Consulting Assistant Professor, Stanford d.school

Brendan Boyle is a Partner and co-Chief Creative Officer at IDEO, a leading design and innovation firm ranked independently as one of the most innovative companies in the world. Brendan’s role also has a special emphasis on Entrepreneurship, both inside and outside of the company. His focus is on creating intellectual property that IDEO develops, along with promoting entrepreneurial thinking and practices throughout IDEO’s eight global offices. He is also one of IDEO’s spokesmen: he is a highly requested public speaker, and has published articles on brainstorming and innovation in the workplace on ABCnews.com.

A passion for invention drives Brendan’s additional responsibilities at IDEO; he co-founded an invention company called Skyline, which was acquired by IDEO. Under his leadership, IDEO has since licensed over 125 toy, game and consumer product concepts with leading manufacturers. In 2007, Cranium’s "Sounds By the Seashore", designed by IDEO, was nominated for a Toy of the Year Award by the Toy Industry Foundation.

In addition to his duties at IDEO, Brendan sits on the board of the non-profit National Institute for Play, where he focuses on bringing play-based techniques to innovation. He has also taught various classes in creativity and design at Stanford University as a Consulting Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Design Divsion. Currently, he teaches a class that he created in Stanford's new d.School, called From Play to Innovation.

Brendan holds an MS in the Joint Program for Design from Stanford University, as well as a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State. He worked for Goodyear upon graduation, where he developed a passion for fast cars. Brendan lives in Palo Alto with his wife and son and is a poor to average golfer, but prides himself on his ability to play quickly.