About

Hilary Hoeber, a Portfolio Lead at IDEO, drives our work in the public sector. Based in the Palo Alto office, she collaborates closely with internal and client teams to develop innovative products, services, and learning experiences built around design thinking.

Hilary specializes in projects that require overcoming systemic challenges to meet constituent needs and to effect sustainable change in the world. For example, she worked with Gannett’s Design and Innovation Group to apply design thinking to a large, media organization and launch the hyper-local website The Bold Italic. She has also led IDEO teams in projects with Clark Realty Capital, Disney, Kraft, Nike, the Partnership for Public Service, the Singapore Ministry of Manpower, and the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Personnel Management, and Social Security Administration.

Prior to IDEO, Hilary served as a business strategist at Scient, a digital-services consulting firm, in San Francisco and London and a systems-integration consultant at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in New York and France.

Hilary holds an MBA from the University of California Davis Graduate School of Management, with a concentration in organizational behavior, and a bachelor’s degree in international politics from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. During her business school internship in 2003, she performed junior officer duties for the US State Department at the embassy in Lilongwe, Malawi. Hilary has traveled, worked, and studied in more than 40 countries, making sure to note the varied cultural sensibilities and delicacies along the way. These days, however, you are most likely to spot her flying between SFO and IAD.

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