David Schonthal

David Schonthal serves as an Operating Partner at 7wireVentures. He is also a Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where he teaches courses in new venture creation, design thinking and creativity. He also serves as the Executive Director of Kellogg’s Zell Fellows program — a selective venture accelerator program designed to help student-entrepreneurs successfully launch new businesses.

David is also a Senior Portfolio Director and Business Designer at IDEO, an award-winning innovation consultancy, where he helps companies design new business models and creative paths for products and services to get to market. David has also developed initiatives such as the IDEO’s Startup-in-Residence program as well as other offers and approaches around venture design and corporate entrepreneurship.

Previously David spent nearly a decade in the venture capital and startup world as a Partner at Fusion Ventures, and Director of Strategy and Venture Development for Tavistock Life Sciences – both based in San Diego, CA. He has also held numerous senior operating roles at startups in the technology and life sciences sectors.

David is a Co-Founder of MATTER, a 25,000 square foot innovation center in downtown Chicago focused on catalyzing and supporting healthcare entrepreneurship and serves as a member of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship council, ChicagoNext. He is a contributor to Forbes, Inc., Fortune and Entrepreneur Magazines, writing articles on corporate entrepreneurship, innovation and business design. David has received several honors for his work, which recently include a Kellogg Faculty Impact Award for excellence in teaching, as well as being named to Crain’s Chicago Business magazine’s “40 Under 40” list and the “Techweek 100”.

David earned his MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his B.A. in International Relations from Boston University.

If all else fails, David’s Plan B is to use his booming baritone to break into the lucrative voiceover world.