About
Diego Rodriguez is a partner at IDEO and a founding professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (the d.school). He currently leads IDEO’s office in Palo Alto, where he works with colleagues and clients on venture design, organizational processes, and marketing.
Diego pioneered a new discipline called Business Design at IDEO, which has since become part of the firm’s core offering. At Stanford, Diego created a new paradigm for active learning with his class Creating Infectious Action, in which business, engineering, and social science students use design thinking to prototype “viral” offerings and services.
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. He serves on the boards of the d.school, Boulder Digital Works, and the Harvard Business School California Research Center.
Prior to joining IDEO, Diego was a R&D engineer at Hewlett-Packard and a marketer at Intuit. Diego earned bachelor’s degrees with honors in engineering and humanities from Stanford and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School.