Roberto Verganti is Professor of Leadership and Innovation at Politecnico di Milano, where he teaches in the School of Management and the School of Design, and where he directs MaDe In Lab, the laboratory on the MAnagement of DEsign and INnovation. He has been a visiting scholar at the Harvard Business School twice, and at the Copenhagen Business School. At Politecnico di Milano he has been the founder and first director of the School of Doctoral Programs (with more than 800 PhD students) and of the Alta Scuola Politecnica (the school on Multidisciplinary Innovation for top 2% master students). Roberto serves on the European Design Leadership Board of the European Commission. His research on management of design and design clusters has been awarded the Compasso d’Oro (the most prestigious design award in Italy).
Roberto’s research focuses on how leaders and organizations create innovations that people love. He explores how to generate radically new visions, and make those visions come real.  His studies lie at the intersection between strategy, design and technology management. In his research Roberto combines methodologies of in-depth analysis of cases with experimentations with pioneering firms, in a variety of industries and contexts.
Roberto is the author of
“Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean” published by Harvard Business Press in 2009. The book offers a new view and theory of strategy and innovation, explaining how companies like Apple, Alessi and Nintendo create innovations that users do not ask for but that are so distinct that make people passionate.