About

Jeff Leitner

Jeff Leitner leads collaborations that produce new and powerful ways to make impact. His work — in the trenches with global nonprofits, cultural institutions, universities, foundations, government agencies, international organizations, and corporations — produces new tools, programs, and models for change.

  • As co-founder of UX for Good, he has collaborated with organizations like the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education to work mindfulness into public education and Aegis Trust to design genocide museums that convert visitors into activists.

  • As Innovator in Residence at the University of Southern California, he developed the nation's first doctorate in social innovation.

  • As a Fellow at New America, he collaborated with the OECD to develop the first-ever sequence for solving all of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

  • As founder of Insight Labs, he collaborated with partners like the US Department of State to redesign international organizations and TED to unite communities with different agendas around a common cause.

  • His work has been featured in publications such as Fast Company, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Inc., and The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Jeff shares lessons from these collaborations with others tackling social problems and big challenges. He co-authored "See Think Solve: A Simple Way to Tackle Tough Problems," which details the first norms-based approach to social change. He speaks and lectures on unwritten rules and social innovation, sharing insights at companies, conferences, and venues like Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Stanford's d.school, and the World Government Summit in Dubai.

What People Say

Dan Lurie, Deputy Director for Policy, Office of the Vice President: "Jeff puts together the seeming mundane — or vexing or intransigent — and takes his clients something original and profound, to a higher, as-yet-unimagined plane."

Tomicah Tillemann, Senior Advisor to the Secretary, US Department of State: "Jeff can conceptualize issues and synthesize communities in new ways."

Nancy Oriol, Dean of Students, Harvard Medical School: "Jeff can create a concept and then make it concrete."

Marilyn Flynn, Dean, University of Southern California: "Jeff helps people imagine new possibilities and get excited by them — and he makes it all seem so accessible."

Michelle Boone, President & CEO, The Poetry Foundation: "Working with Jeff gave us the prompts we needed for expansive and imaginative thinking about the future. He is a skillful and thoughtful facilitator with an uncanny ability to help you envision bold, new possibilities."

Bill Sleeth, SVP, Design Innovation, Panera Bread: "Jeff has an uncanny and effortless ability to uncover that thing you know is in there, to scratch that mental itch, and to pull out the best from a group. I literally feel smarter when I'm in a room with Jeff - that sense of crazy possibility is palpable."

Michael Orlove, Director, National Endowment for the Arts: "Jeff can walk into a room where people are struggling to figure something out and get them to a place they wouldn't have gotten to before."

Jan Johnson, VP, Workplace Strategy, Allsteel: "Jeff has an incredible ability to make big leaps and see the possibility of the thing. He can pull together the seemingly mundane and go someplace original and profound."

Steve Edwards, Chief Content Officer, Chicago Public Media: "Jeff sees the big picture and the gaps in it that other people don't see. He has a level of strategic insight that's rare."

Caren Yanis, Board Chair, The Poetry Foundation: "Jeff guided us to envision the future in ways we wouldn't have gotten to on our own. His creative and joyful approach has prepared us to be a resilient and sustainable organization."

Deborah Knupp, Managing Partner, GrowthPlay: "Jeff has the capacity to see around corners to see things that other people can't see and to then build things that otherwise wouldn't be possible."

Robb Powell, President, eCommerce Services, Advantage Solutions: "Jeff can take in a ton of seemingly incongruent information and create a new future. He gives people the power to see it all in a new way they hadn't before, so they can create a new program, new funding, and more."

Sherrif Karamat, President & CEO, Professional Convention Management Association: "Jeff helps organizations think differently, reinvent themselves, and chart a new course. He has an uncanny ability to listen to people and not let them overtalk. Then the fog lifts and the problem's solved. It's pretty amazing."

Bill Sleeth, VP Design, Americas, Starbucks: "Jeff is curious about every possible question — even the ridiculous ones."

John Clarke, Asst. Dean, Strategic Initiatives, University of Illinois: "Jeff is who you call when you're struggling to imagine, realize, and manifest your future."

Jason Bovis, Chief Marketing and Client Development Officer, Akerman LLP: "Jeff helps people and groups think through seemingly intractable problems. He helped us structure a framework for the conversation, identify the issues that seem to make the problem intractable, and dug into the issues to see what the potential solutions might be."

Randy Balconi, CEO, Interior Environments: "Jeff takes really complex pieces of information, digests them, and presents them so that they're understandable. And he hones in on the thing that's really important."

Holly Mattson, CEO, Council for Interior Design Accreditation: "Jeff is willing to come into arenas that aren't his and help people think bigger. He helps people stop navel-gazing and gets them to think differently. Jeff isn't afraid to make people uncomfortable so that in the end, they're productive."

Russ Taylor, Executive Director, Foundations of East Chicago: "You call Jeff when there's a problem you can't solve. He's better at it than anyone else."