Craig is a specialist in Integrative Thinking and Innovation Management with experience in applying, facilitating, and teaching how to leverage Integrative Thinking as a deliberate and repeatable process to drive the development of new and unique insights and solutions. He specializes in translating the intersections of business objectives and capabilities, user needs and emotional drivers, social and market trends, technology trends, political trends and regulatory mandates into viable product and service offerings.
Craig has both agency and corporate experience in Human Centered Design, Human Factors, marketing, brand development and management, product portfolio management and the development and commercialization of products and services for the following industries: Automotive, Construction, Consumer Products and Services, Financial, Industrial, Medical and Pharmaceutical.
Since 2003, Craig has also taught courses on design and innovation, at Northwestern University and more recently at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The courses he developed/re-designed and taught in Industrial Design and Human Centered Design have become capstone courses at Northwestern’s Segal Design Institute.
Craig has a BFA in Communication Arts from East Carolina University and a Masters Degree in Industrial Design from North Carolina State University.
Craig Stehle, Co-founder
Stacy Benjamin has 20 years of experience specializing in innovation strategies, ideation, and user-centered engineering design. She worked for nine years at IDEO, in the Boston and Chicago offices, where she led projects and innovation workshops across a broad range of industries including medical, business, industrial, and consumer products.
Stacy currently directs the Segal Design Certificate program at Northwestern University and she is a member of the Executive Committee for the Segal Education Council. Stacy is the lead instructor of the Interdisciplinary Design Projects sequence where students work on real projects with real clients in a learn-by-doing format in an atmosphere similar to a small design firm. In addition to design methods, the teaching team also provides contextual training in professional communication and in effective team dynamic strategies and tools.
Stacy’s consulting work is primarily focused on innovation strategy. She works with clients to identify new opportunities and to develop roadmaps and implementation plans to achieve them. She also works alongside client teams to build their capabilities and she designs and facilitates ideation workshops. In addition to working in the US, she spent a few months in Seoul, South Korea, where she taught best practices in project management and innovation techniques by co-managing a multi-cultural design team in the innovation group of a large telecom company. She analyzed the design practices of that innovation group and created a handbook documenting both their current practices and recommended refinements.
Stacy Benjamin, Co-founder