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Roberto Verganti

Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano

Roberto Verganti is Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, where he directs the Leadin'Lab, the laboratory for LEADership, Design and Innovation. He has been a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School twice, at the Copenhagen Business School and at the California Polytechnic University. At Politecnico di Milano he has been the founder and first director of the School of Doctoral Programs (with more than 800 PhD students) and of the Alta Scuola Politecnica (the school on Multidisciplinary Innovation for top 2% master students). Roberto serves on the European Design Leadership Board of the European Commission, where he is also in the High Level Advisory Group of Carlos Moedas, the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation.

Roberto’s research focuses on how leaders and organizations create meaningful innovations. He explores how to nurture radically new visions, and make those visions come real.  His studies lie at the intersection between leadership, design and technology management. In his research Roberto combines methodologies of in-depth analysis of cases with experimentations with pioneering firms, in a variety of industries and contexts.

Roberto is the author of "Overcrowded. Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas", published in 2017 by MIT Press, and Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean” published by Harvard Business Press in 2009. “Design-Driven Innovation” has been selected by BusinessWeek as one of the Best Design an Innovation Books of 2009, and by the Academy of Management for the George R. Terry Book Award as one of the best 6 management books published in 2008 and 2009. It has been translated in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Iranian, Russian and Portuguese.

Roberto has issued more than 150 articles, including “Developing Products on Internet Time” published on Management Science, and “Innovating Through Design”, “Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You”, “Designing Breakthrough Products”, and "The Innovative Power of Criticism" all published on the Harvard Business Review. He has been featured on The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, BusinessWeek and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review online magazine.

Roberto, together with his team of likeminded researchers-consultants, has served as an advisor to executives and senior managers at a wide variety of manufacturing and service firms including Ferrari, Ducati, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Gucci, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Zappos, Microsoft, IBM, Vodafone, Whirlpool, Nestlè, L’Oréal, ABB, Bausch&Lomb, Prysmian, Tetrapak, ARUP, SKY NewsCorp., Deloitte. He has also helped national and regional governments around the world to conceive design and innovation policies.