Consulting Associate Professor, Stanford d.school

Either Alex Kazaks is embarrassingly unaware of what is acceptable to say out loud, or he has not yet developed the jaded realism that makes the following sound trite: Alex wants to change the world.

That said, he believes that the question of how each of us can change the world and what changing the world means is up for debate. Maybe it is THE debate. Alex believes that a better experience at an ATM in San Francisco and better water in Soweto are both valid change-the-world pursuits. He also believes that the individuals, teams, and organizations who change the world share some common methods and capabilities. It is these foundations that Alex is seeking to learn, practice, and teach at the d.school.

Alex was born in Kingston, Ontario, and raised in La Crosse Wisconsin. He has Biology and Product Design degrees from Stanford, and an MBA from Harvard. He has held a dozen jobs from genetic engineer to toy inventor, but has done his best work as an innovator at IDEO, founder and COO of SparkCharge, and consultant at McKinsey, where he works with the strategy, innovation, and customer insights practices to help high tech and consumer companies innovate and grow.

Alex aspires to teach design thinking the way Julia Child taught French cooking – with passion, humor, and elbows deep in real work. He has taught design at Stanford since 1998.