Research Advisory Council
Leading our efforts to share the best thinking on innovation is BIF’s Research Advisory Council. Comprised of business and academic thought leaders, the council shapes BIF research initiatives, activity in our Experience Labs, and helps guide our community’s conversations about innovation.
Mickey Ackerman
Mickey Ackerman is a professor and former head of the Industrial Design Department at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Robert Ballard
Robert Ballard is best known for his 1985 discovery of the Titanic. Ballard is director of the University of Rhode Island's Institute for Archaeological Oceanography.
Alph Bingham
Alph Bingham is a pioneer in the field of open innovation and advocate of collaborative approaches to research and development. He is co-founder and former CEO of InnoCentive, Inc..
John Seely Brown
John Seely Brown is a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Center at University of Southern California. Brown was the chief scientist of Xerox Corporation until April 2002 and also the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
Clay Christensen
BIF research advisor Clayton Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. His research and teaching interests center on managing innovation and creating new growth markets. His latest book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change The Way The World Learns has been named one of the "10 Best Innovation and Design Books in 2008" by BusinessWeek, and the best Human Capital book of the year in the Strategy + Business Best Books of 2008.
Richard Florida
Richard Florida is author of the national and international best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class. His ideas have been featured in major ad campaigns and such as BMW and are being used globally to change the way regions, nations, and companies compete.
Andrew Hargadon
Andrew Hargadon is an associate professor and director of Technology Management Programs at the UC-Davis Graduate School of Management.
Diane Hessan
Diane Hessan is president and chief executive officer of Communispace, where she helps global organizations build, manage and facilitate private, online communities.
Larry Huston
Larry Huston is founder of innovation consulting firm 4 INNO and a leading practitioner of connected innovation. He was the corporate vice president of innovation for Procter & Gamble responsible for P&G's global Connect + Develop™ business model.
Jean-Pierre Jeannet
Jean-Pierre Jeannet is the F. W. Olin Distinguished professor of global business and director of the Glavin Center, Babson College.
John Kao
John Kao is a leading authority on the subjects of innovation, organizational transformation and digital media, has been dubbed "Mr. Creativity" and a "serial innovator" by The Economist.
Larry Keeley
Larry Keeley is president and co-founder of Doblin, Inc., an innovation strategy firm known for pioneering comprehensive innovation systems that materially improve innovation success rates.
Roger Martin
Roger Martin, the visionary Dean of the Rotman School of Management, is a champion of innovation, cross-disciplinary study and learning-by-doing. One of the most respected business minds in the world today -- and a man changing the face of business education -- Martin is the leading proponent of Integrative Thinking, a bold new approach to solving the business problems emerging in the global economy.
Edward M. Mazze
Edward M. Mazze is the recently retired dean of the College of Business Administration at the University of Rhode Island.
Christopher Meyer
Christopher Meyer is the chief executive of Monitor Networks, a division of the Monitor Group.
Bruce Nussbaum
Bruce Nussbaum is a professor of innovation and design at The New School and a contributing editor for BusinessWeek, responsible for coverage of design and innovation. He is founder of the Innovation & Design online channel, founder and editor of IN: Inside Innovation, a quarterly innovation supplement, and blogger on NussbaumOnDesign. He is also an essayist and commentator on economic and social issues, and leads workshops on design and innovation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Jeneanne Rae
Jeneanne Rae is co-founder of Peer Insight and a nationally-recognized innovation management and design strategist.
Clay Shirky
Clay Shirky is a professor of New Media at New York University's graduate interactive telecommunications program, where his courses address how our networks shape culture.
Bill Taylor
Co-Author of Mavericks at Work, Bill Taylor is a provocative and inspiring voice on the future of business - an agenda-setting writer, speaker, and entrepreneur who has shaped the global conversation about the best ways to compete, innovate, and succeed. As a co-founder and founding editor of Fast Company, Taylor launched a magazine that won countless awards, and earned a passionate following among executives and entrepreneurs around the world.
Stefan Thomke
Stefan Thomke is an authority on the management of technology and product innovation and a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School.
Eric von Hippel
Eric von Hippel is a professor and head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Harry West
Harry West is vice president for strategy and innovation at Continuum, where he uses the study of human behavior to create better products.
John Wolpert
John Wolpert is best known for his work at IBM's Extreme Blue business & technology incubator. He is building Team upStart, which helps large companies develop top entrepreneurial talent.
Richard Saul Wurman
Richard Saul Wurman is an information architect with a singular passion for making information understandable. He founded the TED conferences, and has written 81 books, including 22 city guides and atlases. Presently, RSW is working on his latest book tentatively titled 33: Understanding Change by Changing Our Understanding. He says it’s a dynamic, multi-layered presentation of conundrums and opportunities we face in the modern world. Architecture, design, science, health care, technology, and connectedness are themes that weave throughout.
David Yaun
David Yaun is vice president, corporate communications of IBM, directing the company's worldwide communications programs related to innovation and technology leadership.
