David Schonthal

David Schonthal electrifies audiences with actionable tips for how to be a change-maker in today’s rapidly evolving world.

He 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, venture capital, and creativity. Along with his colleague Loran Nordgren, Schonthal is a pioneer of Friction Theory—a ground-breaking methodology that explains why even the most promising innovations and change initiatives struggle to gain traction with their intended audiences—and more importantly, what to do about it.

This work is popularized in Schonthal’s Wall Street Journal and National Bestselling book, "The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas" (Wiley). Outside of Kellogg, Schonthal has been a practitioner of entrepreneurship, design, and innovation for over 20 years. He has spent a decade working at the world-renowned design firm, IDEO, and currently serves as an Operating Partner at 7Wire Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture capital firm, and a Venture Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, a consumer and enterprise-focused fund. Schonthal is also a Global Advisor at Design for Ventures (D4V), a Tokyo-based early-stage venture capital fund that invests in designed Japanese startups.

He is a contributing writer to Forbes, Inc., Fortune, and Harvard Business Review magazines, authoring articles on entrepreneurship, innovation, change, and business design. Schonthal was honored as a Distinguished Achievement Award Finalist and was named one of the "30 Global Thinkers to Watch in 2022" by 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 and has received the school’s Faculty Impact Award for excellence in teaching.

As much as Schonthal would like to think he’s one-of-a-kind, he’s actually a triplet.