Solomon Darwin

Solomon Darwin is the Executive Director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation and the Center for Growth Markets at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. He has been hailed as the “Father of the Smart Village Movement.”

Professor Darwin has broad leadership experience in corporate management and academia. He is an international speaker recognized by peers, executives, and students, with numerous awards for his innovative leadership and passion for teaching. He inspires students from both business and engineering disciplines in his courses on open innovation, business models, smart cities, scalable smart villages, IBM Watson, and business models for emerging economies.

As an expert in “open innovation” and “open business models,” he is an advisor to senior executives of multinational companies and government leaders in the emerging world, including Google, Genentech, HP, Health Net, J&J, Toyota, NHS of UK, UCSF, Royal Caribbean, Autodesk, Nestle, and government entities in Mexico, China, Russia, Thailand, India, Colombia, and several European countries. He directs and moderates international innovation conferences and forums, and chairs quarterly Chief Innovation Officer round tables in Silicon Valley.

Prior to joining Berkeley Haas in 2005, he was an Associate Professor for nine years at the University of Southern California. His progressive corporate leadership experience includes 14 years as a Senior Executive Officer at Bank of America, First Interstate Bank, and Glendale Federal Bank as well as at Motorola.

Darwin regularly teaches in executive programs at prominent international universities and institutions. He has conducted workshops and programs in over 18 countries. He also serves as an honorary professor at several universities in Europe, China, and India. His current “Building Scalable Smart Villages” projects were commissioned by the government of India.