Diego Rodriguez is a partner at IDEO, a founding professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (the d.school), and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School.

In his leadership role at IDEO Futures, Diego works across the firm to bring new ventures to market. Earlier in his career, Diego pioneered a new discipline called Business Design, which has since become a core part of IDEO’s offering.

Diego is committed to helping grow future innovators. At the Stanford d.school, Diego created a new paradigm for active learning with his class Creating Infectious Action, in which business, engineering, and social science students used design thinking to prototype viral offerings and services. As an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School – commuting periodically to Boston from California – he advises students on opportunities involving intra- and entrepreneurship, works with HBS professors on innovation-related issues, and collaborates with the Harvard innovation lab. He is also a Visiting Scientist at the MIT Media Lab.

In 2010, Fortune named Diego as one of “The Smartest People in Tech.” His influential blog metacool is an opinion leader in business, technology, and innovation. Fast Company called the site “a must-read for anyone who wants to incorporate design thinking into their work.” Diego has received many accolades over the course of his career, including a Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award, and he holds multiple patents.

Prior to joining IDEO, Diego did cutting-edge work as an R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard and as a marketer at Intuit. He earned bachelor’s degrees with honors in engineering and humanities from Stanford, and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.