Leonard Polizzotto, Ph.D.
CEO, Innovation and Business Development Expert, Speaker

Dr. Len Polizzotto is widely recognized for his uniquely successful business development abilities. A centerpiece of his professional activities has been the study, application, and teaching of innovation best practices. As part of this work, he has made many important contributions, including the “Three Cs” for helping identify new business opportunities and “Value Factor Analysis” for maximizing the value of new products and services.

Until 2014, Dr. Polizzotto was Draper Laboratory’s vice president, in charge of new programs and leading Draper’s capabilities to solve new international needs. He was responsible for establishing Draper’s Bioengineering Center on the University of Southern Florida campus in Tampa, a Multichip Module Facility in St. Petersburg, founding Draper’s energy business, and leading two medical consortia. One, IMEDS, was focused on developing systems to provide real-time decision support to clinicians at the bedside in the ICU. The other was aimed at developing quantitative biomarkers for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Prior to joining Draper in 2007, Dr. Polizzotto served for six years as Corporate Vice President for Business Development at SRI International, a world leader in contract R&D services. He established a center for proteomic drug development in Harrisonburg, Virginia and a center for oceanographic research in St. Petersburg, Florida. He also helped develop and teach workshops on innovation to company executives throughout the world. A 25-year tenure at the Polaroid Corporation preceded this, concluding with the assignment of Corporate Vice President for New Business Development. In this role, he helped develop a number of new consumer products.

Between corporate experiences, Polizzotto directed the Center for the Globalization of Technology and taught courses in electrical engineering and design at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. In the past eight years, he founded one and led another high tech start-up, both in the biomedical area.

Dr. Polizzotto is a Charter Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors. He received his Ph.D. in visual sciences, combining electrical engineering, perceptual psychology, and ophthalmology from Tufts University. He earned M.S. and B.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and he completed The Executive Program at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business. Dr. Polizzotto holds eleven patents and is the author of articles on human color perception, digital imaging, microphotography, and innovation (as well as two books on drums set instruction).

Currently, in addition to being the sole proprietor of CIRA Associates LLC, he is a partner at the Practice of Innovation.

Dr. Polizzotto can be reached at len@ciraassociates.com.