Ulf Mannervik

Ulf has worked in research and teaching at Oxford for more than a decade. He is a strategy and strategic foresight practitioner.

Ulf has deployed design thinking in strategy over the past 25 years, advising on strategy and strategic innovation for global firms, public sector organisations and governments.

Originally a painter, Ulf’s interest in design theory and creative processes led him to explore the intersection between design and strategy with the late Richard Normann from the mid-1990s.

Ulf is also co-founder of NormannPartners. His consulting engagements include work with a wide range of clients in more than ten countries.

Ulf has led Europe-wide initiatives on innovation policy formation for large urban regions, at county governor and mayor level. He has been appointed three times by the Swedish Government to serve on the board of one of Sweden’s largest research financing foundations, the Knowledge Foundation.

Ulf completed his MPhil in Design Theory (1997) at the Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law.

He has a BSc in Business Administration from the Gothenburg School of Economics, which included studies at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University.

As a painter, his work has featured in more than 20 exhibitions at galleries and museums in Sweden, Denmark, France and Hungary.

Ulf has written several books, chapters and articles.

View Ulf's research.

Teaching

Ulf teaches strategy, innovation and scenario planning in executive education programmes, and on masters' programmes at the University of Oxford; HEC Paris; KTH Royal Institute of Technology; Sabanci University; the University of Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law; and the University of Gothenburg School of Design and Crafts.

Ulf has also served as an associate researcher in the Oxford Strategic Renewal Research Programme, and an associate fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Oxford University.