Alan South

Alan South

Associate Fellow


Saïd Business School 
University of Oxford 
Executive Education Centre 
Egrove Park 
Oxford 
OX1 5NY 
 

Profile

Alan South is an innovation practitioner with over 25 years’ experience of creating business and developing thinking.

Alan’s areas of expertise are innovation, entrepreneurship and technology, gained from 30 years’ experience around the world. In business education, Alan's mission is to develop executives with a solid understanding of innovation and its practical execution. He also continues his work as a consultant and advisor, with the two parallel career streams reinforcing each other. 

Alan led the European business of IDEO, the renowned Silicon Valley innovation firm. He was involved particularly with the development of new innovation methods, including design thinking.

As a senior executive and shareholder at Solarcentury, Alan gained valuable experience of an entrepreneurial high-growth company and of a new industry. He contributed to raising $25 million in 2007 and the delivery of 35 per cent compound growth. Earlier, Alan led product development for Cambridge Consultants, where he built his understanding of taking high-tech R&D to market. His work in executive education developed from his involvement with Harvard Business School and with McKinsey. He was a pioneering thinker in service innovation and worked on the first ever business school teaching case.

Alan holds a double postgraduate degree in innovation design engineering from Imperial College, London and the Royal College of Art, and an engineering degree from the University of Bath.