Paul Iske is a Full Professor of Open Innovation and Business Venturing at Maastricht University. He is also the Chief Dialogues Officer at ABN Amro Bank and Director of the Dialogues House and Dialogues Incubator, focusing on innovative, collaborative and sustainable entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he is a Consulting Challenger and a frequent speaker on topics related to intellectual capital, knowledge management, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. He is also a partner in Conceptisch, an organization focusing on the (co-)creation of environments that support the development of intellectual capital.After acquiring his PhD in Theoretical Physics, he joined Shell Research and has been working with many academic and non-academic knowledge institutes.

He is also the founder of the Institute of Brilliant failures, the goal of this institute is to bring about a shift in the way that failure is perceived. It attempts to promote a positive view of failure through the use of stories, film, workshops, lectures etc. It promotes having the courage to try new things as entrepreneurs and inventors, even if things do not turn out to be a pure success.