You might have questions like:

• How can I foster productive creativity?
• How can my company build breakthrough businesses without hurting the profits from the core?
• How should I manage the transition from an idea to a successful new product?

In Short: 20 years driving innovation : 7 new categories, 1 market introduction

I have worked on Innovation all my life:

• discovered a completely new use of Neural Networks as part of the doctorate.
• developed and implemented a paperless operation in a MAINFRAME/PAPER driven company, and got the folks working the system embracing it as their own (something somewhat commonplace today, revolutionary in Germany in the 90s)
• developed a new-to-the-industry approach to collaborate with customers, employees, and suppliers using something groundbreaking: the Internet
• designed, developed, and deployed a digital portfolio of products and services in a company with distinctly non-digital products
• developed and tested ideas in a network of partners, rather than all in-house, and developed at least 4 new product categories that way (MEALTIME, LAUNDRYTIME, MicroWaveTV and Centralpark)
• am working on a startup right now that will reduce cost of operation / ownership to 50% of the incumbent solution

I am a trained Innovation Mentor in Whirlpool's lingo (see BusinessWeek and Computerworld on that topic). I am a member of PDMA and the Royal R&D Society. I spoke about innovation and how to make it happen at several public or private occasions.

In short, I have walked an awfull lot of avenues, found the potholes and the shortcuts, have dealed with stellar partners and with absolute failures. This more than 10 years of executive experience will help you answer your questions and get results on Innovation.

In 2001, Whirlpool conducted a 360 Degree study of my performance. Here are some relevant results about me (remember that this report was done before some of the most intense learning periods around the restructuring of my whole business unit, and beyond). A rating of (1) meant total absence of a skill, (5) meant a rolemodel:

The ability to come up with breakthrough ideas was measured here. Some of my direct reports gave me the highest ranking here, which I am really proud of!

The ability to envision a new future and then to effectively execute on it was measured here: