The smartest people in tech

Senior VP of Industrial Design, Apple

Steve Jobs dreamed up the iPhone, but Jonathan Ive created it. As Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, Ive, 43, is an expert at manufacturing lust. Like his boss, he is a perfectionist who leads a small team working in near secrecy. Most Apple employees aren't allowed in his studio. From the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad, his contributions have set the course not just for Apple but for design more broadly.

Ive arrived at Apple in 1992 from a small design firm in his native Britain, but his real break came five years later when Jobs returned in 1997. Jobs conducted a high-profile search for an international design director, then chose the soft-spoken Ive from within his own ranks. With the launch of his first product, the iMac G3, Ive turned the utilitarian gray desktop computer into a translucent, gumdrop-shaped fashion statement.

Anyone strolling through New York City's Museum of Modern Art or the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris will come across early versions of his iconic products. But unlike most of the other innovators in those museums, Ive has been able to translate his brilliance into designs that are loved by the masses--and his demanding boss. Very smart indeed. --J.H.

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