David Schonthal
Clinical Professor of Strategy
Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at Kellogg
Faculty Director of the Zell Fellows Program
Director of the Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice
David Schonthal is a Clinical Professor of Strategy, Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he teaches courses on new venture creation, innovation, and managing change. He also serves as Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at Kellogg and Faculty Director of the Zell Fellows Program, a selective venture accelerator that helps student entrepreneurs launch or acquire new businesses.
With his colleague Loran Nordgren, David is a co-originator of Friction Theory — a framework for understanding why even promising innovations and change initiatives struggle to gain traction with their intended audiences, and what to do about it. The work is the basis of his Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas (Wiley).
Outside Kellogg, David has worked in entrepreneurship, design, and innovation for over twenty-five years. He spent a decade at IDEO and currently serves as an Operating Partner at 7Wire Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture firm, and a Global Advisor at Design for Ventures (D4V), a Tokyo-based fund that invests in design-led Japanese startups. He previously served as an Operating Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital. David is also a co-founder of MATTER, an innovation center in Chicago focused on healthcare entrepreneurship.
He is a contributing writer for Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Inc., and MIT Sloan Management Review, writing about business strategy, innovation, and how organizations introduce change. He has been named a Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement finalist and honored on Crain's Chicago Business "40 Under 40" list (back when he was under 40). At Kellogg, he is a seven-time recipient of the Executive MBA Outstanding Professor award and a recipient of the Faculty Impact Award for excellence in teaching.
David earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his BA in International Relations from Boston University.
As much as David would like to think he's one-of-a-kind, he's actually a triplet.
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MBA, 2009, General Management, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Bachelors of Art, 1999, International Relations, Boston University, Boston University, Magna Cum Laude -
Clinical Professor of Strategy and Innovation, Strategy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2021-present
Visting Professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2015-present
Visting Professor, Coller School of Management, Tel Aviv University, 2018-present
Clinical Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2016-2021
Clinical Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2013-2016
Faculty Director of the Zell Fellows Program, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2016-present
Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University, 2011-2012
Adjunct Lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2013 -
Operating Partner, 7 Wire Ventures, 2020-present
Venture Partner, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, 2020-present
Global Advisor, Design For Ventures (D4V), 2019-present
Operating Partner, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, 2018-2020
Senior Director, IDEO, 2011-present
Co-Founder and Board Member, MATTER, 2013-2020
Council Member, ChicagoNext, 2012-2019
Partner, Fusion Ventures, 2010-2014
Director, Strategy and Venture Development, The Tavistock Group, 2005-2010
Chief Operating Officer, Iapyx Medical, 2005-2008
Entrepreneur in-Residence, CONNECT, 2009-2015
Manager, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLP, 2004-2005
Senior Consultant, Deloitte, LLP, 2002-2004
Senior Consultant, Arthur Andersen, LLP, 1999-2002
Product Manager, Arthur Andersen, LLP, 1999-2002 -
Thinkers50 Radar Honoree, Thinkers50
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA, Kellogg School of Management
Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award Finalist, Thinkers50
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA, 2022
Thinkers50 Radar Honoree, Thinkers50, 2021
Thinkers50 - Most Influential Management Thinkers Finalist, Thinkers50, 2022
Outstanding Professor, Core Course, EMBA, 2021
Outstanding Professor, Core Course, EMBA
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA, 2021
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA
Outstanding Professor, Core Course, EMBA, 2020-2021
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA, 2020-2021
Outstanding Professor, Core Course, EMBA
Outstanding Professor, Elective Course, EMBA, 2019-2020
Kellogg Impact, Award, a student initiated award that recognizes excellence in the classroom
Advanced Marketing Management
For executives navigating an ever-changing marketing landscape, this program gives participants practical knowledge of marketing management tools and how to implement them into a successful strategy across multi-level teams.
Enterprise Leadership Program
Leadership at the enterprise level means rising to the challenge. No longer is your growth linear — it’s exponential. The focus moves past the single team or unit to the enterprise as a whole, beyond functional skills to strategic decisions based on a broader perspective. Kellogg Executive Education’s Enterprise Leadership Program prepares you to lead at height and scale and helps you develop an anticipatory mindset.
Leading for Impact within Family Enterprise
As an aspiring leader within family enterprise, you’ll discover how to establish your credibility and authority in the business community, among family shareholders, with the board and management team. As an established leader, you’ll explore the complexities of mentoring the next generation and of managing succession and letting-go. For all, the program can enable you to better manage the nuanced paradoxes that are characteristic of family business leadership.
Leading High-Impact Teams
From the thought leaders that set the standard for building and leading effective teams, this intensive program delivers deep insight into Kellogg’s proven approaches and practical tools and techniques you can use immediately to solve complex team challenges.
The PHYSICIAN CEO™ Program
Capstone Course (STRTX-470-0)
Phase 0: Designing, Building and Communicating Compelling New Ventures (ENTRX-475-0)
This course has been designed to demystify the "fuzzy front end" of starting a new venture and to give you the tools and confidence to build and launch something of your own. You will learn how to identify problems worth solving, test your assumptions about possible solutions, adjust your initial hypothesis based on experimentation and market feedback, and ultimately accelerate the time between inspiration, execution, operations, and growth. We will focus on the importance of achieving "Product Market Fit" - developing the right offer for the right customer - and convincing others to support you on your journey. The tools and skills learned in this class are equally as applicable to startups as they are to corporate innovation projects. The course is geared to: 1) those who want to pursue an entrepreneurial career and are taking this course to develop and pursue a business idea; 2) those interested in a career path in business innovation, whether it's in a new venture or innovating inside a larger firm 3) those who are curious about a career in entrepreneurship and innovation and want to better understand what it entails and explore if it fits well with their inherent personality traits and talents. The construct of the class is a blend of lecture, hands-on workshops, in-market research, site visits, simulations and guest speakers. We will take full advantage of being in San Francisco and do a lot of our learning outside of the classroom. Coursework will be team-based.
Forging and Funding Healthcare Startups (HCAK-627-0)
The course will cover early-stage health care companies from the perspective of the entrepreneur (forging) and investor (funding). Health care is a big, complex field with many unmet needs. Our objective is to help the student understand what ideas are commercially viable among the many ideas that propose to fill those needs, providing the student with a realistic perspective should they decide to enter the field. Challenge and complexity if harnessed in the right way and viewed through the correct lens can create opportunities for the informed entrepreneur or investor. The course will explore the similarities and differences associated with building businesses in digital healthcare, medical devices and biopharmaceuticals, areas that attract the vast majority of venture capital investment in healthcare as well as the sources of capital that are available to get a startup off the ground In addition, how VC's evaluate health care deals, the flow of early stage capital and how the landscape of healthcare investment is evolving. This is a team-oriented course. Guest speakers will include experienced venture investors and CEOs of early-stage companies raising capital. Teams will be asked to evaluate early-stage investment opportunities and make an investment recommendation. This class should not be the student's first exposure to the business of the US healthcare system. While there are no formal prerequisites, this course is designed for students with a basic knowledge of US healthcare either through past work experience or having completed other healthcare courses at Kellogg.
New Venture Launch: The Entrepreneur (ENTR-467-5)
New Venture Launch: The Entrepreneur is the companion course to New Venture Launch: The Business. While the Business course focuses on building and launching the venture itself, this course centers on the person leading the venture. Together, the two courses address the dual realities of entrepreneurship: designing a viable business and developing the capacity to lead it. Students may take this course whether or not they have completed New Venture Launch: The Business. For those who have taken the first part, The Entrepreneur deepens the work by shifting focus from the venture to the founder. For students entering directly, the course provides foundational preparation for the personal, leadership, and emotional challenges inherent in entrepreneurship, regardless of industry, business model, or stage. This course is designed for students who intend to lead a business directly or shortly after graduation, whether as a founder, through acquisition, or via another entrepreneurial path. It emphasizes the human side of venture creation: the mental, emotional, and interpersonal demands that accompany uncertainty, rapid change, and sustained pressure. Students will explore what it means to lead when outcomes are unclear, plans evolve, and setbacks are inevitable. Core themes include self-awareness, resilience, decision-making under stress, listening and communication, leveraging personal strengths, managing limitations, and building effective support systems. Particular attention is paid to the loneliness of leadership, the need to balance optimism with realism, and the importance of adaptability, both in the business and in oneself. Rather than offering a single model of "the right kind of entrepreneur," the course encourages students to understand how they show up as leaders and how their behaviors, values, and patterns influence teams and outcomes. Students will be challenged to reflect, experiment, and grow, recognizing that successful ventures often require founders to evolve as quickly as their companies do. By the end of the course, students should have a clearer understanding of their leadership identity, greater awareness of how they respond to adversity, and practical tools for navigating the ongoing personal challenges of entrepreneurial life. Admission is by application only.
New Venture Discovery (ENTR-462-0)
New Venture Discovery is designed to help students navigate the earliest stages of starting a new venture beginning with the identification of a problem in the market that is worth solving. The class teaches students tools and techniques to translate these problems into viable business concepts, with an emphasis on enabling an aspiring entrepreneur to get as far as possible, with as little as possible, as FAST as possible.
Student teams begin the quarter with nothing more than a series of hypotheses about a new venture, then design and execute a series of in-market experiments that either validate these assumptions, or force them to iterate aspects of their business model in real time. The objective of the course to guide students toward the achievement of "product-market fit" as a crucial first step in in the creation of a startup. From here, students can evolve their businesses by enrolling in the "Develop" and "Launch" courses that serve as the continuation of the new ventures curriculum.
New Venture Discovery course material ranges from customer discovery and design thinking, to rapid prototyping (of both offers and business models), bootstrapping methods and communicating/selling the vision for a new venture. The course format is a blend of lecture, fieldwork, cross-team collaboration and ideation sessions, outside speakers and expert mentoring.
**This course may not be dropped after the second week of the quarter**
