusinessWeek Online, and Fast Company calls his blog Metacool “…a must-read for anyone who wants to incorporate design thinking into their work.”
Prior to IDEO he held a variety of positions at HP, Nissan, and Intuit. He earned undergraduate engineering and humanities degrees with honors at Stanford, and a MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.
