David Schonthal is a Clinical Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he teaches courses in new venture creation, design thinking, business acquisition, healthcare entrepreneurship, corporate innovation and creativity. He also serves as the Faculty Director of Kellogg's Zell Fellows Program, a selective venture accelerator program designed to help student entrepreneurs successfully launch or acquire new businesses.

Outside of Kellogg David is a Senior Director of Business Design at IDEO, David focuses his attention on helping organizations build and launch new ventures, design transformational new business models, and establish novel go-to-market strategies for products and services.  David also serves as an Operating Partner at 7Wire Ventures, a healthcare technology-focused venture capital firm, and is a Venture Partner at Pritzker Group Venture Capital where he invests in consumer, enterprise and healthcare technology startups. He is also a Global Advisor at Design for Ventures (D4V), a Tokyo-based early-stage venture capital fund that invests in design-led Japanese startups.

Prior to his time in Chicago, David spent nearly a decade in the healthcare venture capital and start-up world as a Partner at Fusion Ventures and Director of Strategy and Venture Development for Tavistock Life Sciences, both based in San Diego, California.  He has also held numerous senior operating roles at startups in the technology and life sciences sectors.

David is a co-founder of MATTER, a 25,000-square-foot innovation center in downtown Chicago focused on catalyzing and supporting healthcare entrepreneurship and serves as a member of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's technology, innovation and entrepreneurship council, ChicagoNext. He is a contributing writer to Forbes, Inc., Fortune and HBR magazines, authoring articles on corporate entrepreneurship, innovation and business design.  David has received several awards for his work, including a Kellogg Faculty Impact Award for excellence in teaching and his new venture creation course being named "Best Elective" course by Kellogg EMBA students in 2018 and 2019. David has also been honored on Crain's Chicago Business magazine's "40 Under 40" list (back when he was under 40).

David earned his MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and his BA in International Relations from Boston University.

If all else fails, David's Plan B is to use his booming baritone to break into the lucrative voiceover world