1991 ; 25 years ago 1991 founder david kelley ; 2 bill moggridge mike nuttall key people tim brown ceo tom kelley david kelley bill moggridge mike nuttall dave strong cfo coo number of employees 600 2015 website www.ideo.com ideo pronounced eye dee oh is an international design and consulting firm originally founded in palo alto california in 1991 . 3 the company has locations in cambridge massachusetts chicago london munich new york city palo alto san francisco shanghai and tokyo . 4 the company uses the design thinking methodology to design products services environments and digital experiences . 3 5 additionally the company has become increasingly involved in management consulting and organizational design . 6 the firm employs over 600 people in a number of disciplines including behavioral science branding business design communication design design research digital design education electrical engineering environments design food science healthcare services industrial design interaction design mechanical engineering organizational design and software engineering . 7 ideo has worked on projects in the consumer food and beverage retail computer medical educational furniture toy office and automotive industries . some examples include apple s first mouse the palm v pda and steelcase s leap chair . clients include air new zealand coca cola conagra foods eli lilly ford medtronic sealy and steelcase among many others . 7 contents 1 history 2 organizational culture 3 notes 4 references 5 external links history edit ideo was formed in 1991 by a merger of david kelley design founded by stanford university professor david kelley london based moggridge associates and san francisco s id two both founded by british born bill moggridge and matrix product design founded by mike nuttall . 8 office furniture maker steelcase owned a majority stake in the firm 6 but began divesting its shares through a five year management buy back program in 2007 . 9 the founders of the predecessor companies are still involved in the firm . the current ceo is tim brown . bill moggridge died on september 8 2012 . while the company started with a focus on designing consumer products e.g. toothbrush personal assistant computers by 2001 ideo began to increase focus on consumer experiences e.g. non traditional classrooms . kelley applied the term design thinking to business in order to encompass the approach to work of ideo across industries and challenges . 10 in 2011 ideo incubated ideo.org a registered 501 c 3 nonprofit dedicated to applying human centered design to alleviate poverty . organizational culture edit ideo s organizational culture consists of project teams flat hierarchy individual autonomy creativity socialization of recruits and engineer buy in . 11 notes edit dobbin frank . high commitment practices . harvard university . october 10 2012 . lecture . thomke stefan and ashok nimgade . ideo product development . 9 600 143 . boston . harvard business publishing kelley tom and jonathan littman . the art of innovation lessons in creativity from ideo america s leading design firm . new york currency doubleday 2001 . page 70 . recruiting q & a ideo business week . 10 january 2001 designed chaos an interview with david kelley founder and ceo of ideo . designed chaos . n.p. n.d. navigate . careers faq . n.p. n.d. stevents tim . creative genius . industry week . 4 july 1994 . skokie il references edit harris jessica 26 june 2014 . david kelley co founder of ideo . npr . retrieved 25 september 2014 . eng dinah 29 april 2013 bringing design to corporate america fortune paper format requires url help pp. 25 28 a b ideo llc . bloomberg businessweek . archived from the original on 2011 12 20 . retrieved 2011 11 12 . ideo contact page . ideo.com . retrieved 2011 11 12 . kelley david ; kelley tom 2013 . creative confidence . united states of america crown business . p. 21 . a b nussbaum bruce 2004 05 17 . the power of design . business week . retrieved 2006 12 19 . a b http www.ideo.com factsheet international directory of company histories . findarticles.com . retrieved 2011 11 12 . bauer julia 2007 09 20 . steelcase s ideo will be sold over next five years . grand rapids press . retrieved 2007 09 20 . brown tim ; wyatt jocelyn 19 november 2009 . design thinking for social innovation . stanford social innovation review winter 2010 . retrieved 29 september 2014 . dobbin frank october 10 2012 . high commitment practices . harvard university . pp . lecture . external links edit official website podcast interview with ideo founder david kelley from iinnovate retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title ideo & oldid 737039021 categories industrial design firmscompanies based in palo alto californiacompanies established in 1991design companies of the united states1991 establishments in californiahidden categories pages using citations with format and no url navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran ais portugu ssvenska edit links this page was last modified on 31 august 2016 at 11 16 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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