Leonard Ferman

Len Ferman is an adjunct professor of management at the University of North Florida where he teaches courses that he developed on business creativity and innovation to both undergraduate and graduate students.

In addition Len is the founder and managing director of Ferman Innovation. He is a certified ideation facilitator and helps companies generate and evaluate breakthrough growth ideas. Len developed the Idea TournamentTM process to select optimal ideas for development.

Prior to founding Ferman Innovation, Len spent 25 years managing customer research and innovation for Fortune 100 companies including 7 years wtih AT&T and 18 years with Bank of America. In his most recent role, Len led the front end of innovation and served as head of ideation at Bank of America.

Len is a frequent speaker at major business conferences. He was a keynote speaker at the Total Customer Experience Leaders’ Summit on the topic of leveraging innovation to improve the customer experience. In addition he has been a speaker at both the Front End of Innovation and Back End of Innovation conferences. 

In 2019, Len published a textbook titled, "Business Creativity and Innovation".  The book was reviewed in the International Journal of Innovation Management. 

Also in 2019, Forbes magazine published an article on the experiential learning project Len has designed as part of his UNF class.

Additional career highlights include:

• Two Masters Degrees from Duke University (M.B.A. in Marketing and a Master’s in Economics)

• Part of the team that launched the highly acclaimed AT&T Universal Card

• Launched Visa TravelMoney for Barnett Bank, one of the world’s first prepaid cards

• Developed the first check image ATM at Barnett Bank

• Launched the Business Check Card product for Bank of America

• Instrumental in the development of many online and mobile banking initiatives at Bank of America