Dr. Jonathan (Jony) Paul Ive

A British designer and the senior vice president of Industrial Design at Apple Inc., he is the lead designer and conceptual mind behind many of Apple's products, including the iMac, MacBook Air, iPod, iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad. During Steve Jobs' tenure as CEO, he was given operational autonomy within the company, subject only to Jobs. After Jobs' death in October 2011, he reports to current CEO Tim Cook. Born February 1967 in Chingford, London, he was brought up by his teacher father and attended the Chingford Foundation School and went on to attend Walton High School in Stafford, then studied industrial design at Northumbria University (Newcastle Polytechnic at the time). Once enrolled in Walton, it became clear that he attained many technical and drawing skills through his father. He met his wife, Heather Pegg, while in secondary school. They married in 1987, have twin sons and now live in San Francisco. He has said that he knew he was interested in “drawing and making stuff” since around age 14. The idea of design was long in his mind, but he was unsure about exactly what he would design. His interests were very broad – from furniture and jewelry to boats and cars. He was never sure about where his interest would lead. It wasn’t until he met with various design experts that he was able to see some standard ground in wanting to further his study in product design. He has stated that discovering the Apple Mac during his later college years was a turning point for him. In particular, his positive perception of the Apple user experience was significant because he felt it was a departure from the lack of creativity found in computer design at that time. After finishing university, he went on to become a co-founder of London design agency, Tangerine. Subsequently, he was commissioned in 1992 by Apple’s then Chief of Industrial Design Robert Brunner as a Tangerine consult, then full time employment. He was the designer of the 2nd generation of the Newton, the MessagePad110, taking him to Taipei for the first time. He then gained his current position at Apple in 1997 as the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design after the return of Steve Jobs and has subsequently headed the industrial-design team responsible for most of the company's significant hardware products. His first design assignment was the iMac; it helped pave the way to many other designs such as the iPod and eventually the iPhone. He proceeded to establish the firm’s leading position with a series of functionally clean, aesthetically pleasing, and remarkably popular products after Jobs made design a chief focus of the firm's product strategy. The work and principles of Dieter Rams, the chief designer at Braun from 1961 until 1995, have influenced his work. In Gary Hustwit's documentary film Objectified (2009), Rams states that Apple is one of only a handful of companies existing today that designs products according to Rams's ten principles of "good design". He has his own laboratory with his appointed design team. They work to music that a close friend of his, DJ John Digweed, provides. The majority of Apple employees are not allowed in the laboratory. According to the Steve Jobs biography, his design studio has foam cutting and printing machines inside it. Also the windows are tinted. A fifth generation iPod, one of his most recognised industrial designs. The Sunday Times named him one of Britain's most influential expatriates on 27 November 2005, stating: "Ive may not be the richest or the most senior figure on the list, but he has certainly been one of the most influential as the man who designed the iPod." A 2006 Macworld magazine poll listed his joining Apple in 1992 as the sixth most significant event in Apple's history, while Dan Moren, a writer at MacUser magazine (a subsidiary of Macworld), suggested in March 2006 that, when the time came for Steve Jobs to step down as the CEO of Apple, he would be an excellent candidate for the position, justifying the statement by saying that he "embodies what Apple is perhaps most famous for: design". However, Jobs was succeeded by Tim Cook, the company's former COO. He has been the recipient of many awards and accolades: On 11 January 2008, The Daily Telegraph rated him the most influential Briton in the United States; In 1999, he was named by the MIT Technology Review TR100 one of the top 100 innovators in the world under age 35. In 2003, he was the winner of the Design Museum's Designer of the Year Award, the first given. In 2004, he was named the "Most Influential Person on British Culture" by the BBC. In June 2005, British monarch Queen Elizabeth II was revealed as being an iPod owner. In 2007, the UK edition of GQ magazine named him "Product Designer of the Year." In 2007, he received the 2007 National Design Award in the product-design category for his work on the iPhone. In 2008, he was named the No. 1 "Most Influential Briton in America" by the Daily Telegraph. Creativity Online included him in their "Creativity 50" list. The same year, he was awarded the MDA Personal Achievement Award for the design of the iPhone. In 2009, he received an honorary doctorate from the Rhode Island School of Design, and honorary doctor of the Royal College of Art. Also in 2009, Fast Company put him at No. 1 on their list of "100 Most Creative People in Business; the Daily Telegraph named him the second "Most Influential Briton in Technology, Forbes magazine listed him as second amongst the "Most Powerful People in Technology; and The Guardian named him "Inventor of the Decade". In 2010, Bloomberg BusinessWeek listed him among the "World's Most Influential Designers", CNN Money named him "Smartest Designer" in their "Smartest People in Tech" story. He was listed at No. 18 on "The Vanity Fair 100" list, and Eureka of The Times group placed him No. 5 on their list of "Britain's Most Important Scientists"; Fortune named him the "world's smartest designer" for his work on Apple products. In 2011, the Daily Mail profiled him, hailing him as a "design genius." He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2006 New Year Honours for services to the design industry. In the 2012 New Year Honours, he was elevated to Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for "services to design and enterprise"; he was knighted by Princess Anne in Buckingham Palace in a May 2012 ceremony. He described the honour as "absolutely thrilling" and said he was "both humbled and sincerely grateful". He personally holds almost 600 design patents.