David McGaw
Leading Design Innovation

David McGaw | Personal Background

David McGaw is Strategy Lead at gravitytank, and brings more than 15 years of experience designing solutions for clients which include Microsoft, McDonald’s, SAP, Autodesk, Bose, SC Johnson, and agencies of the U.S. federal government. Before joining gravitytank, David was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he focused on innovation, product development, and human capital strategy. Prior to working with McKinsey, he was a Customer Experience Designer at McDonald’s Innovation Center, and was Chief Brand Strategist at Alliant Studios.

David is the co-author of Naked Innovation: Uncovering a Shared Approach for Creating Value, which has been used by organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, the New Zealand Department of Revenue, and Boeing to develop their innovation capabilities. He also researched and co-authored the McKinsey report “And the Winner Is…”, a comprehensive analysis of the ways awards and competitions can spur innovation in the social sector.

David holds a BA in History from Yale University and a Master of Design from the IIT Institute of Design, where he teaches a graduate class in managing creativity.

Venues have included Chicago, the Washington, D.C. Metro area, Orlando, Boston, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Other interests range from typography, Renaissance and early music, architecture, the novels of Dorothy Sayers, and vintage travel souvenirs. He can also be found enjoying alternate-future science fiction, as well as the ripping yarns of Patrick O’Brian. A reasonably long and interesting amateur career in choral music is documented (mostly for his own enjoyment) here.

David McGaw | Photo by Jordan Fischer

 

Colleagues