Mitch Sava is the Vice President of Innovation, Learning, and Engagement at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, where he has been since 2016. In this role, he helps drive the development of new services and partnerships - on and offline - for the museum to reach new audiences, create new revenue streams, and help the Museum achieve its mission of nurturing critical thinkers of all ages.  He is also honored to serve on the Board of MCN, where he is the Vice President and President-Elect for 2021.  

While he may be new to the world of museums, he has spent much of his career in the worlds of digital and innovation. He has over two decades of innovation experience across sectors, working with executives, social entrepreneurs, and policy-makers on how to unleash our innovative potential, and apply design thinking and digital forces to the way we live, work, and create value for others and ourselves.

He has helped establish innovation labs for government agencies, consultancies and companies, tried to reimagine the future of industries from insurance to beer, and worked with firms from pharmaceuticals to phones to help them avoid becoming the next “Blockbuster Video” of their industry. He has created and run initiatives to help start-ups, launched [barely successfully] a start-up of his own, and generally nudged various giant companies to act a bit more like start-ups themselves. Mitch has pushed policy with think-tanks, drafted resolutions for the UN, helped social innovators stay innovative, and designed new services with some of the most creative minds in business and the social sector. He has succeeded in various efforts, and failed in more.

Mitch holds an MPA in innovation and entrepreneurship policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, an MSc in Technology and Human Affairs from Washington University in St. Louis, and a BS in Computer Science from the College of William & Mary. He is a Founder and Board Chair of Audacity Labs, a start-up accelerator for teens.  Mitch is a founding member of the Innovation Work Group, an American Marshall Memorial Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Advancement of Arts, Manufacturers, and Commerce, where he led their project on “The Glory of Failure”. Mitch is an amateur winemaker, a lover of things cooked slowly, and a father often in quest of sleep.