Creativity

Jennifer Aaker is the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. As a social psychologist, Professor Aaker studies time, money, happiness, and brands. Her interests span a wide range of research, from the psychology of giving to the role of time, money and social media in getting people to do the right thing. She and her co-authors examine what actually makes people happy, as opposed to what they think makes them happy. Professor Aaker publishes widely in the leading scholarly journals in psychology and business, and she has served in an editorial capacity for the Journal of Consumer Psychology, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of Consumer Research. Her work has been featured in a variety of media, including The Economist, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Business Week, Forbes, CBS Moneywatch, NPR, Science, Inc and Cosmopolitan. Professor Aaker teaches in many of Stanford?s Executive Education programs as well as MBA electives on social technology, brand innovation, and designing happiness. Most recently, her research and teaching have focused on social media. She's also authored The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Make a Difference. Aaker has received numerous teaching awards at both Stanford University and UCLA, including the Distinguished Teaching Award, the Citibank Best Teacher Award, and the George Robbins Best Teacher award. She is on the board of directors for Volunteer Match, Board of Re-Imagining Service, and she orchestrates the Stanford GSB conference, "Small Steps, Big Leaps: The Science of Getting People to Do the Right Thing." Jennifer earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from University of California at Berkeley and her PhD degrees in Marketing (major) and Psychology (minor) from Stanford University in 1995. She joined Anderson School of Business at UCLA as Assistant Professor and returned to Stanford in 1999, where she received tenure in 2001, Full Professor in 2004, and Chaired Professorship in 2005. She was the Xerox Distinguished Professor of Knowledge at Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley (2006-2008) and returned to Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2008.

David M. Kelley is a California-based entrepreneur, educator, engineer, and venture capitalist. He was featured by Fortune magazine as one of the "People to Watch" and was selected for the "I.D. 40" list of America's leading design innovators. In that listing he was described as "the most sought-after design engineer this side of Thomas Edison." He is the founder and CEO of IDEO Product Development, America's largest independent product design and development firm. In addition to his work at IDEO Product Development, Kelley is a tenured professor at Stanford University in the school's innovative Product Design program. As a faculty member, Professor Kelley is interested in new product development methodology from inception to production with an emphasis on user-centered design. He encourages broad understanding of product design methodologies, exposing his students to a variety of viewpoints in classroom discussions and project work. Professor Kelley's primary involvement is in the product design program, a joint program with the art department which emphasizes the blending of innovation, human values, and aesthetic concerns into a single curriculum. He also teaches in the Human Computer Interface program, which is a joint program with computer science.

Bob Sutton is a professor of management science and engineering and an affiliated-faculty member of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP). Sutton has been teaching classes on the psychology of business and management at Stanford since 1983. He studies innovation, leadership, the links between managerial knowledge and organization action, and workplace dynamics. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on these topics in peer-reviewed journals and the popular press, and he is the author of several bestselling books, including "Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best ... and Learn from the Worst," and "Scaling-Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less." His new book is "The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt."  

Tina Seelig is a Professor of the Practice in the Dept of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford School of Engineering, and Executive Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. She is also a faculty director emeritus of STVP - the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center. She teaches courses on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and has won numerous awards for her thought leadership. She has been honored with the SV Forum Visionary Award and the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, recognizing her as a national leader in engineering education. She has written 17 books and educational games, her latest titled “Creativity Rules: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World.”