Burton Rast Keynote Speaker

Burton Rast is a speaker, artist, and designer living in San Francisco, California. He has enjoyed a range of disciplines throughout his more than 20-year career, from product leadership, creative direction, and design innovation, to storytelling, photography, and filmmaking.

Burton is a passionate advocate for mentorship and knowledge-sharing, and believes design can be a powerful instrument for change. He is a frequent presenter at companies, universities, and conferences the world over, and has written and spoken extensively about design and its impact on society.

Burton spent seven years at IDEO as a Principal Designer, and another five in design leadership at Google. He has consulted for companies ranging from startups, to tech giants, to the Fortune 50, and presently serves as a Design Partner at Strange Ventures, a San Francisco-based VC firm, advising and investing in early-stage AI startups.

Burton regularly speaks to audiences about career and life lessons, as well as hard-fought truths, realized both in and out of the workplace. And he cooks a mean omelet; so mean, in fact, that he once made them for the entire IDEO studio.