Executive Biography
Ian McClellan does two things companies need and rarely find in one person: he reads customers with a researcher’s discipline, and he builds with AI every day. As founder and Chief Technologist of Think On Labs, the Oregon-based market research and AI advisory firm he started in 2015 and rebuilt as a full-time consultancy in 2022, he helps companies hear their customers more precisely and act on what they hear. His career began with hunting for signal inside clinical-trial data; twenty years later he is still hunting for signal, now for businesses, with consumer research methods on one side and modern AI tools on the other. Often that means partnering with organizations that do not have an internal technology executive and need a board-level translator between customer reality and technology investment.
Earlier in his career, Ian spent fourteen years at Intel as a researcher, futurist, and strategy advisor, working across emerging technologies including AI, immersive media, wearables, drones, 5G, and cloud computing. His research consistently shaped multi-billion-dollar product and platform decisions at the highest levels of the company. He earned Intel’s Top Division Award for AR/VR strategy work, two Presentation of the Year awards, and a U.S. patent on remote-play immersive systems.
Through Think On Labs, Ian’s recent work spans two lanes. First, custom market research for Fortune 50 technology and social media platforms, including generative-AI developer segmentation and competitive messaging strategy for major product launches. Second, AI advisory at both ends of the size spectrum: large organizations that want a grounded read on the newest tools, and smaller firms with deep expertise in their own work but no dedicated technologist on staff. Alongside the consulting practice, he builds proprietary software tools that extend his client work, and is preparing to launch PlanWitch.com, an AI-assisted personal finance tool currently in alpha, to a broader market in 2026.
Academically, Ian holds an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management with a focus on Strategic Brand Management, where he was named a Johnson Leadership Fellow, won the McAllister Essay Award, and was a finalist in the Net Impact Case Competition. His Bachelor’s degree is in Biology with a concentration in Computer Science, also from Cornell, complemented by coursework in bioinformatics at Harvard. This multidisciplinary background, science, computer science, and brand strategy, is the foundation for the way he thinks across domains today.
Ian is also a builder outside the consulting practice. He developed and led the team behind Ship It, the first virtual-reality game ever selected for the PAX10 indie showcase. He has authored children’s educational books that introduce young readers to technology, including Honk if You Love Cars and F is for Fan. He created the Everyday Insights podcast, which applies a researcher’s instincts to questions about life, family, work, and curiosity. Outside the studio, he has completed the Boston Marathon and Ironman Cozumel, and built and led Intel’s record-setting Hood To Coast team. The thread across every domain is the same: rigor, follow-through, and a long view.
Ian is now seeking board seats where his combination of consumer-research rigor and practical AI fluency can help a company modernize how it operates. He is most useful to organizations that want to apply AI to real operational problems with the discipline of customer insight behind the choice, whether that is a mid-market business stepping into AI for the first time or a larger enterprise looking for an outside perspective on how technology and customer voice should shape the next chapter. His temperament leans collaborative rather than prescriptive: read the customer, define the problem, then help the existing team build the muscle to solve it.
Range. Across any given quarter, Ian’s working portfolio might span consumer hardware strategy at a Fortune 50 technology company, AI tooling adoption inside a professional services firm, developer ethnography for a major generative-AI launch, and board advisory for a working farm business, covering financial analysis and long-range strategy. That range is unusual, and it is exactly the lens a single-industry board benefits from.
Translator’s instinct. Ian moves comfortably between technical specialists (architects, ML engineers, developers) and non-technical executives, and his core skill is making each side legible to the other. Boards regularly need someone who can read a CTO’s roadmap slide and a CFO’s spreadsheet in the same meeting.
Builder, not just advisor. Ian ships his own work, not only advice about other people’s. He led the team behind the first virtual-reality game selected for the PAX10 indie showcase, holds a U.S. patent on remote-play immersive systems, and has published children’s books and a podcast. His current build is PlanWitch, an AI-assisted personal finance tool that turns tax documents and spending data into scenario plans for decisions like a job change, freelance taxes, or retirement timing. He knows from experience what technology can accelerate and what still takes real work to ship.
Operational discipline. A one-principal firm serving Fortune 50 clients only works with tight scoping, fast turnaround, and nothing dropped; Ian has run Think On Labs that way since going full time in 2022. Boards get a member who does the reading, meets the deadline, and takes the long view.
