Leslie Grandy, Creative Leadership in a World of AI and Connection

Profiles in Leadership

Leslie Grandy is an author, speaker, and CEO advisor who guides companies, teams, and product leaders to expand their creative capacity to invent and innovate for customers, disrupt and grow their market opportunities, and maintain relevance in a fast-changing world. Organizations like Oracle, Starbucks, and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers turn to Leslie to ignite creativity across their workforce and empower everyone, regardless of role or level, to identify novel solutions and think expansively. Leslie’s book, "Creative Velocity," debuts in early 2025.

Leslie’s career has taken her on a 25+ year journey, from a successful career in the film industry in Los Angeles as a member of the Directors Guild of America to iconic brands, such as Amazon, Best Buy, Discovery, T-Mobile, and Apple. She’s built teams from the ground up and led multiple first-to-market products; she was on the front end of the earliest digital media subscription services from major content brands like Major League Baseball, NASCAR, CNN, and ABCNews and co-authored a patent currently held by Intel. Leslie has led internal innovation labs and is an IDEO-trained leader in Design Thinking.

Leslie has educated product leaders and executives through The Product Guild, the University of Michigan College of Engineering's Center for Entrepreneurship, and as a guest lecturer at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

She co-created and serves as the Lead Executive in Residence in the Product Management Leadership Accelerator, part of the Foster School's Executive Education program.

She is a member of the Board of Advisors and Adjunct Faculty at Regis College's Marshall Sloane School of Business in Product Management and Service Design and West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts and Media.