Arnold Wasserman

Founding Partner

Collective Invention

Arnold Wasserman is Founding Partner and chairman of Collective Invention, an innovation consultancy based in San Francisco focused on “Innovation for the Common Good” to improve life in the public domain. He is also chairman of the Idea Factory, a consultancy based in Singapore and San Francisco, specializing in Innovation, Strategy, and Design. He has been named one of “20 Masters of Design” by Fast Company magazine. He has held the positions of Vice President of Corporate Industrial Design/Human Factors at NCR, Xerox, and Unisys Corporation. He has also been Dean of Pratt Institute’s School of Design; Senior Fellow for Design Strategy at IDEO, a product development consultancy; and Director of Design for the Raymond Loewy design office in Paris. Wasserman has been a pioneer in the practice of user-centered, interdisciplinary innovation strategy for the creation of products, services, new ventures and public policy programs and for workplace environments that foster organizational creativity and interdisciplinary innovation. Wasserman is a long time member of the Professional Advisory Board of Carnegie Mellon University. He teaches yearly seminars on “Management of Innovation” at the Graduate School of Business Management, Scuola S. Anna, University of Pisa, Italy. He lectures frequently at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas, Austin; and at the Haas Graduate School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, where he is an Adjunct Professor and a member of the Advisory Board for the Berkeley Institute of Design. Wasserman writes and lectures frequently on design, strategy, management and innovation. Most recently he was keynote speaker for The Conference Board in New York City; The National Association of Homebuilders in San Francisco and in Santa Barbara; INDEX:2005 and 2007 International Design Awards, Copenhagen; the Creative Industry Management Strategy International Forum in Taiwan; the Creative Industries Development Initiative and Design Education Initiative, both in Singapore; Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Conference in Winnipeg, Canada; the Business & Innovation Conference of the Norwegian Design Council, Oslo; and the New Enterprise Innovation Conference of the Singapore Design Council. He is a member of the International Advisory Panel of Singapore's Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts creating a strategy to make Singapore a world hub of innovation and design. He is a member of the jury and advisory board of Singapore Design Council’s annual “President’s Design Award.” He is on the advisory board for the International Council of Industrial Design’s 2009 Congress in Singapore where he initiated and is Principal Advisor for the Congress theme: DESIGN2050. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Design and is a member of the advisory board of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. He is a consultant to the World Business Council on Sustainable Development. Wasserman wrote the section on “Industrial Design” for the current edition of Collier’s Encyclopaedia. He has received numerous international awards for his designs of business equipment and consumer products. IDSA (Industrial Designers Society of America) has presented him with its Bronze Apple Award for organizing the first national conference on universal design. Carnegie Mellon University has presented him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award. Wasserman has served as chairman of the jury for Business Week’s Industrial Design Excellence Awards competition. Wasserman was chairman of INDEX:2005, a major international design competition, conference, and exhibition that awards “Nobel Prizes” for “Design To Improve Life” in Copenhagen. He is co-chairman of INDEX:2007 and 2009 and is a member of the International Board of Advisors for INDEX. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in industrial design from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Arts degree in design history and theory from the University of Chicago.