Professor, The Josefsson Family Chair in Art and Innovation, Stockholm School of Economics 

Visiting Lecturer, Harvard Business School

Author, Harvard Business Press and MIT Press

Ambassador, European Innovation Council, European Commission

(Photo courtesy by Carla Sedini)

Roberto Verganti is at the House of Innovation of the Stockholm School of Economics, where he holds the Josefsson Family Chair in Art and Innovation and directs the Center for Art and Innovation. He is also a Visiting Lecturer at the Harvard Business School where he teaches Design Theory and Practice. Roberto is an Ambassador of the European Innovation Council of the European Commission  and holds an Honorary Doctorate in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Vaasa.

Roberto’s research focuses on the creation of meaning: how to create things that people “love” and that are “meaningful” for businesses and society? He explores how leaders and organizations generate radically new visions, and make those visions come real. His most recent studies focus the interplay between art and innovation: How can art help leaders develop a deeper understanding of what meaningfulness is in a changing world?

His research Roberto therefore lies at the intersection between leadership and innovation, technology and art. He combines methodologies of in-depth analysis of cases with experimentations with pioneering firms, in a variety of industries and contexts. He is currently exploring in depth how technological transitions are changing the creative processes and industry of music.

Roberto is the author of "Overcrowded. Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas", published in 2017 by MIT Press, and of “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, Persian, Russian and Portuguese. His research on management of design and design clusters has been awarded the Compasso d'Oro (the most prestigious design award in Italy).

Roberto has issued more than 150 articles, on scientific journals, including Management Science, Research Policy, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management (from which he received the 2020 Albert Page Best Paper Award to the article “Innovation and Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” and where he acts today as an Associate Editor).

He has also extensively published on the Harvard Business Review, including the articles “Innovating Through Design”, “Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You”, “Designing Breakthrough Products”, and "The Innovative Power of Criticism" all printed on HBR. He has been featured on The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, BusinessWeek and Forbes.

At Politecnico di Milano he has been the co-founder of Leadin'Lab, the laboratory for LEADership, Design and Innovation, at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano. Previously is has been the founder and first director of the School of Doctoral Programs of Politecnico (with more than 800 PhD students) and of the Alta Scuola Politecnica (the school on Multidisciplinary Innovation for top 2% master students).

He has been a visiting scholar at the Copenhagen Business School and at the California Polytechnic University.

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, Johnson & Johnson, Zappos, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, 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.