Ivy Ross

Ivy Ross

Ivy Ross (1955) is an American business executive, jewelry designer,^[1] and, since July 2016,^[2] Vice President of hardware design at Google.^[3] She has worked at Google since May 2014; prior to being appointed VP of hardware design, she led the Google Glass team at Google X.^[4][5] Ivy Ross’s metal work in jewelry design is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.^[6] One of few recognized fine artists to successfully cross over into the business world, Ross is also a keynote speaker^[7] and a member of several boards, and has been hailed as a “creative visionary” by the art world.^[8]

Background & Education

Ivy Ross was born in Yonkers, New York and grew up in Riverdale. She credits her father, an industrial engineer who worked for the Raymond Loewy studio that created the Studebaker Hawk automobile, for influencing her choice of careers.^[9] Ross attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City, with a major in Fine Art and minor in Psychology. She later attended the Syracuse University School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City with a major in Jewelry Design. She went on to complete the Professional Management Development Program at Harvard Business School in 1994.

Career

Ivy Ross began her professional career as a designer. After college she launched a jewelry design business in 1978 called Small Wonders,.^[10] Until the mid-‘80s, Ross worked as a designer for Avon Products Inc.^[11] She oversaw product development for Swatch Watch and worked as an accessories designer for Liz Claiborne before moving on to direct design and product development for Outlook Eyewear (Bausch and Lomb), Coach, and Calvin Klein.

During Ross’s tenure at Mattel (1998 to 2004) as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Design & Brand Image for The Girls Division, she was charged with developing a new toy for the pre-teen girls segment. Ross conceived of an experiment in multi-disciplinary design dubbed “Project Platypus”,^[12][13][14] which resulted in Mattel’s highly successful Ello Creation System.

After leaving Mattel, Ross joined the Gap Inc. as Executive VP of Product Design & Development for Old Navy from 2004 to 2007. While there, Ross created an in-house blog called "Culture Feed" with insight culled from the Internet and curated by trend-hunter Jody Turner.^[15] She left to become Senior VP and Chief Creative Officer for the Disney Stores of America (owned by the Children’s Place),^[16] a position she held for one year before returning to the Gap in 2008. As Executive Vice President of Marketing for the Gap Inc. Ross was responsible for the launch of the 1969 denim line of jeans. In July 2011, Ross joined Art.com^[17] where she served as Chief Marketing Officer until her move to Google X in 2014.

Jewelry

Ivy Ross was one of the first jewelers to use titanium, tantalum, and niobium, metals that reveal a spectrum of colors when they are charged with electricity.^[18] By age 26, Ross had some of her jewelry designs included in the permanent collections of 10 museums, including the Smithsonian,^[19] the Victoria and Albert Museum^[20] in London, the Museum of Arts and Design,^[21] the Schmuckmuseum, in Pforzheim, Germany,^[22] the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City and the Montreal Visual Arts Center. Ross is a recognized American craft artist and has had her work exhibited globally.^[23] In 1984 Ross and then-husband Robert Ebendorf won a Formica design competition through the exploration of a new product called ColorCore™.^[24]

Articles

• Upstart Business Journal, May 2014 "How Mattel's 'Project Platypus' could open Google Glass to women"
• Google+ "Letter to Glass Explorers from Ivy Ross"^[25]
• Time Magazine "Here’s the World-Class Designer Google Just Hired to Save Glass"
• CNET News "Google taps fashion industry for new Glass chief"
• Fast Company "Google Hires Fashion Expert Ivy Ross To Head Glass"
• Engadget "Google puts Mattel and Disney designer Ivy Ross in charge of Glass"
• Tech Crunch "Marketing Exec Ivy Ross Is The New Head Of Google Glass"
• Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine Ivy Ross: The Feeder
• Businessweek Ivy Ross on Why Innovation Means Connection, Not Process
• Art Daily "Creative Visionary Ivy Ross Joins Art.Com as Chief Merchandising Officer"
• Fast Company "Ivy Ross is Not Playing Around"

Boards

• Board of directors for Casual Male Retail Group Inc.^[26]
• Board of directors for Institute for Play^[27]
• Design board for Procter & Gamble (2003 to 2013)

Honors & Awards

• Selected to be part of the Newhouse startup mentor program^[28]
• Wrote foreword for the book, "I Wish I Worked There! A look at the most creative spaces in business"
• Juror, Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition 2006 (p120)^[29]
• Business storyteller for BIF-2, a collaborative innovation summit sponsored by the Business Innovation Factory, Providence, Rhode Island^[30]
• One of nine executives chosen by Fast Company magazine for the “Who’s Fast 2003” issue^[31]
• Fashion Design Mentor, Otis College of Art & Design, 2008^[32]

Interviews

• TVents Creative Company Conference 2008, Amsterdam
• Ivy Ross at Business Innovation Factory “Enabling innovation”
• Ivy Ross: Does your organization have an innovation vibe?
• Ambidextrous, Stanford Design School Magazine 2006^[33]
• Project Platypus: Reinventing Product Development at Mattel, An Interview with Ivy Ross, AIGA March 6, 2003

References