Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote “The future isn’t like it used to be”   

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

  • Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
  • Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
  • Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
  • Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
  • Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
  • Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
  • Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

  • Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
  • Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
  • Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
  • Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
  • Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
  • Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
  • Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Download Peter Fisk’s keynote: “Simply Clever” Strategies for Growth

Agenda

  • What your consumers know, need and dream about, in a fast and connected world
  • How digital technologies broke the old rules, and created unimaginable new opportunities
  • Inspired by the world’s most disruptive innovators, to think bigger and different
  • Unlocking the power of ideas and networks to change the automotive world, and beyond
  • 7 practical ways to lead the future, drive innovation and growth, with more impact

Be the Gamechanger

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

  • Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
  • Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
  • Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
  • Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
  • Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
  • Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
  • Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

  • Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
  • Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
  • Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
  • Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
  • Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
  • Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
  • Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Download my keynote to the HAC conference in Cleveland Ohio: The Healthy Business

The Health Action Council (HAC) helps employers create healthier workplaces and communities. It is a nonprofit, member-driven organisation focused on creating new ways employers can create healthier workplaces and communities that allow business to thrive. They collaboratively create and connect their more than 220 members (representing over 2 million lives) to innovative solutions aimed at improving the quality, safety, efficiency and affordability of healthcare, now and in the futur

Health Action Council works to improve the relationship between business and health by spearheading programs and services that approach health challenges in new ways and by bringing stakeholders together in partnership for their mutual benefit. By redirecting the conversation toward health – and not just healthcare – we are creating new opportunities for partnership between management, employees and service providers.

The IN-VALUE-ABLE Conference is for healthcare and wellness benefits professional tasked with benefits management and administration, cost mitigation, talent acquisition and employee retention, financial, compliance or legal responsibilities. It gives participants a fresh perspective and expertise that will immediately reduce costs, enhance program design, and significantly improve employee health outcomes.

0830 – 0930: Peter Fisk’s Keynote Speech … Gamechangers: How the world’s most disruptive innovators are reshaping the world.

  • Changing World: Exploring the challenges and opportunities of a changing world, focusing on new audiences and trends, finding new ways to compete and win.
    • Business is about more than profit, playing for today and with purpose for tomorrow.
    • Employees are driven by new factors, ethics and passions,  health and happiness.
    • Corporations win through foresight, imagination, talent, diversity, energy and agility.
  • Inspired by Innovators: Learning from the world’s most disruptive innovators, how they think bigger, future back and outside in, harness the power of technology and networks, inspiring and enabling.
    • WeWork creating workspaces for a new generation, fun and flexible, healthy and together
    • Udacity creating education for a new generation, fast and focused, self and company
    • Westin creating fitness experiences for guests and staff, partnering with Adidas
    • Lululemon taking the yoga studio to work, creating added value spaces and time
    • Vitality health insurance working with more partners to incentivise healthy behaviour
    • DBS, the world’s most innovative bank, creating healthier and wealthier people
  • The Healthy Business: Deciding what will you do to shape the future of your business, inspired by these others but focused on creating a better future for your business, and your customers businesses.
    • Partnering with your customer organisations to achieve more, focusing on their purpose and agendas, then linking health to their initiatives eg innovation, agility, speed.
    • Harnessing the power of networks, both in terms of bringing adjacent companies together to form richer solutions, and also connecting customer organisations together to do more.
    • Being the change. What’s your new health ambition? How will you be a role model for fitness and vitality, better work and lifestyle practices, and inspiring others to join you?

0950 – 1050: VIP Thought Leader Roundtable … How can we learn from the Gamechangers to innovate in new ways to create healthier businesses?

Innovating your future

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

  • Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
  • Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
  • Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
  • Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
  • Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
  • Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
  • Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

  • Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
  • Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
  • Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
  • Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
  • Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
  • Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
  • Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Orascom Development Holding (ODH) is a leading developer of fully integrated towns, like the one here alongside the Red Sea in La Gouna. Escape from the bustle, crowds and pollution of big cities to live a better life.

That’s how billionaire Egyptian Samih Sawaris started out. He loved fishing. He found the perfect place in the peace and tranquility at a site 40 minutes north of Hurghada. He built a house here. Then started building more homes for his friends.

But is was isolated. They also wanted a community, so he set about creating one. Add everything from a marina to restaurants, cinema to fitness clubs, school and hospital, library and social clubs, horse stables to golf courses. Soon more people wanted to be part of the community too. Even for a more temporary visit, so hotels started to emerge. Its even a great place to locate your new business, and all your staff too.

ODH now has a diverse portfolio of worldwide destinations covering Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Morocco, Montenegro, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The group operates a total of 35 hotels with 8,016 rooms and controls approximately 100.3 million sqm of land. Only a third of it developed so far.

The opportunities for growth are immense. Also the ability to realise a vision of a truly integrated town. A place where people can love, laugh and live together. How life should be.

As for Samih, he has now stepped back from ODH to enable a new generation of professional management to lead the business. He is the second of three sons of Onsi Sawiris, the other two being Naguib Sawiris and Nassef Sawiris. He remains executive Chairman of the Board of Directors. As of 2011 his net worth was estimated at $1.4 billion, making him the 879th richest person in the world. He became a Montenegrin citizen in 2011, the location of one of his latest towns.

Sawiris family business … the back story

The Sawiris family is the wealthiest in Egypt, running a conglomerate with global interests that stretch from mobile phones in North Korea a new hotel resort in Switzerland, according to a recent profile in The Gaurdian newspaper

One of the Sawiris brothers is also an investor in a highly influential Egyptian newspaper and the owner of TV interests. Father figure Onsi, was born in 1930, the son of a lawyer in southern Egypt. He started out in agriculture, before switching to construction and becoming one of the country’s largest contractors. But his early business career was frustrated by the socialist government of Gamal Abdel Nasser, which prevented him from leaving the country for six years in the 1960s.

After a spell in Libya, he returned to Egypt during the more business-friendly regime of the next Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat. The Sawiris family have continued to prosper over the past three decades under Hosni Mubarak’s government. With Osni Sawiris now effectively retired, his three sons – all educated in western universities – each run different arms of the family empire, Orascom.

Eldest son Naguib, who was educated in Zurich, is executive chairman of Orascom Telecom and a media owner in Egypt. Nassef, a graduate of Chicago University, is chief executive of Orascom Construction Industries. Naguib is said to be the intellectual guru of the family, with strong connections in the Cairo political elite and liberal sympathies.

The Guardian suggests that he is said to be close to Mubarak’s son and heir apparent, Gamal, who has advanced some of the country’s neoliberal economic reforms. Observers of the Egyptian political scene say he is an advocate of a progressive, liberal future for Egypt. He is an investor in the newspaper al-Masry al-Youm, which was launched in 2004 and has earned a strong reputation for pioneering an independent editorial agenda. He also launched the satellite TV network OTV, which he describes on its website as a service “for young people, without religious or loud content”.

“We want to report on the good and bad qualities of Egyptian society but without being neither vulgar nor superficial [sic]. The aim is to attract the public’s attention onto itself and to make people reflect on who they are. Recently, television in Egypt has enjoyed more freedom and, though it’s not enough, it’s better than nothing.”

The Sawiris family’s wealth has made them a visible symbol of the huge gulf between Egypt’s rich elite and its impoverished millions. They are drawn from Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, who form roughly 10% of the population, and Naguib has spoken of the importance of faith in his life. “What gives me strength and confidence is my belief in God,” he told US interviewer Charlie Rose. “I’m a very strong believer and this has been always the source of my strength, not the money.” Like his father and brothers, Naguib is undoubtedly a rich man: his wealth was estimated at $3bn, putting him just outside Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s top 200 billionaires in November.

Orascom Telecom runs Egypt’s leading mobile network, Mobinil, and has expanded into Algeria, Tunisia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even North Korea, where it became the secretive communist state’s first mobile phone operator. But global expansion can be difficult: after Algeria defeated Egypt in a World Cup playoff in November, sparking violence in both countries, rioters in Algeria attacked Orascom’s offices at a time when the Algerian government had slapped the company with a huge tax bill.

And Naguib sold the company’s mobile business in Iraq over concerns about the need for fresh investment amid the country’s instability, while he has also spoken of the difficulties of doing business in China and India. He has also entered the European mobile market, with his Weather Investments vehicle, buying mobile operators in Italy and Greece.

Samih Sawiris has been active abroad too. Responsible for holiday resorts in the Middle East such as El Couna and Taba Heights, he has turned his attention to an eye-catching development in Switzerland, where he is turning a disused barracks at Andermatt into a resort with an artificial beach and a golf course.

Accelerating the Future … rethinking strategy and progress

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

  • Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
  • Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
  • Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
  • Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
  • Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
  • Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
  • Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

  • Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
  • Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
  • Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
  • Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
  • Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
  • Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
  • Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Defy your limits in performance and style, day after day, run after run.

Your relentless determination will take you beyond the horizon line, leaving footsteps others will follow.

adidas wants to be the best sports company in the world …

“What does that mean? Well, to us ‘best’ means that we design, build and sell the best sports products in the world, with the best service and experience, and that we do so in a sustainable way. But ‘best’ is also what our consumers, athletes, teams, partners, media and shareholders say about us.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c0Cy1F6km4

“Creating the New is not only the attitude that leads us into the future, it is also the name of our strategic business plan until the year 2020 to accomplish our mission. At the core of Creating the New stands our ambition to further drive top- and bottom-line growth by significantly increasing brand desirability. We therefore focus on our brands as they connect and engage with our consumers.”

“We know that, in order to be successful, we need to get closer to our consumers than ever before. To achieve that, our plan is based on three strategic choices: Speed, Cities and Open Source.  But ultimately, Creating the New has its powerful foundation in our unique corporate culture. We have great talents in our organization who work with passion for sports and our brands. It is our people that bring our strategy to life and make the difference in achieving our long-term goals.”

Be the Gamechanger

We live in an incredible time. More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years.

New technologies are transforming the ways in which we live and work. Technologies enable incredible change. It is how we unlock their potential that matters.

The most innovative businesses see the world differently.

They don’t just seek to imitate the success of others, to compete in the markets of today, to frame themselves by their relative differences to competitors. Instead they play their own game.

I call them “gamechangers”, and have spent the last 24 months running competitions around the world, to find and rank the world’s most innovative companies by sector and geography.

So what’s the “game”? Well, in simple terms, it’s the market.

These companies go beyond innovating their products and services, their customer experienes and business models. They seek to innovate how their markets work.

Think of it like a sports game. How could you change the game? It could be anything from the pitch dimensions to rules of play, the team composition to the measures of success, the role of the referee to the participation of fans. Even the name of the game.

Now look at today’s most disruptive innovators – 23andMe to Airbnb, Brewdog to Buzzfeed, Casper to Coursera – they reframe, reimagine and redefine the market on their terms – who is it for, why people buy, what they pay and get, and how they work.

I’ve met and profiled over 250 “gamechanger” companies on my travels, in almost every sector, and in every part of the world. Corporate giants and start-ups, from Abu Dhabi to Berlin, Colombo to Qingdao.

There is no one way to change the game, but there are definitely some common traits:

  • Audacious – Gamechangers are visionary and innovative, but also daring and original; they seek to shape the future to their advantage.
  • Purposeful – They seek to make life better, in some relevant and inspiring way; they have a higher motive than just making money.
  • Networked – Gamechangers harness the power of networks, digital and physical, both business and customer networks, to exponentially reach further faster.
  • Intelligent – They use big data analytics and algorithms, machine learning and AI, to be smart and efficient, personal and predictive.
  • Collaborative – Gamechangers work with others, from ecosystems to platforms, social networks and co-creation, to achieve more together.
  • Enabling – They focus not on what they do, but what they enable people to do; and thereby redefine their marketspace, find new opportunities and redefine value.
  • Commercial – Gamechangers take a longer-term perspective, adopting new business models, and recalibrating the measures of progress and success.

Do you have a future mindset?

Today’s business leaders need a future mindset. That sounds obvious, but isn’t.

Most leaders have a “fixed mindset”. They keep stretching the old models of success. They stay loyal to the model that made them great, seeking to squeeze and tweak it for as long as possible. They seek perfection – to optimise what they currently do – which leads to efficiency and incremental gains.

Instead a “future mindset” is prepared to let go of the past. To explore the future, to experiment with new ways of working and winning. Failure is a way to learn, and innovation becomes the norm. Change is relentless inside, as it is outside. Innovation is their lifeblood. Like Jeff Bezos loves to say “it is always day one”.

With a future mindset, the CEO needs new attributes:

  • Sense maker – to interpret a fast and confusing world, to see new patterns and opportunities, what is relevant and not, to shape your own vision.
  • Radical optimist – to inspire people with a stretching ambition, positive and distinctive, to be audacious, to see the possibilities when others only see risk.
  • Future hacker – they start from the “future back”, with clarity of purpose and intent, encouraging ideas and experiments, leveraging resource and scale.
  • Ideas connector – da Vinci said innovation is about making unusual connections;  connecting new people, new partners, new capabilities and new ideas.
  • Emotionally agile – whilst organisational agility is essential, emotional agility matters even more; to cope with change, to be intuitive in making sense, and making choices.
  • Entrepreneur at large – keeping the founders mentality alive, hands-on working with project teams to infuse the mindset, to be the catalyst and coach.
  • Having grit – “gamechanger” leaders need to go against the grain, to persist but know when to move on, to have self belief and confidence, guts and resilience.

The future is a better place to start

Start from the “future back”.

Trying to evolve in today’s complex and confused world is unlikely to lead you towards a bright and distinctive future. It will extend your life a little longer, but it will be tough and uninspiring, with diminishing returns.

Instead jump to the future. I tend to start with five years ahead, although it may differ by company. 5 years is long enough to change the world, but close enough to be real. Start by creating a positive, collective and inspiring vision of the future market. What will it be like? What will people want? Why? How? Where? Then consider how to win in this new world.

This is where “moonshot thinking” can be really useful. “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?” 10 times more profits, more customers, more quality, reduced cost, reduced time. Whatever. By giving yourself a “How could we do it 10x better” challenge you take a new perspective, solve problems in different ways.

Be inspired by ideas from other places.

Explore how ARM or GE, Inditex or Netflix, Glossier or Novo Nordisk have changed their markets. Choose any of my 100+ “gamechanger” companies! How did they do it? How did customers respond? (Remember, they often serve the same customers as you!). You can’t learn much from competitors, but you can learn a lot from relevant parallels.

Copy. Adapt. Paste.

Customer insight also matters. Deep dives and design thinking, exploring the emerging trends and deviant behaviours. This can enhance and validate your ideas, but the problem with most customer insight is that it is filtered by our current world. You need something to disrupt your thinking.

I have a great box of disruptive techniques. Some are really simple – like break then remake the rules, like imagine its free then find a way to make money, like reverse polarities and many more. The point is to disrupt your conventional thinking.

From this, ideas rapidly emerge. You need lots of ideas about the future. But these are fragments of the real answer. The real creativity comes in fusing together into bigger “concepts”. These could be customer solutions, or new ways of working, new revenue streams, or new business models, and new market scenarios.

Once you have a clear and collective ambition for the future, it’s time to work backwards.  “If this is how we want to be in 5 years, where do we need to get to in 3 years, and then in 1 year?  Therefore what do we need to start doing now?” You develop a “horizon plan” for your business; a strategy roadmap if you like, but developed backwards.

The important thing is that by working backwards, you have jumped out of the morass of today. You’ve avoided the assumptions, limitations, problems and priorities of today’s thinking. You have a more inspiring “gamechanging” future, and have started to map out the steps to get there. Most likely with different priorities in the short-term too.

Of course the steps on this journey might change, but it’s going to be an exciting adventure.

Change the way we think, resolve the conflicts

In today’s busineses, we have created artificial divides in how we think and operate. Digital and physical seem like two different worlds, global and local seem like alternative strategies that cannot combine, many still struggle to align value to customers and shareholders in a mutually reinforcing way, and short and long-termism continues to confuse our priorities.

Our thinking within business, has created separate and apparently conflicting approaches. The opportunity is to make the combination of both approaches world – “fusions” if you like – to be innovative in the way you combine apparent opposites.

Digital and physical are two sides of the same coin.

There is only one world, unless you believe Ray Kurzweil, and it is the real one. It’s human and physical. Digital technologies are incredibly powerful, enabling people to connect, to work, to learn, to play in new ways. From mobile phones to blockchains, 3D printing and augmented reality, digital allows us to do more, do it faster, do things we could never do before. But it’s still about humanity.

Start with people. How can you enable them to achieve more? To live better, to have more fun, to do better for the world. Whatever matters. I work closely with Richard Branson and his Virgin teams. Their mindset is to “start from the outside, and then work in”. Design a better customer experience. Built on your ambition and insight, and then explore how you could deliver it with new and existing capabilities.

Global and local are opportunities for every business.

I love Amazon’s “Treasure Truck” … Most of us have never connected with Amazon beyond the website and the delivery guy. Amazon is huge, global and anonymous. But the Treasure Truck is real. It travels around the country, bringing its pop-up store to local neighbourhoods, fun and games, bargains and demos. For Amazon, it’s a chance to make real connections, listen to people, and to be local.

We can all see a backlash in society against relentless globalisation, huge corporations, and social inequality. We see a lack of trust in brands, and know that authenticity matters. Etsy shows us that even the smallest and most local artisan businesses can also be global. For every business, local and global markets are within reach, however it’s also about combining scale and standardisation, with relevance and individuality.

Ideas and networks should be the core of your business.

Gamechanger businesses need a compelling idea, a core purpose, an inspiring proposition, that can spread fast and contagiously. In a digitally-fuelled world, the most innovative businesses embrace “ideas and networks” to drive exponential impact – like WhatsApp creating $19bn in three years, Airbnb $40bn in 9 years, Alibaba $476bn in 18 years, Amazon $740bn in 23 years.

Think about that concept of “exponential” … The power of networks – be it franchisees, or distributors, or customers and users – lies not in the number of members, but in the connections between them. Networks have a multiplying effect. Exponential. Consider, for example, Rapha, the sportwear brand that brings together people with a passion for cycling, who conveniently meet at their “Cycle Club” stores, and buy their premium gear. A fantastic “ideas and networks” business.

Finally this idea of short-term and long-term being in conflict with each other.

Jeff Bezos never has this problem, nor Elon Musk, nor Richard Branson. They focus on the long-term, recognising it will require some years of investment to get there. They all of course lead privately-owned companies. But every public company has the same ambition to innovate and grow. And so do most of their investors, actually.

The reality is that any company’s stock market performance is based on its future earnings potential, not its past. The better you can engage with equity analysts, journalists and investors themselves to explain why you will deliver a better future worth waiting for, then you get their support. If you don’t engage them in your future vision, plans and innovations, then they will default to looking for short-term evidence. It’s really in our hands, to work together to create a future we want to invest in. And to share the greater risk and rewards.

Time to embrace your future mindset

We live in an incredible time … More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years … remember? I know that sounds a little crazy, but think about Hyperloop in 3 years, a tipping point to electric cars in 5 years, Mars missions in 8 years. They are all real, and possible.

Digital platforms connecting buyers and sellers in new ways, blockchain having the potential to transform relationships and trust, 3d printing having the potential to transform value chains to deliver anything personalised and on-demand, AI and robotics giving us the capabilities to be superhuman in our minds and bodies.

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, rather than buy standard products, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Time to embrace your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit. Be more curious, be more intuitive, be more human. Ask more questions. Don’t be afraid to have audacious ideas, to challenge the old models of success, and turn future ambitions into practical profitable reality.

How else did Zespri reinvent the Chinese gooseberry as the kiwi fruit? How else will SpaceX reach Mars by 2025? How else did Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

This is why 23andMe’s Anne Wojicki wont give up in her quest to make DNA analysis available to everyone, and to ultimately find a cure for cancer. And it’s why Jack Ma didn’t give up as he rose from $1000-per year English teacher to technological royalty.

The secret is the future mindset.

To realise that the future is malleable. So we need to grab hold of it, and shape it in our own vision. To our advantage.

This is what “gamechangers” do.

Next Technologies, Positive Leadership, and Future Strategies

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s keynote Superhuman Futures 

In order to ensure the success of their organizations, directors must rethink, refocus, and reinvent their approach to talent management. Only those who are willing to embrace change and respond with innovative solutions will succeed in this brave new world.

Throughout the Global Leadership Challenge Forum, directors from leading companies’ across the Middle East will have the unique opportunity to learn how to harness the potential of humanity, in a world of robotics and AI, including the reinvention of education, work and healthcare.

We will discuss new approaches to train the next generation of leaders, and will help the participants develop the mindsets required not only to manage, but to thrive as leaders in a business environment marked by intense workplace pressure, unrelenting change, and escalating competition.

0915 – 1030 : Superhuman Future

Peter Fisk explores how to harness the potential of humanity, in a world of robotics and AI – including the reinvention of education, work and healthcare.

1030 – 1145 : Positive Leadership

Declan Noone on leadership in times on change, how to get your team motivated during times of transformation, new approaches to train the next generation of leaders.

1245 – 1400 : Future Hackers

Winning by thinking from the future back, focuses on the strategy technique of future back planning, and the opportunities for business, and implications for leaders.

How do you win in a world of relentless change?

You know you need to innovate more than ever. You need to think bigger, and different. Not just as an occasional project, but as a continual stream of revolution. You need to think more significantly, how to solve the significant problems of a restless world, to seize the new opportunities to make life better in useful and meaningful ways, and to accelerate profitable growth. Not just the technology, but the smart application of it to the real world, socially and commercially.

Smaller, incremental innovations are quickly swallowed up, or made irrelevant by the next thing. Consumers see through the hype and fragility. Or don’t have time for the frivolity of irrelevance.

Of course, small changes can add to bigger ones, but if they collectively don’t achieve more, and move you forwards in a bigger way, then they are distracting and wasted.

We need bigger ideas. But they are hard to deliver, particularly when the landscape keeps moving. When the future is imperfect or even unpredictable. When the business case is difficult to make. When everything seems to have been already, and most competitors are into marginal gains – discounts and tweaks to almost perfect products and services.

Stop! Think again.

Time to “hack” the future

Switch on your Musk mindset … Unlock your Einstein dreams and Picasso passion … Embrace your Mandela courage and Ghandi spirit.

Is this what will take SpaceX to Mars by 2025? Is this why Zespri reinvented the chinese gooseberry? Is this how Netflix came to be, or NuTonomy, or Nespresso, or Nyx?

Is this what motivates Jeff Bezos to say “every day is day one”? Is this how Anne Wojicki seeks to cure cancer? Is this why Jack Ma ignored everyone to create $500bn in 15 years?

We need to think bigger, but we also need to think actively. The future is malleable, so we need to grab hold of it, to shape it in our own vision. To our advantage. This is what “game changers” do. They take a market, and reinvent it, or even create a new one, on their terms. Don’t just innovate a product, service, or even business model – innovate the market.

Of course, they can’t plan exactly how to get there. That would be ridiculous, like trying to climb Mount Everest without the agility to sense and respond to the changing weather conditions. But they know where they are going. They have a bigger dream. And they are willing to fight and flex to get there.

And then they hack.

You think of it as a nerdy kid sitting in front of a bank of computers, trying to infiltrate the most cybersecure fortresses. But its much more than that. It’s about using your  brain, curiosity, intuition, hypothesis, resourcefulness, and experimentation. It’s about sensing your way, being bold yet also adaptive, being flexible but also driven.

Leaders need a “future mindset” 

There is no space into today’s business world for a fixed mindset. One which seeks to sit an optimise the current world, in search of ever greater efficiency and ultimate perfection. That is a route of diminishing returns. It’s also what you’ve been doing for decades. Trying to hang on to the old model of success. Instead we need a future mindset. To face the future every day, find new ways forward, to a better world.

A future mindset needs an organisational context in order to be shared and thrive – an agile innovation culture. Business is shifting from a passive to active dynamic – where 80% of activities are active (project-type working focused on innovation, experimentation and customisation) and only 20% passive (ongoing-type working focused on administration, production and standardised delivery), rather than the opposite.

In this active culture, work becomes fast and flexible, innovation becomes the core rather than a occasional luxury, where there are no limiting strategies and fixed ways of working, unhindered by internally-focused structures and process, and where ideas and experiments can thrive. And where the focus is no longer about living off the past, or surviving for today. But inspired by a better future.

How do you see your future?

We live in an incredible time.  More change in the next 10 years than in the last 250 years. New technologies transforming the ways in which we live and work. Digital platforms and blockchains, AI and robotics, 3D printing and nanotech .

These are just some of the fantastic new capabilities that enable us to innovate beyond what we can even imagine today. The future isn’t like the future used to be. We cannot just evolve or extrapolate the past. Today’s future is discontinuous, disruptive, different.

It is imagination that will move us forwards … unlocking the technological possibilities, applying them to real problems and opportunities, to drive innovation and growth in every industry, in every part of our lives.

Imagine a world where you press “print” to get the dress of your dreams, the food of your fantasies, or the spare parts for your car. Instantly, personalised and on demand. Think then what does that mean if we don’t need the huge scale of manufacturing plants, warehousing and transportation. Maybe we will even subscribe to the IP catalogues of brands, in the ways we currently subscribe to Netflix.

Growth starts from the “future back”

The best place to start is the future. The best entrepreneurs think “future back” rather than just trying to move forwards with the limitations and distractions of today. Elon Musk grabs headlines with his bold “Humans on Mars by 2025” vision, but then that makes everything else more purposeful, and more possible. Tesla to Hyperloop to SpaceX, all seem more possible, and even stepping stones to a greater destination.

“Future back” thinking also means you are not limited by your own capabilities. Richard Branson had a fantastic vision for a better airline, a consumer bank, a space travel business. But no idea how to make them happen. But then he found partners who could help make them happen. Partners with the expertise on tap, to connect with his ideas, and together innovate further and faster.

Partnerships are key to the future, connecting ideas and capabilities, risks and rewards, to achieve more together.

What might your world look like in 2025?

By jumping to the future, and then working backwards, you develop a bolder, braver ambition. Shaping the future on your terms, exploring the new possibilities for innovation and growth, unlimited by the priorities and prejudices of today. New technologies will be key, but they are more the enablers than answers. How will they make life better? How will they make your business better?

Inspired by the Adidas Speedfactory, what does the future of your manufacturing look like? If Amazon’s Alexa can manage your home, then what could the future workplace look like? What would happen if phones were free like Jio Phone has just disruptively done in India? How could you apply big data like 23&Me in healthcare to predict what people want? Or the new business models like Airbnb and Nespresso to redefine markets? Beyond the hype of Bitcoin, how could blockchain redefine how you engage customers? And what actually will people want most in the future?

Futurists look for emerging patterns – signals of future possibilities, already out there. Emergent behaviours, adaptive usage, new aspirations. You just need to find these signals, and apply them. Maybe on the fringes of your market, or by transferring ideas from other sectors, or other geograhies, or others aspects of life.

Leonardo da Vinci definined innovation as making unusual connections. So how could you connect the most relevant and disruptive ideas together in new ways?

Are you ready to create your better future?

It’s time to jump to the future. And then look back. Then you will see today differently.

Too many of us get locked in to a mindset of today – of incremental, extrapolating, and perfecting the old world. Working backwards from 2025 you will define different milestones, different priorities to be achieved within 3 years, and even next year.

Innovation demands a future mindset, that will deliver bigger ideas to drive innovation and growth, and new perspectives on what matters most today.

Are you ready?

Download a summary of Peter Fisk’s opening keynote: The Future is Female. 

In 2009, the first Global “Women in Leadership” Economic Forum broke new ground in the Middle East by giving a platform for women leaders to gather and advance gender diversity.

Since then, the forum has traveled across continents and evolved much.

While staying committed to its initial objective to champion gender diversity, the Global WIL Economic Forum now shines a light on other economic imperatives such as the inclusion of all and social impact.

Endorsed and opened by the UAE Minister of Economy for the past five years, the forum is bringing together 1,000 like-minded individuals from around the world, to shape the economy of tomorrow.

This year, the program digs into impact investing, social entrepreneurship, STEM, and arts & culture – addressed by regional and global leading organisations, policy makers and story-tellers.

I will be doing a number sessions during this fantastic event:

Breakfast: “Disrupt or be Disrupted”

  • Disruption as both a challenge and incredible opportunity
  • Innovation that solves bigger business and social problems
  • Leadership that creates the future world you want to see
  • 15 min introduction, 45 min discussion

0950 – 1020: Keynote “The Future is Female”

  • Technology disrupts the logic of a male-dominated world
  • Creativity, humanity, empathy, and intuition matter more
  • The 21st century and the power and influence of women
  • 30 min opening keynote

1530 – 1615 : Panel “Can AI and technology drive social impact”

  • How business can be a powerful force for good, and make money
  • Embracing digital technologies to accelerate the impact
  • 16 examples of businesses who win through social impact
  • Read more

1615 – 1700: Workshop “Leading from the Future Back”

  • Progress starts by thinking from the future back
  • Developing a 5:3:1 approach to strategy and innovation
  • Leading with a growth mindset – bold, brave and brilliant
  • 45 min practical workshop

While the world is evolving, women are still lagging behind when it comes to leadership roles in business. Today, only 26 women are in CEO roles at Fortune 500 companies, making up 5.2% of the female population, according to a report by Pew Research. The stats stay virtually the same for women CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies at 5.4%, showing that there is little movement of women making up these high-ranking positions as company leaders.

With women still pushing to reach the top, they are faced with a range of challenges that many of their male CEO counterparts don’t have an understanding of. It is these issues that are preventing many women from achieving their goal of becoming a leader at their company and diminishing their ability to get ahead in business.

Consider one example from the latter article, which demonstrates the attitudes which still need to be overcome, and to recognise the real value of women, and equally what is required to lead in today’s complex and connected world:

Here are some great examples of successful female leaders in business, women who have reached the top of organisations either as entrepreneurs or through managing the politics and power of corporate organisations to become successful:

Mary Barra, CEO General Motors … reinventing the auto business for the future

Ana Botin, Executive Chair, Santander … transformational leader of the Spanish bank

Cher Wang, Chairwoman, HTC … perhaps the world’s most successful female entrepreneur

Indra Nooyi, ex CEO, Pepsico … from India to America, bridging east and west 

Ginni Rometty, CEO IBM … leading one of the world’s largest consulting firms

Sara Al Madani, founder Rouge Couture … fashion designer and leadership coach

Ayah Bdeir, CEO Little Bits … the Lebanese founder of electronic building blocks

Forbes magazine recently asked 15 female leaders to share what they see as the big challenges, and their advice to take a lead:

1. Being Treated Equally

One of the biggest challenges my female clients are currently facing is equality in the workplace. My advice for women leaders everywhere is to go for what they want in their careers and not to give up. Hone the skills necessary to give you those opportunities, such as your communication skills, leadership development, and emotional intelligence. Raise your hand in meetings. Speak up, and be heard. –Valerie Martinelli, Valerie Martinelli Consulting, LLC

2. Building A Sisterhood

The biggest challenge my female clients face today is garnering support from other women. My advice to women worldwide is to support and empower each other, starting with our basic principles of who we are — our morals, values, integrity. We must be just. Be humbled, show togetherness, passion, excellence and enthusiasm toward laying the foundation for our progress through our work. – Nadidah Coveney, CTM Consulting Group LLC

3. Generating Revenue

One of the biggest challenges my female clients currently face is growing their revenues. Money solves everything; it gives you freedom and choices. My advice is to focus on what generates revenue wherever you are. After all, if you don’t have revenue, you don’t have a business. For entrepreneurs, that’s called a hobby. –Christine Hueber, ChristineHueber.com

4. Being Confident

One of the biggest challenges I see when I speak with females is their confidence. I tell them they need to get comfortable knowing that people will always try to take you off of “your game” or dislike you for no apparent reason. But if you go in knowing this, if you are clear on your purpose and on what you are trying to achieve, then you will be successful in getting what you want. – Francine Parham,FrancineParham & Co.

5. Speaking Up

It’s not enough to be in a role or to sit at the table. One must also speak confidently, regardless of odds faced. Women leaders fear being ostracized or rejected; however, respect comes when one’s voice is heard. I coach leaders to share their voice and perspective because it can help shape policy, the workforce and perspective. Make your presence known as a leader and collaborator for good. – LaKisha Greenwade, Lucki Fit LLC

6. Building Alliances With Decision-Makers

My female clients come to me because they’ve been put down, pushed aside, or told they don’t belong at the table. It’s not easy to be bullied, but there is a way to get past it. I suggest women build healthy relationships with advocates, create a strong personal brand, establish guidelines before each project, position themselves as experts in their field, and communicate with confidence. – Christina Holloway,Christina Holloway

7. Becoming A Member Of The C-Suite

Women everywhere are making auspicious moves in the workplace. They are taking more risks and preparing themselves to take on more challenging roles. That said, one of the greatest obstacles they face is making their way to the C-suite. My advice is that they take the bull by the horns: Know what you want and be relentless in your preparation. Equivocation will always be your worst enemy. –Karima Mariama-Arthur, Esq., WordSmithRapport

8. Asking For Money

For over 32 years, I have led women entrepreneurs to their next levels in business, and often the challenge is sales and anything related to income — not charging enough, being afraid to ask, underpricing, marketing, promoting, “bragging” to establish authority, and giving away services for free. My advice is to learn to master sales and get confident in your skills so you price properly and gain respect. – Tracy Repchuk, InnerSurf Online Brand & Web Services

9. Standing In Their Success

Some women leaders shy away from speaking on their accomplishments for fear of being boastful or conceited. Women tend to think that it’s needed to shrink themselves to seem non-intimidating. I advise clients to gain the confidence to know that if they’re in the room, that means they deserve to be there. Shrinking does nothing but delay your voice from being heard and taken seriously. – Niya Allen-Vatel, Career Global

10. Tackling Imposter Syndrome

The biggest challenge my female clients face is an inability to internalize their accomplishments. We first get to the root of why this belief exists, then adjust their locus of control by making accurate assessments of their performance, then get feedback from other leaders to confirm their strengths. By tackling imposter syndrome, they are able to better develop their leadership. – Loren Margolis,Training & Leadership Success LLC

11. Overcoming Perfectionism

Many of the women leaders I coach get paralyzed by their perfectionist tendencies. I often recommend reflection for clients when they get really stuck. It might be a shorter pause, such as a few deep breaths or short meditation, or a longer activity like a walk, journaling exercise, or a Brené Brown book excerpt or TED Talk. All of these approaches have worked well to help manage perfectionism. – Jill Hauwiller,Leadership Refinery

12. Trusting Their Own Voice

In conversations with leaders, there is one recurring theme that haunts me. It is the virtually inaudible question I hear women asking themselves too often: “Who am I to…?” What I tell my clients is that right now, they are among the wealthiest, most educated and powerful women on the planet. They have not risen to their current title by accident. They must trust and use their own voice! – Susanne Biro,Susanne Biro & Associates Coaching Inc.

13. Shifting Their Word Choice

Women share the challenge of reconciling an internal conflict between being perceived as a respected leader versus a bossy woman. Professional women can resolve this issue and own the respected leader role by shifting from judgmental to neutral words. This subtle transition positively influences the way a listener digests the message and perceives the speaker’s authority and leadership. – Elaine Rosenblum, J.D., ProForm U®

14. Dealing With Negative Thoughts

One of the biggest challenges my female clients face is they allow for the negative thoughts that arise in their mind to take control of their life. My advice for women everywhere is to take control of their thoughts by becoming consciously aware of them and to either replace them with more positive and encouraging thoughts or to accept them and decide to move forward despite them.

15. Re-Entering The Paid Workforce

Relaunching a career after a long hiatus as a full-time caregiver for children or aging parents is challenging. It requires combating ageism, rebuilding confidence, reconstructing a network, dusting off old skills or developing new ones, and catching up on technology. Women leaders — help these relaunchers advance themselves, even if your path was different and didn’t include a career break.

A recent article in Inc magazine says when people call for more women in the workplace, it may sound as though they’re just trying to meet a quota. Gender diversity, though, could be the key to any company’s success. Diversifying a variety of top positions, specifically executive roles, is more than a movement to level the corporate playing field — it’s about using the best resources to maximize every organization’s potential.

Effective but Underrepresented

“If women ran the world, there would be no wars.” It’s an old stereotype, but there’s something to be said for the effects of more women in leadership positions. In fact, according to a Morgan Stanley report, “more gender diversity, particularly in corporate settings, can translate to increased productivity, greater innovation, better products, better decision-making, and higher employee retention and satisfaction.”

Despite the observed benefits, however, company leadership around the world remains unbalanced, with women accounting for less than a quarter of management positions globally. The disparity is even greater when it comes to higher-level management positions. 24/7 Wall St. analyzed data compiled by the research group LedBetter and discovered that of the 234 companies that own almost 2,000 of the world’s most recognized consumer brands, only 14 of the companies had a female CEO, while nine of them had no women at all serving in executive positions or on their boards.

It’ll take more than just a motivated resistance to overturn years of systemic inequality and create opportunities for more female executives. But by employing a few key strategies, everyone from business leaders to individual employees can help combat the gender gap and move our workforce toward greater leadership balance.

1. Promote a Welcoming Culture

Creating more opportunities for women starts with creating a more inclusive environment. Any specific efforts to recruit women to leadership roles in corporate settings are useless if companies don’t encourage a work culture where they can succeed.

According to Anu Mandapati, founder of IMPACT Leadership for Women, some initial steps to creating this culture are to focus mainly on education and experience in the hiring process, offer salaries based on the market rate rather than salary history, and start rewarding outcomes achieved instead of hours worked. Each of these guidelines could build the foundation for gender equality in the workplace, thus creating an environment where women can thrive in leadership roles.

2. Invest in Companies That Champion Diversity

The business community can also have a positive impact on female equality by investing in companies that are pioneering this change. Christine Alemany, CEO advisor at Trailblaze Growth Advisors, claims it’s not enough to rely on existing, male-centric corporations to promote equality. “It’s time for women to start their own businesses and begin to invest in new ones that are diverse,” Alemany notes.

According to Alemany, there are a handful of venture capitalists and private equity firms that see diversity as a priority and focus on companies with diverse executive teams as part of their investment strategy. The firm 112Capital, for instance, has invested in female-led tech companies, while the JumpFund focuses on female-led ventures in the southeastern U.S.  If more firms embrace this objective, a new wave of female executives will emerge.

3. Make the Results Public

Improving the opportunities for female executives at your own company is one thing, but inspiring other organizations to do the same is where the real battle lies. One way to do that is by making women leaders visible. When Emily Culp, CMO of Keds, is invited to industry events, she shares her invitation with her female colleagues.

Culp raises the visibility of her entire team by encouraging them to partake in public speaking events and activities outside of work, such as serving on a board or volunteering. She explains the value: “Real business opportunities come out of these events, but you have to be present to network.”

Creating a more inclusive culture takes time, but with cooperation from companies around the world, gender equality in upper-level management may be closer than ever.

Human capital is a nation’s most valuable asset, and the key to its future growth. However in a world of disruptive change, we need to develop people in new ways – education, healthcare and work – in order to ensure a better human future.

“The world is endowed with a vast wealth of human talent. The ingenuity and creativity at our collective disposal provides us with the means not only to address the great challenges of our time but also, critically, to build a future that is more inclusive and human centric” says Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum

All too often however, human potential is not realised. It is held back by short-termism, by a blinkered focus on partial solutions, or by inequality. The World Bank’s Human Capital Index claims that the world has developed only 62% of its human capital, leaving much of the talent and dreams of people across the world unrealised.

This matters because human capital is an investment – in all of us – our personal health and achievement, as well as the sustainability and wealth of our society. If we don’t invest then we decline. And in today’s world of change, if we don’t invest then we decline dramatically.

Whilst the last century has seen huge improvements around the world – in reducing poverty and unemployment, improving literacy and health – the years ahead will see new challenges. Challenges to the dreams to which we aspired. What will happen to jobs, to the aging populations, to small businesses, to emerging countries, to local cultures?

New technologies of the “fourth industrial revolution” – robots and machines, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. New social challenges from the environment to inequality, to knowing who to trust. They all challenge life as we know it, and our potential.

Yet we live in the most incredible time.

The next 10 years will see more change than the last 250 years. From self-cleaning clothes and digital personal assistants, DNA profiling to automated cars, intelligent machines to missions to Mars. None of this is new, yet we approach it with trepidation. Do we need and want this change? Change is inevitably scary and disruptive.

Visions of the future of work are often dominated by the jobs that will be lost. The future of healthcare is devoted to the rising costs of treatments. The future of education is driven from the perspective of the need to learn more. Yes robots will likely take 20% of today’s jobs, medicines will become more expensive, and education will be become ever more crucial.

But the real opportunity is to be more human.

Machines enhance our ability to work, like the exoskeletons worn by the dockyard workers in South Korea. Machines enhance our about ability to learn, like the millions of children taught online across Africa. Machines bring us new forms of social interaction, infinite access to the best entertainment, and to achieve more in sports. To unlock our strengths and talents.

In 2025 the majority of children in Sweden will teach each other through peer to peer education, rather than in classrooms by teachers. Collaborative learning is more effective, and motivating. Learning is more about how to think, how to find information when its needed, rather than the old limiting world of text books and exam papers.

In 2025 the majority of health treatments in the UAE will be delivered through a mobile phone, predictive to the needs of individuals before they ever become ill. The constant online tracking of the body enables the proactive treatment that reduces illness, and reduces the costs of expensive hospital care and more expensive medicines.

In 2025 the majority of workers in Kenya will be freelance individuals working around the world, independent of distance or background. They will apply their human, emotional, creative skills to solve ever-more complex problems. They have the hunger to keep learning throughout their lives, and the open-mindedness to see things differently.

Whilst efficiency might be achieved through automation, progress is achieved through people. People with the creative talents, the emotional engagement, and intelligent judgements to achieve progress. In some ways the technologies enhance our capability, to be faster and smarter, to achieve more. You could call it, to be superhuman.

Human capital is the investment to achieve a better future. For every one of us as individuals, but even more importantly, for us collectively. It is the investment that allows us to unlock the potential of these new technologies, to solve the big problems of a fragile world, and to resolve the tensions of fragmenting societies.

Developing human capital – most importantly through talent, vitality and achievement – is the pathway to progress. New ways of learning are a starting point, but not enough. New ways of living and working take us further. When we connect these forms of human capital we get a multiplying effect. When we do it together, we can amplify the benefits even further.

We see the benefits all around us, every day. New ideas. Growing businesses. Architectural beauty. Sporting achievements. Healthy bodies. Smiling faces.

Developing human capital is the way to create a more creative and thoughtful, more equal and accessible world. The way in which people live together with more freedom and tolerance, and the way in which nations sustain growth and economic wellbeing.

Human potential moves the world forwards.

Building a better, brighter future.

Continue reading Peter Fisk’s new manifesto for humanity, launched in Paris today.

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“Learning from Asia” … Exploring the best new ideas from around the world to help Europe’s business leaders to innovate and grow.

The European Business Forum 2019 will take place in the beautiful City of Odense, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen and one of Europe’s leading robotics hubs. What better place to explore the new ideas shaping the world of business?

Hosted by Peter Fisk, EBF is known as “the Davos of business thinking”. EBF19 brings together the world’s top business academics and Europe’s business leaders to write the story of the future.

This year we recognise the dramatic ways in which markets all around the world are being shaken up – by new technologies, new consumers, new challenges, and new aspirations. From artificial intelligence to robotics, digital platforms and ecosystems, climate change and millennial workers, new middle classes and polarising politics, entrepreneurs and global giants.

Most significantly, we explore how today’s winning companies are responding to this new world by changing the way they work – dynamic strategies, agile mindsets, living cultures, innovative business models, fluid structures, fast operating systems, inspiring leadership.

Asia is probably the world’s most dynamic market right now, and equally with some of the best new ideas for how to do business. From Beijing to Hyderabad, Shenzhen to Singapore, Jakarta to Tokyo, we see radical innovations in every sector, and exponential growth of companies.

Alibaba’s data-driven self-tuning strategies, Softbank’s $200bn venture funds, Tencent’s gamified WeChat-fuelled ecosystem, Haier’s rendanheyi entrepreneurialism, Uniqlo’s fast and slow model, Meituan’s radical distribution, DBS’s bank reinvention, Jio’s dramatic market growth, and more.

What can we learn from these Asian markets, and the new approaches embraced by their most successful companies? And how can European business leaders apply these ideas to their own organisations in relevant and profitable ways?

EBF19 Agenda

Here’s the fabulous line-up of speakers, insights and ideas, for this year’s forum:

DAY 1 … INSPIRED BY A CHANGING WORLD

0900     Peter Fisk … Welcome to the future

We live in an incredible time. A world of relentless change. More change is going to happen in the next 10 years, than the last 250 years. 7% growth in Asia, 1% in Europe. Asia has 5 billion people, 65% of the world’s megacities, 70% of global growth, 30 of the Fortune 100. Consider these companies: Alibaba’s self-tuning ecosystem, BYD low-cost driverless cars, Bytedance’s intelligent content, DBS’s radical bank, Haier’s corporate entrepreneurship, Samsung’s engineers at drama school, Softbank’s 300 year vision. These businesses are all leaders in their fields. What are their secrets? How can they inspire European business to rise again, in a more enlightened way, to seize the opportunities of an incredible changing world?

Welcome by the Mayor of Odense, Peter Rahbæk Juel.

Session 1: Exploring the new world

Global markets are being transformed at speed. Power shifts are economic, political and culture. Emerging markets dominate mature markets, both in growth and ideas. A new generation of businesses, fuelled by technology and imagination, challenge once-invincible corporations. Influencers build brands through the power of networks and relationships, yet reputations can also fall fast and dramatically. Technology challenges humanity, requiring new regulation and ethics, whilst social and environmental issues beg for new solutions. This is the reality for today’s business leaders.

0915     Kjell Nordstrom… The New Funky Business

20 years ago, the Swede’s book Funky Business took the world by storm. It challenged the management class to wake up to a world of change. It encouraged revolution of change, to embrace “competitiveness as what you know, multiplied by who you know”, and to seize power by empowering people with dreams. So how has the world changed in the last 20 years? Is the funky of 1999 now a normality, demanding new levels of “funkyness” to win in today’s economy? Kjell Nordstrom is back to re-shock and re-inspire your brains. It’s time for business to get funky again.

0945     Anna Rosling… Factfulness Live

How well do you know today’s world? Facts can describe a very different world from what we imagine. Indeed, most of our ideas and opinions are shaped by huge misconceptions about what the world is really like. Anna’s father-in-law Hans Rosling, a global health professor and unintentional YouTube star, changed the way we think about the world through his bubble charts of statistics, with a passion to show that the world is a much better place than we thought. Anna continues this journey, looking at changing markets, with particular focus on the changing nature of consumers and businesses around the world.

1015    Discuss … Why do business leaders need new perspectives? Why should we look to new markets like Asia for better ideas and inspiration, to apply to our businesses in Europe?

1030 – 1100     Break

Session 2: Connecting the new world

Whether you work for a small, local company or a global corporate, today’s ever more global and virtual world requires skills to navigate through cultural differences and decode cultures foreign to your own. When you have Americans who precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans who get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians who are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians who think the best boss is just one of the crowd … the result can be, well, sometimes interesting, even funny, but often disastrous.

1100     Erin Meyer… The Culture Map Workshop

INSEAD’s renowned culture expert Erin Meyer, an American living in Europe, is back at EBF19 as your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain where people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. In her bestselling book The Culture Mapshe provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business. She combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice for succeeding in a global world.

1230 – 1330     Lunch

Session 3: Learning from new markets

What can we learn from those fascinating markets of Asia and beyond? Jack Ma was rejected in the west, but thrived in the east, building Alibaba with the power of imagination and intuition. Indeed, a recent WEF study found that 90% of Asian business leaders believe that creativity is important, compared to 57% in Europe. And whilst Asia was seen as a land of imitation, it is now the leader of innovation, leaping ahead without the legacy of heritage, to seize the opportunities of changing locally and globally. Agree, or not? And if so. what can a European business learn?

1330     The need for new perspectives

1335     Linda Yueh… the economic perspective

Frequent viewers of British television will recognize the face and voice of Linda Yueh, an economist, broadcaster, and writer, who was previously Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News and host of several TV shows about the economy, business, and finance. In her latest book, The Great Economists: How their ideas can help up today, Linda explains the key thoughts of history’s greatest economists, how their lives and times affected their ideas, how our lives have been influenced by their work, and how they could help with the policy changes that we face today.

1350     Milo Jones… the cultural perspective

Milo Jones is an American based in Poland, working at IE Business School, who focuses on the impact of digital technologies on geopolitics, society and business using his experience working with Accenture, Morgan Stanley, and even CIA. Milo focuses on themes from intelligence to finance, geopolitics and cultures. In 2016, Milo also spoke at a special event organized by Harvard Business Review Korea/DBR on his application of intelligence methodologies to business situations.

1405     Christina Boutrup… the technology perspective

Christina Boutrup is a Danish author, and an expert on the Chinese world of technology, hosting radio- and TV-shows about China. She interviewed Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma and closely followed the global expansion of Chinese companies authoring several books about business in China. In her most recent book The Great Tech-revolution – How China Shapes our Future, she underscores why all decision-makers should pay attention to the Chinese tech-revolution and what companies in the West can learn from China.

1420     Tendayi Viki… the innovation perspective

Tendayi Viki, a Harvard and Stanford psychologist, and part of the Strategyzer group, explores how big corporates can act like start-ups, to innovate and grow. He helps large organisations develop their ecosystems so that they can innovate for the future while managing their core business. He was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award and named on the Thinkers50 2018 Radar List of emerging management thinkers to watch. He is the co-author of The Corporate Startup and The Lean Product Lifecycle.

1435    Debate … Which insights and ideas from Asia are most relevant for European business leaders to adopt and adapt in their own businesses?

1500 – 1530    Break

Session 4: Winning in the new world

The average 18-year-old today will live in at least three different countries during their lives, whilst a century ago, our grandparents rarely even left their home towns. Today we are all citizens of a rapidly connecting and changing world. Our cultures and communities are speckled with our desires for exotic tastes and better lives. Our businesses become a global ecosystem of supply and demand. Every business and individual is on a journey in this new world. Our journeys give us new insights and ideas, enabling us to grow as individuals, both personally and professionally.

1530     Martin Roll… My Journey from Europe to Asia

From ad agencies to collaborating with McKinsey, Martin Roll is a Dane who moved to Singapore to specialise in Asian brand strategies, combining the best ideas of east and west. He has lived in Asia for two decades and is now a senior advisor to business leaders, Asian conglomerates and prominent global business families on the most important issues in managing successful global brands and businesses, and exercising great leadership.

1600     Irene Yuan Sun… My Journey from Asia to Africa

Irene Sun was born in China, raised in America, found herself in Africa, later worked with McKinsey, and is author of The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa. Her book highlights how China has become Africa’s largest trade partner, the largest infrastructure financier, and the fastest-growing source of foreign direct investment. Chinese entrepreneurs are flooding into the continent, investing in long-term assets such as factories and heavy equipment. Irene tells a story about resilient Chinese entrepreneurs now building in Africa what they so recently learned to build in China – a global manufacturing powerhouse.

1630     Navi Radjou… My Journey from Europe to America

Born in India, Navi Radjou is a French-American academic and an author of Frugal Innovation. He is now based in Silicon Valley and writing new books on leadership and sustainability. His TED talk on frugal innovation has garnered over 1.7 million views. Navi’s ideas have been shaped by his eclectic cultural background including his Indian roots, his French education, and his Silicon Valley milieu. He is also a lifelong student of yoga, Ayurveda, and Buddhist meditation.

1700     Summary of day 1

1830    Pre-dinner drinks

1900    Networking Dinner … bringing together business leaders, thinkers and sponsors

An opportunity for local hosts, business leaders, speakers, and sponsors to network, and reflect on the best new ideas in business. This year’s EBF comes in the same month that Facebook opens a huge new datacentre in the City of Odense, a symbol of its rapid redevelopment for the 21st century.

After seating … Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, founders of Thinkers50 will give a brief update on the world of business ideas, previewing the 2019 Global Awards that will take place in London in November. Known as “the Oscars of business thinking”, this year’s short lists include a fabulous collection of new thinkers and fresh ideas to stimulate your future.

After starters … Happiness is the big idea of Henry Stewart, CHO of Happy, and author of The Happy Manifesto. In a world of polarising economics and politics, relentless change and innovation, social and environmental tensions, we all need a little more humanity, even humility. Henry is all about being, feeling and leading happy.

After main course  … Erica Dhawan, author of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, inspires us with the power of connectedness. Sitting in one of Europe’s leading robotics hubs, connections matter. Here in Odense, surrounded by fellow leaders and thinkers, new connections are possible, and could even help us create new futures. Together all these great ideas and connections could change our futures. Having grown up in India, Erica will also give us a personal insight into how Asia has influenced her as she works around the world.

DAY 2 … NEW AGENDA FOR BUSINESS LEADERS

0900     Bjarke Wolmar… a shared mission

Thinkers50 has a mission to help business make the world a better place through the power of ideas. Ideas drive innovation, but also progress in society, and wealth of nations. In Europe Thinkers50 seeks to help European businesses to find their competitive edge in a world of radical change. The City of Odense has a wonderful history of storytelling, through its famous son Hans Christian Andersen. However, the real story is about the future, and how Odense is playing a leading role in harnessing the power of robotics, from biotech to drones, to be an ideas and innovation hub for Europe.

Session 5: Rethinking strategies

Strategy has become a difficult concept in business. How can you plan for an uncertain future, combining the need for direction in a world of infinite choices, with the need for constant agility? Masayoshi Son talks about his 300 year plan, whilst Mark Zuckerberg continues to “move fast and break things”. The rapid emergence of tech and convergence of sectors means that any business could effectively do anything. Rita McGrath talks about the need to see round corners, whilst BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s call for “purpose beyond profit” has made investors and leaders re-think what matters.

0905     Haiyan Wang… Inspired by Chinese business

Haiyan Wang is a lecturer at INSEAD and Managing Partner of the China India Institute, which she runs with her husband Anil Gupta. She is based in Washington, DC, and works as an expert on Chinese business. She is a frequent contributor to BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, and carries out research to assist in the creation of business strategies which focus on the rising economies of China and India.

0930     Discuss

What are the best ideas from China for European business? How can business leaders practically adapt and apply them?

0945     Anil Gupta… Inspired by Indian business

Anil Gupta has been named by The Economist as one of the world’s “superstars” for research on emerging economies. By 2025, China and India will be two of the world’s four largest economies. By then, economic ties between them should also rank among the 10 most important bilateral ties worldwide. Anil Gupta focuses on this in his writings and his work at The China India Institute.

1010     Discuss

What are the best ideas from India for European business? How can business leaders practically adapt and apply them?

1030 – 1100     Break

Session 6: Rethinking leadership

Leadership drives the business forwards, amplifying the potential of ideas, people and partners. However, as power shifts from hierarchy to network, as ideas trickle up rather than down, and action is in the hands of everyone, a new approach to leadership is required. Sensemaking, connecting, imagining, changing and implementing. These are the challenges of today’s business leader. At EBF17 Lars Rebien Sorensen inspired us with his passion for action. During EBF18, Jim Hageman Snabe inspired us with his dreams and details. This year at EBF19, we continue to explore what makes a great leader.

1100     Jean-Francois Manzoni… Leading the future

Jean-Francois Manzoni is the French-Canadian President of IMD Business School, where he focuses on high performance leadership and governance. He has lived in 5 countries, including Singapore, and worked in more than 30. Over that time, he’s been struck by how difficult it is for executives to internalise new behaviours; they know more and more about “good leadership practices”, but are less effective at putting it into practice back in the workplace. Closing that “knowing-doing gap” is a must for business leaders facing an ever more challenging world.

1130     Erica Dhawan … Leading through connections

Erica Dhawan has a passion for how people connect. She runs her own business Cotential, and is the coauthor of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence. Through speaking, training and consulting, Erica teaches business leaders innovative strategies that increase value for clients, deliver results and ensure competitiveness. She features on the Thinkers50 Radar, one of the emerging management thinkers most likely to shape the future of business.

1200     Rasmus Hougaard… Leading in your mind

Rasmus Hougaard is a Dane based in New York City, and an author of The Mind of the Leader. He leads an initiative that builds on the power of mindfulness within business called the Potential Project.

1230 – 1300     Lunch

Session 7: Rethinking innovation

Innovation is the rocket fuel of progress. In recent times words like disruption, most popularised by Clay Christiansen, has become the mantra, alongside new approaches like design thinking and lean implementation. At the same time, we realise that it is business models and customer experiences where innovation has the most impact. Over 350 “unicorns” have emerged in recent years to shake up every market. They are multi-billion-dollar start-ups, or perhaps we should just call them innovators… How do big companies compete in this world? How do you innovate at speed? How should you rethink the way you rethink?

1330     Scott Anthony and Howard Yu… the innovation champions

Scott Anthony is winner of the Thinker50 Strategy Award 2017, Managing Partner of Innosight, American born, and now based in Singapore. His books include Seeing What’s Next and Dual Transformation.

Howard Yu was born in Hong Kong, and now living in Switzerland. He is the author of Leap: How to thrive in a world where everything can be copied. He is an IMD professor, and has been called “the new Clayton Christiansen”

This session is more like a boxing match. A contest of innovation ideas. There are 5 rounds. Each contender has 5 minutes to make their case, and then the audience have 5 minutes to reflect and vote for the winner.

1345     Round 1 … How did Asia influence you?

Howard grew up in Asia and then came to Europe, whilst Scott chose to move there from America. How has Asia influenced them personally, and in their innovation work?

1400     Round 2 … Who is the better innovator – Singapore or Switzerland?

Comparing the two countries where Scott and Howard are based, which is better placed to drive innovation of the next decade? What is the best environment for innovation, and do governments help or hinder?

1415     Round 3 … How do big companies beat small companies?

Eric Ries’ The Lean Start-Uphas become a bible for modern business innovation, seeking to be more entrepreneurial, fast and experimental. But should large companies try to be like small ones, or should they play their own, better game?

1430     Round 4 … Do short-term priorities make disruptive innovation impossible?

Most businesses are driven by short-term pressures (despite the desire for longer-term thinking, focus on purpose beyond profit etc). Does this preclude disruptive innovation, or can you be just as disruptive quickly?

1445     Round 5 … What is the role of the CEO in innovation?

Steve Jobs v Jeff Bezos v Satya Nadella v AG Lafley v Jack Ma v Mukesh Ambani v Mary Barra v Indra Nooyi v Ma Huateng … these CEOs had very different roles in innovation. How can CEO’s be most useful, and in which types of innovation?

1500 – 1530     Break

Session 8: European Business Lecture 2019

1530     Introduction to the European Business Lecture

The European Business Lecture is a seminal moment in the European business calendar, defining the agenda for business leaders in the years ahead. In previous years, the world top ranked business thinkers have called for a radical rethink by leaders in how they manage their organisations. Michael Porter called for a new approach to strategy based around shared value, extending the economic focus to society. Roger Martin called for a scientific revolution in business thinking, with organisations becoming complex adaptive systems, and the merging of strategy and execution, built around projects.

1535     Alex Osterwalder… Leading the Invincible Company

Alex Osterwalder is the Swiss “strategyzer”, and the outstanding European business thinker of this decade, with books including Business Model Generation and the forthcoming The Invincible Company. Last year at EBF18, he led a fabulous workshop on how to develop a portfolio of business models for today and tomorrow – to exploit and explore – and in doing so create a relentless approach to innovation and growth, and become invincible. This year he returns to EBF19, to give the European Business Lecture with a focus on the role of business leaders in driving his concept of the “invincible” organisation. In particular, he will call for Europe’s business leaders to embrace creativity and innovation, to be more entrepreneurial like their Asian peers, and to be a force for progress in the world.

1635     Q&A with Alex

1650     Summary of EBF19

1715    Celebrate the future

Drinks Reception with the Mayor of Odense, Peter Rahbæk Juel.

Here’s what happened at EBF17:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdCLUbml9q8

Here’s what happened at EBF18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzksDkQBB0g&t=32s

Join me at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum, Europe’s premier event for business leaders, on 25-26 September 2019 in Odense, Denmark.

Tickets are limited and available now from www.Thinkers50Europe.com

Previews

Here’s a preview of each of this year’s speakers:

Kjell Nordstrom … Exploring the new world … His book Funky Business shook up the management world 20 years ago, now Kjell is back to reshock and reinspire your brains. It’s time for business to get funky again.

Anna Rosling … Exploring the new world, Factfulness Live … following in the footsteps of her late father in law, Hans Rosling, she will challenge our assumptions and perspectives of a changing world, with particular insight into Asian markets.

Erin Meyer … Connecting the new world, The Culture Map Workshop … The Paris-based American professor at INSEAD is back, this time with a unique workshop for 500 business leaders. 90 minutes to roll up your sleeves and work with Erin to understand how you can better work with different cultures across Asia, and around the world.

Linda Yueh … Learning from new markets, economic perspective … the economist, writer and broadcaster describes an economy that has echoes of history. Here’s a clip from her latest book:

Tendayi Viki … Learning from new markets, entrepreneurial perspective … the Harvard and Stanford psychologist explores how big corporates can act like start-ups, to innovate and grow.

Christina Boutrup … Learning from new markets, technology perspective … Danish author, and an expert on the Chinese world of technology. She knows Jack Ma and Wang Jianlin better than most.

Milo Jones … Learning from new markets, intelligence perspective … the American based in Poland, from Walmart to Accenture, Morgan Stanley to IE Business School, he is also closely connected to the CIA.

Martin Roll … Winning in the new world, from Europe to Asia … from ad agencies to collaborating with McKinsey, the Singapore-based Dane specialises in Asian brand strategies.

Irene Yuan Son … Winning in the new world, from Asia to Africa … born in China, raised in America, from McKinsey, author of The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment Is Reshaping Africa

Navi Radjou … Winning in the new world, from India to America … born in India, the French-American academic is author of Frugal Innovation and is now based in Silicon Valley.

Jean-Francois Manzoni … Rethinking leadership, leading the future … the French Canadian is President of IMD Business School where he focuses on high performance leadership and governance.

Rasmus Hougaard … Rethinking leadership, leading in your mind … author of The Mind of the Leader, the Dane is based in New York City and leads the Potential Project.

Erica Dhawan … Rethinking leadership, leading through connections … She runs he own business Cotential, and is author of Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence.

 

Haiyan Wang … Rethinking strategies, inspired by the best ideas from China … Managing Partner of the China India Institute, and lecturer at INSEAD, based in Washington DC and an expert on Chinese business.

Anil Gupta … Rethinking strategies, inspired by the best ideas from India … The world’s leading expert on Indian business, now professor at the University of Maryland.

Scott Anthony … Rethinking innovation, innovating with dual impact … Winner of the Thinker50 Strategy Award 2017, Managing Partner of Innosight, American born, now based in Singapore.

Howard Yu … Rethinking innovation, innovation that leaps forwards … born in Hong Kong now living in Switzerland, author of Leap, the IMD professor has been called “the new Clayton Christiansen”

Alex Osterwalder ... Leading the Invincible Company … the Swiss “strategyzer” is the outstanding business thinker of this decade, from Business Model Generation to The Invincible Company. This year he returns to give the EBL, a highlight of the business year in Europe, focusing on the challenge and opportunities ahead for business leaders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YBOMqSMoEE&t=183s

How can you learn from all these thinkers?

All of the above will feature at the Thinkers50 European Business Forum, Europe’s premier event for business leaders, on 25-26 September 2019 in Odense, Denmark.

Tickets are limited and available now from www.Thinkers50Europe.com

Peter Fisk introduces IE Business School’s flagship executive development program, the new Global Advanced Management Program (Global AMP), over 4 weeks preparing the next generation of business leaders for the C-Suite. Uniquely amongst business schools, it is practically set in the context of a changing world – with incredible opportunities to grow in innovative ways – but also where tensions such as technology vs humanity, global vs local, and business vs consumer are challenging businesses to rethink, reinvent and refocus.

Download a summary of the masterclass and program launch

Find out more about the new Global AMP at IE Business School

The  program has been designed specifically to prepare current and future leaders, and their businesses, for the challenges which they face now and in the coming years. Focusing on leadership in a world of disruptive change, the Global AMP will help you understand the underlying trends driving the future which are already shaking up your industry, explore the threats and opportunities these bring, and respond accordingly.

Divided into 5 core academic modules, each designed and orchestrated by expert faculty, the program will lead you through the challenge of understanding mega-trends such as technological change, our role in a world where AI and robotics make many traditional jobs irrelevant, scarce physical resources and changing demographics.

How will you shape the new markets formed by these trends to the advantage of your business? Where will you focus, and how will you compete? How will you engage with the future customers – Asian, millennial, female – and those in markets that do not even exist today? What are your new business models to drive speed, agility and profitable growth?

Be the disrupter, not the disrupted.

The program focuses on devising new solutions, delivered by the right organisations and strategies, to succeed in such a brave new world. Energising and aligning the business to the strategic needs of the future will require that it becomes faster and more agile and we will learn how to use areas such as finance and operations, partnerships and networks, as levers for growth.

Most significantly, we will help you develop yourself as a leader of this dynamic world – to build a leadership platform, and exploit it skilfully to implement change that builds organisations that are themselves a source of competitive strength.

Alongside these academic modules, the program also includes practical application, with each participant developing a Gamechanger Project from they will create a blueprint for the future of their industry, a plan for how their business can reinvent itself, and define their own role in leading their company or division towards this future successfully.

Finally, the Leadership Development Plan helps each participant, along with an individual advisor, focus on their own specific strengths and weaknesses and actions that they can take to become an effective leader, and to sustain high personal and business performance.

World Changing: Making sense of change, exploring megatrends and their medium and longer-term implications, and choosing your future direction. The rise of emerging markets, new technologies and next generation audiences, is matched by the increasing scarcity of resources, social fragmentation and climate impact. The “fourth industrial revolution” heralds a new era for business and society, from digitalisation and automation, to 3D printing and machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics. Philosophically, we will also look back to the age of genius, and the lessons for the future.

  • Power shifts: Economic, political and economic power shifts across continents, generations and businesses.
  • Technology futures: Harnessing the potential of new capabilities, from digital and big data, biotech and nanotech, to AI and robotics.
  • Resource scarcity: Changing sources of energy, the peak of rare metals, talent and creativity, high-tech components and patented technologies.
  • Human impacts: Rethinking work, education and employment, ageing and healthcare, urbanization and belonging, wealth and happiness.
  • Future shaping: Making sense of change, and making better choices. Harnessing value drivers and scenario planning to shape the future that you want.

Market Shaping:  Competitive landscapes have become increasingly complex, competition can now appear from seemingly unrelated industries, new markets emerge and old ones disappear. Digital markets have no boundaries, allowing the smallest business to have huge impact, and accelerating the convergence of sectors and businesses. In this context, the market-shaping module will guide you in engaging with future customers, shaping markets to your advantage and ultimately developing a market map that can help focus your business to win in future markets.

  • Market spaces: How well do you really know your market? Framing markets and how they work, value drivers and emerging practices, challenges and opportunities.
  • Future markets: Finding and creating new market spaces, based on new customers, new geographies and new solutions.
  • Customer thinking: Understanding new and existing customers based on aspirations and behaviours, finding new insights and ideas, new needs and niches.
  • Engaging propositions: Rethinking value, how it created and captured, and then delivered in terms of engagement and experiences.
  • Markets as movements: Rethinking how to build brands and loyalty where customers trust each other, and seek personalisation, collaboration and community

Disruptive Innovation: Disruption comes from all angles – entrepreneurial start-ups challenging established giants, new technologies replacing inefficient processes, simplicity outperforming complexity, and customers challenging businesses to do better. The impact can be dramatic, reputations can be made and destroyed in days, whilst long admired companies are wiped off the map. The aim of this module is to learn how to turn the tables and become the disrupter by quickly developing insights and ideas, driving innovative strategies and business models, that can be delivered in fast and efficient ways.

  • Market Disruption: Transforming value equations by rethinking the way markets work, the sources of advantage, pain points and profit pools.
  • Design thinking: Gaining deeper insights into what really drives customers, to find the real problem, and solutions that are more relevant and valuable.
  • Fast Innovation: Turning ideas into impact faster through fast and lean innovation, from incremental to breakthough, managing portfolios to create the future
  • Business models: Rethinking how organisations work to deliver innovative propositions, from licensing to subscription, low cost to luxury.
  • Accelerating impact: Harnessing the power of multipliers, the network effect of social media to business ecosystems, spreading innovation faster, accelerating growth.

Energizing Organizations: Business thrives on an inspiring purpose, an alignment for action, and priorities and incentives that engage people to high performance. Organisations also need the agility to continually adapt and respond to changing markets, to develop new capabilities and partnerships, and reach new markets. The objective of this module is to help you energize your organization, develop a strategy, along with the metrics to constantly measure its implementation, and align financial and operational resources to deliver results effectively.

  • Winning strategy: Defining the right direction and priorities, guided by an inspiring purpose, and harnessing the drivers of value.
  • Smarter choices: Making better decisions, strategically and every day, matched by the right metrics and rewards that ensure performance.
  • Aligning organisations: Shaping organisations and processes to be agile and efficient, leveraging strengths and addressing weakness, inside and outside.
  • Energising people: Mobilising your employees to think and deliver the strategy in innovative and profitable ways, harnessing the power of teams and humanity.
  • Sustaining impact: Ensuring that the organization has the ongoing renewal and adaptability to deliver share value, short term and into the future.

Amplified Leadership: The best leaders amplify the impact of their people and their business. Developing a leadership that is relevant to them and their people, they inspire and engage, connect and support the business to deliver against long-term directions and short-term priorities. Leaders of the future, will need to be adept at leading and managing change in a way that unlocks talent and performance. The outcome of this module will be to a help participants lead themselves, their teams and their business. For this reason, the module works through all the other modules to connect ideas and future action.

  • Leadership matters: Business is obsessed with leadership, but how do leaders really add value, engage people effectively, and deliver better results?
  • Knowledge economy: Organisational hierarchies are a legacy of old economies. In today’s ideas-based organisations, leaders add value in different ways.
  • Authentic organisations: From corporate to personal reputations, how do you build trust and authenticity inside and outside the business?
  • Talent beacons: In an ideas-driven world, the best companies have the best people. So how do you ensure that you attract, motivate and retain the best talent?
  • Why should anyone be led by you? Fundamentally, why should you be the leader of the business. What do you have, and what will you give, to be successful?

Leaders are, of course, much more than functional managers. They see a bigger picture, work across the organization, and connect activities for more impact. The 5 Global AMP modules, rather than addressed in isolation will be carefully knitted together throughout the duration of the program, to demonstrate the opportunities and implications of every decision and action across the business.

Participants will work on an individual, evaluated project throughout the program. This “Gamechanger Project” is designed to draw on all of the materials covered in each module and will be applied directly to the challenges and opportunities of the participants’ business. It will deliver five specific outcomes, in the form of maps, that will be of value to you and to your company. Together they form a blueprint for the future.

  • Future Map: Developing a vision of the future of your industry. Define how you will shape it to your business’ advantage, to seize the best opportunities for growth.
  • Market Map: Shaping your markets, how you work, and your customer propositions to engage current and future customers.
  • Innovation Map: Reinventing your business model to deliver the future propositions in practical, efficient and profitable ways.
  • Organisation Map: Aligning your direction and strategy, your processes and people, metrics and performance to deliver results.
  • Impact Map: Defining your role in leading your company or division towards a bright, inspiring and successful future.

Progress on the project will be checked in peer to peer presentations and participants will have access to tutors to guide their work. This will be underpinned by the Leadership Development Plan which supports the individual in how they will develop themselves to deliver this effectively.

Download a summary of the masterclass and program launch

Find out more about the new Global AMP at IE Business School