Growth programs need a different plan for progress than the operating business needs.
Executives without experience in bringing new ventures to life — whether as entrepreneurs, business leaders, those with transformation responsibilities or other change agents — often think that planning a new venture is like planning for an existing business.
It isn’t. It really isn’t, as Rita McGrath has written about for many years. In this session Rita and Ron Boire shared how to bring structure, order and strategic insight to decision making about innovation and growth efforts.
Rita Gunther McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. She is widely recognized as a premier expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty. Rita has received the #1 achievement award for strategy from the prestigious Thinkers50 and has been consistently named one of the world’s Top 10 management thinkers in its bi-annual ranking. As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Rita is the author of the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). Her new book is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). She has written three other books, including Discovery Driven Growth, cited by Clayton Christensen as creating one of the most important management ideas ever developed. She is a highly sought-after speaker at exclusive corporate events around the globe, such as the Global Peter Drucker Forum. She received her Ph.D. from the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and has degrees with honors from Barnard College and the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs.
Ron is a globally experienced organizational transformation specialist sought out by boards to help them navigate some of the toughest operating environments within the consumer products, technology, and retail sectors. His leadership has rapidly transformed underperforming businesses and operating groups as well as non-profits to create measurable results in extraordinarily short timeframes. He has held C-level roles as CEO of Barnes & Noble, Sears Canada, and Brookstone, as well as senior leadership positions at Sony, Toys R Us, Sears Holdings and Best Buy. Ron has MBAs from Columbia Business School and London Business School. He is the co-founder, along with his wife, of the Ferguson Noonan Foundation, a 501(c)3 charity focused on educating underprivileged children.
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