Nazlıcan is Director of Innovation at Builders Vision, where she leads the firm’s innovation capability, turning bold ideas into real ventures, tools, and partnerships through human-centered design.
As Director of Innovation on the Strategy Acceleration team, Nazlıcan leads Builders Vision’s dedicated innovation capability. The work surfaces bold, catalytic ideas and gives them the structure, support, and momentum to become real. Using human-centered innovation, Nazlıcan guides each one from an early hunch to a fully developed pilot, reframing systemic barriers, unlocking new forms of capital, and designing ventures and partnerships that advance the firm’s mission across food and agriculture, energy, and oceans.
For nearly a decade, Nazlıcan led IDEO’s climate work, designing new ventures and strategies for the firm’s clients. She helped a financial institution launch a renewable energy venture. She helped a global nonprofit build new strategies to accelerate blue carbon. She designed a venture studio for island resilience through nature-based solutions. She helped a university reimagine the future of conservation education. Before IDEO, she ran her own design studio in New York.
Nazlıcan holds a Master of Science in Management from Stanford Graduate School of Business. She holds a BA in Product Design from Central Saint Martins in London. At Stanford, she served as Investment Director of the GSB Impact Fund, where she led the Adaptation and Resilience portfolio. She received the Miller Social Change Leadership Award, given to the graduating students who contribute most to the school’s social and environmental impact community, and was named a Joss Scholar. Nazlıcan is an active lecturer at Stanford’s d.school, where she teaches human-centered design with David Kelley.
Originally from Turkey, Nazlıcan now lives in the Bay Area with her husband. She is happiest when she is discovering something for the first time. Her discoveries range widely, from fencing to playing the harp to a turn as a marching band drummer. Even the short-lived ones leave a mark on how she thinks and makes.