Alberto Savoia

As Google's first Director of Engineering, Alberto Savoia led the team that launched Google AdWords. Later, in his role as Google's Innovation Agitator, he developed pretotyping—a rigorous data-based system for validating new product ideas. Prior to Google, Savoia was a successful serial entrepreneur and the first Director of Software Technology Research at Sun Microsystems Laboratories, where he played a key role in the development of Java technology and tools.

Savoia's work has garnered significant industry recognition and awards, including The Wall Street Journal Technical Innovation Award, InfoWorld's Top 25 CTOs Award, and InfoWorld's Technology of the Year Award. He is also a recipient of several other honors such as the AlwaysOn Top Innovators Award (2004, 2005, and 2006). Today, he is highly sought-after as a speaker, teacher, and coach, renowned for his ability to help organizations unlock their full potential for innovation and growth. From his inaugural Entrepreneurial Innovation workshop at Stanford in 2011 to his current coaching of Fortune 500 companies, Savoia has made a deep and lasting impact on the product management and innovation practices of many leading companies worldwide. His latest book, "The Right It—Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed," was published by HarperCollins in 2019.

Additionally, Savoia continues to expand his influence through "Apex Innovators" seminars and workshops launched in 2016, designed for large, well-established companies to innovate while leveraging their size and resources. He has also authored "Pretotype It—Make sure you are building the right it before you build it right," further contributing to the field of innovation. Through his ongoing collaboration with Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, he remains at the forefront of teaching and developing new methodologies in pretotyping and high-yield innovation through experimentation.