Ivy Ross

In July 2019 she was named #9 on Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business. Ivy is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us with Susan Huganir Magsamen. This book shares the science behind humanities birthright - to make and behold art and its power to amplify physical and mental health, learning and build stronger communities.

Ivy Ross studied at Syracuse University, Harvard Business School and Fashion Institute of Technology. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is design, industrial design and jewelry. Places of work recorded in the authority are Manhattan Beach. Employment is recorded with Google. Positions recorded include chief design officer. Work by Ivy Ross is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National Museum of Decorative Arts, Smithsonian American Art Museum and Smithsonian Institution.

Ross was born in Yonkers, New York, and grew up in Riverdale. She credits her father, an industrial engineer who worked for the Raymond Loewy studio that created the Studebaker Hawk automobile, for influencing her choice of careers. Ross attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City, with a major in fine art and minor in psychology. She later attended the Syracuse University School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City with a major in jewelry design. She went on to complete the Professional Management Development Program at Harvard Business School in 1994. In 2016, she gave the keynote speech at the Fashion Institute of Technology and was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Ross began her professional career as a designer. After college she launched a jewelry design business in 1978 called Small Wonders. Until the mid-‘80s, Ross worked as a designer for Avon Products Inc. She oversaw product development for Swatch Watch and worked as an accessories designer for Liz Claiborne before moving on to direct design and product development for Outlook Eyewear (Bausch and Lomb), Coach, and Calvin Klein. During Ross's tenure at Mattel (1998 to 2004) as senior vice president of worldwide product design & brand image for The Girls Division, she was charged with developing a new toy for the pre-teen girls segment. Ross conceived of an experiment in multi-disciplinary design dubbed “Project Platypus”, which resulted in Mattel's highly successful Ello Creation System. Whilst at Mattel, Ross also failed to see the shift in consumer preferences of the "tween" segment: i.e. girls between the age of 9 to 12 years old. This caused a U.S. toy company named MGA Entertainment Inc. to launch a competitive series of dolls named Bratz. After the introduction of Bratz in 2001, sales of Barbie declined rapidly, whereby Bratz outsold Barbie for the first time in December 2003. From that moment, Bratz became had number one marketshare position. As a consequence of the significant drop in sales of Barbie, Mattel had to take drastic measures to be able to further lose marketshare. Ross left Mattel just after Barbie lost its number one market position. After leaving Mattel, Ross joined the Gap Inc. as executive VP of product design & development for Old Navy from 2004 to 2007. While there, Ross created an in-house blog called "Culture Feed" with insight culled from the Internet and curated by trend-hunter Jody Turner. She left to become Senior VP and chief creative officer for the Disney Stores of America (owned by the Children's Place), a position she held for one year before returning to the Gap Inc. in 2008. As executive vice president of marketing for the Gap Inc. Ross was responsible for the launch of the 1969 denim line of jeans. In July 2011, Ross joined Art.com where she served as chief marketing officer until her move to Google X in 2014. At Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano in April 2019, Ross led the Google Hardware Design Studio in building A Space for Being: a 6000 square foot installation based on the concepts of neuroaesthetics. The exhibit was created in partnership with Reddymade Architecture, Susan Magsamen and the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University, and Muuto Furniture Design.

Ross was one of the first jewelers to use titanium, tantalum, and niobium, metals that reveal a spectrum of colors when they are charged with electricity. By age 26, Ross had some of her jewelry designs included in the permanent collections of 10 museums, including the Smithsonian, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Schmuckmuseum, in Pforzheim, Germany, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City and the Montreal Visual Arts Center. Ross is a recognized American craft artist and has had her work exhibited globally. In 1984 Ross and then-husband Robert Ebendorf won a Formica design competition through the exploration of a new product called ColorCore™.

Ross is on the board of directors for Destination XL Group Inc, Willow, ArtCenter College of Design, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. Previously, she was on the design board for Procter & Gamble and the Institute for Play.

Ross has been featured as a guest on several podcasts, including Meet the Creatives, Time Sensitive, Clever, The Vergecast, and Design Milk.