DEV PATNAIK is a founder and principal of Jump Associates, a consulting firm that helps companies innovate. Together with his teammates, he works with visionary business leaders to identify new markets, reinvent existing categories, and define new products and services. Dev is a trusted advisor to senior executives at some of America’s most admired companies, including General Electric, Nike, Procter & Gamble, Target and Hewlett-Packard.
When he’s not working at Jump, Dev moonlights down the road at Stanford University as an adjunct professor, where he teaches design-research methods to undergraduate and graduate students. Since 1999, he has taught a course called Needfinding. In the class, students draw upon methods from anthropology, design and business planning to discover insights about ordinary people and create new products. While the class is required for all Design majors, it’s become a favorite of students from the Business School, School of Education and even Computer Science. As apples don’t fall far from the tree, Dev has a Bachelor’s degree in Product Design from Stanford.
Prior to founding Jump, Dev was the Director of Design at Forbes Marshall, a manufacturer of industrial process controls based in India. Dev led the development of Forbes Marshall’s internal design capabilities, creating programs in product design, exhibit design and corporate identity. Dev also led the company’s product strategy initiative, which eventually led him to work in the crossover space between design and business planning. After a stint with a strategy firm in Chicago, Dev returned to California to help found Jump in 1997.
A frequent speaker at marketing, design and innovation forums, Dev was recently featured as a guest on “The Business of Innovation,” a series on CNBC. His articles on innovation and strategy have appeared in several publications including BusinessWeek, Brandweek and the Design Management Review.
Contact Dev at dpatnaik@jumpassociates.com
PETE MORTENSEN is the communications lead for Jump Associates. Pete has a particular talent for articulating and expressing social, design and business questions in surprising forms. A journalist by training, he has written for and edited numerous monthly, weekly and daily publications, including Spin Magazine, nyou, the Holland Sentinel, the Windsor Times and Wired News. Pete has covered a wide variety of technology, design and cultural topics, including a wine country Rock Paper Scissors Tournament and Latino break dancers living in the cradle of the conservative Dutch Reformed Church. He is the lead blogger for Wired’s Cult of Mac, where his insight into design and broad knowledge of Silicon Valley lore coalesce into a few minutes a day of outrage, news and humor in the world of Apple Inc. Pete holds a dual bachelor’s degree in journalism and English literature from Northwestern University.
