Rodrigo Martínez, M.P.A./I.D.
Owner and CEO
AZUL: Creative + Strategy
Mr. Martínez is the Owner and CEO of Azul: Creative and Strategy. He is an award-winning creative leader and entrepreneur with 20+ years of diverse international experience across life sciences, digital health, service design, and hospitality sectors. Combination of business strategy, service and experience design, branding and marketing, creative leadership, entrepreneurship, communications. Author, co-author, speaker on topics including the life sciences revolution, digital health, experience design. Award-winning leader of creative teams at world-class firms such as CIC Health, The Boston Consulting Group and global design firm IDEO.
At CIC Health, Mr. Martínez led all branding, marketing, communications, and PR efforts. The company has facilitated more than 5M COVID tests and 1.2M vaccinations and has appeared in more than 1,000 news outlets (TV, print, digital) including dedicated programs in Spanish for Univision and Telemundo. Previously Mr. Martínez was Chief Marketing & Design Officer at Veritas Genetics; Life Sciences Chief Strategist at IDEO, the global design firm, and a Principal with The Boston Consulting Group in the Healthcare practice in Boston. With Juan Enriquez, Mr. Martínez co-founded Harvard Business School’s Life Sciences Project and coined the term ‘bioeconomy’ in a series of papers and articles starting in 1997.
In 2021 Mr. Martínez was awarded by COLOR Magazine the All Inclusive Leadership award for his impact on diversity, inclusion, and health equity. His work has won other awards including Fast Company Most Innovative Cos and World Changing Ideas, CNBC 50 Disruptors 2x, MIT Tech Review's 50 Smartest Cos 2x, and a Webby. He has appeared in HBO, NPR, CBS, CNBC, NYT, LA Times, WIRED, EDGE-Serpentine Gallery, and several books. He has been on the stage at: TED Unplugged, Convergence, DENT, World's Top 50 Innovators, Summit at Sea, ARC Fusion, Near Future Summit, as well as multiple TEDx events.
Mr. Martínez was a World Bank Scholar at Harvard where he received his MPA/ID, and a Bailleres Scholar at ITAM in Mexico where he received his BA in International Relations. He serves on the Board of Advisors of GBH and the Board of Advisors of Neo.Life. He lives with his wife and daughters in Massachusetts. Mr. Martínez is a freediver and an aspiring wing-foiler.