Nancy Birkhölzer

Nancy is IXDS’ CEO. She enjoys building organizations and teams with a unique spirit and culture.

Before joining IXDS in 2012 she established Fjord’s German studio in 2007, grew it to a team of 50 in her role as MD and then took on a Group Director role to build Fjord’s global Service Design Academy. Fjord was sold to Accenture in 2013. Prior to this, Nancy led global innovation projects in her product management and user experience roles at Yahoo and Vodafone.

Nancy was recognized as one of the “100 Women of the Future” by Deutschland – Land der Ideen, and chosen (together with Prof. Reto Wettach) as one of the “15 Thought Leaders & Innovators 2015” by WIRED magazine. She regularly takes on guest professorships and speaker engagements, mentors startups and founders and is very active in the service design community. Nancy studied design at the Köln International School of Design and Rhode Island School of Design, and has more than 15 years’ professional experience in designing digital services.

At IXDS Nancy aims to re-invent innovation culture and the role and set-up of design studios. Constantly questioning the way we integrate technology into our lives – while empowering the analog qualities –  is another one of her passions.

Nancy loves the outdoors, mountaineering & nature and is a certified Ayurveda therapist.