Michael Ventura is an accomplished entrepreneur, author, and designer. In 2009, Michael founded Sub Rosa, a award-winning, strategy and design practice. Sub Rosa’s clients include a variety of Fortune 500 companies (GE, Google, Marriott, Nike), well-respected institutions such as the United Nations and the Obama Administration, as well as some of the world’s most progressive start-ups and founders (SoFi, Warby Parker, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative).

Michael has served as a board member and advisor to a variety of organizations including Behance (An Adobe Company), The Burning Man Project, The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Friends of +POOL, and the U.N. affiliated Tribal Link Foundation. A dynamic writer and presenter, Michael is frequently engaged as an advisor to entrepreneurs and leaders of some of the largest corporations across the globe. He is also a lecturer at The United States Military Academy at West Point and Princeton University where he teaches empathic design. Outside of this work, Michael and his wife Caroline have co-founded the New York-based retail experience Calliope, as well as its adjoining gallery And&And. In his personal time, Michael is an active practitioner of eastern and indigenous medicine, working in private practice and regularly leading workshops on how to bring these powerful traditions into a modern life and workplace. His first book, Applied Empathy, will be released by Simon & Schuster in May 2018.

• Location: New York, USA