Ivy Ross

Ivy Ross (1955) is an American business executive and jewelry designer. She was appointed Head of Google Glass at Google X on May 19, 2014. Ivy Ross’s metal work in jewelry design is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. One of few recognized fine artists to successfully cross over into the business world, Ross is also a keynote speaker and a member of several boards, and has been hailed as a “creative visionary” by the art world.

Ivy Ross was born in Yonkers, New York and grew up in Riverdale. She credits her father, an industrial engineer who worked for the Raymond Loewy studio that created the Studebaker Hawk automobile, for influencing her choice of careers. Ross attended the High School of Art and Design in New York City, with a major in Fine Art and minor in Psychology. She later attended the Syracuse University School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City with a major in Jewelry Design. She went on to complete the Professional Management Development Program at Harvard Business School in 1994.

Ivy Ross began her professional career as a designer. After college she launched a jewelry design business in 1978 called Small Wonders,. Until the mid-‘80s, Ross worked as a designer for Avon Products Inc. She oversaw product development for Swatch Watch and worked as an accessories designer for Liz Claiborne before moving on to direct design and product development for Outlook Eyewear (Bausch and Lomb), Coach, and Calvin Klein.

During Ross’s tenure at Mattel (1998 to 2004) as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Design & Brand Image for The Girls Division, she was charged with developing a new toy for the pre-teen girls segment. Ross conceived of an experiment in multi-disciplinary design dubbed “Project Platypus”, which resulted in Mattel’s highly successful Ello Creation System.

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