Description:

Spring quarter's Kemper Foundation Lecture will feature Professor David Schonthal on the topic of "Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas."

How do you get people to say yes to a new idea or innovation? In this interactive session, David Schonthal highlights the Frictions that operate against new ideas and innovation; describes the unexpected reasons why the ideas and initiatives they are most passionate about get rejected; and explains how to transform those frictions into important, powerful catalysts for change.

David Schonthal is an award-winning Professor of Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management where he teaches courses on new venture creation, design thinking, healthcare innovation and creativity. In addition to his teaching, he also serves as the Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at Kellogg and is the Faculty Director of the Zell Fellows Program, a selective venture accelerator program designed to help student entrepreneurs successfully launch or acquire new businesses.

Along with his colleague Loran Nordgren, David is one of the originators of Friction Theory – a ground-breaking methodology that explains why even the most promising innovations and change initiatives often struggle to gain traction with their intended audiences – and what to do about it. This work is popularized in David’s bestselling book, The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas (Wiley).

Outside of Kellogg David has been practitioner in the world entrepreneurship, design, and innovation for over 20 years. He previously spent a decade working at world-renowned design firm, IDEO, and currently serves as an Operating Partner at 7Wire Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture capital firm. David is also a Global Advisor at Design for Ventures (D4V), a Tokyo-based early-stage venture capital fund that invests in design-led Japanese startups, and fromerly served as an Operaring Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, a consumer and enterprise-focused fund. David is the Co-Founder of MATTER, a 25,000-square-foot innovation center in Chicago focused on catalyzing and supporting healthcare entrepreneurship.

He is a contributing writer to Forbes, Inc., Fortune, Fast Company and Harvard Business Review magazines, authoring articles on strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, design and change. David has been honored on Crain's Chicago Business magazine's "40 Under 40" list (back when he was under 40) and was a Distinguished Achievement Award Finalist for Thinkers50, an international organization that identifies, ranks, and shares the leading management ideas of our age. He has won Kellogg’s Executive MBA Outstanding Professor award 7 times as well as a Faculty Impact Award for excellence in teaching.

David earned his MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his BA in International Relations from Boston University.

This is a free event.

Open to Northwestern University undergraduate students.

RSVP required.