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The Reed College of Media and College of Creative Arts will merge to form the new WVU College of Creative Arts and Media as of July 1, 2024. Get details.

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Leslie Grandy

Global First-to-Market Product Executive and Board Advisor
Teaches Emerging Media & the Market

Leslie Grandy is a global, first-to-market product executive and board advisor with over 20+ year career innovating and delivering game-changing products in publicly traded Fortune 500 companies, including Best Buy, Discovery Communications, T-Mobile, Apple Inc., and Amazon. After retiring from Amazon, Grandy became an executive in residence and advisory board member to the Product Management Center at the University of Washington Foster School of Business and co-architected, in partnership with the PMC director, a new professional development program for senior product managers called Elevate.

During her tenure at Best Buy, Grandy was the head of the Seattle Technology Development Center, where her expansive digital product portfolio included conversational AI, voice assistants, mobile apps, digital innovation labs, and digital media & advertising. As VP of product at T-Mobile, Grandy led the delivery of the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, that catapulted Android to its dominant position in the market. She was also a judge in the inaugural Android Developer Challenge that launched the Google Play Store. Previously, Grandy was a GM at RealNetworks’ where she co-authored a US patent currently owned by Intel for a “System and Method for Integrated Media.”

Grandy co-founded Triple Squirrels with actor Tom Skerritt and launched an AVOD streaming channel called EVRGN to highlight and celebrate the creative spirit of the Pacific Northwest. In 2018, Grandy founded The Product Guild, a product and innovation advisory services company, through which she has advised numerous publicly traded companies and serves on the advisory boards for several early-stage companies. Her clients have included Starbucks, Oracle, and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. Grandy is an IDEO-trained leader in Design Thinking with an MBA from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Science in TV/Film from Northwestern University. After thirteen years in the film industry, Grandy is also a Directors Guild of America member, working on such classic films as “The Abyss,” “Tremors,” and the award-winning motion picture “The Waterdance.”