Keynote Addresses 

Building a Strategic Framework to Drive Innovation Success

Beyond acquisition and geographic expansion, the key to profitable growth is a firm’s ability to innovate—to create and capture new value in new ways through new products and services, business models, or processes. But successful innovation—defined in terms of a financial premium and a customer premium—is elusive. David Norton will share a strategic framework designed to drive results from your innovation strategy.

Dr. David P. Norton, President

Palladium Group, Inc.

Measuring and Mitigating the Financial Risk of Innovation: Will it Make Money?

Innovation is integral to the continued growth and sustainability of an enterprise, but at what price? When does the cost of creating new value for current and targeted customers exceed the expected benefits? Bob Kaplan will share a simple yet powerful methodology for measuring and managing your return on innovation.

Dr. Robert S. Kaplan, Baker Foundation Professor

Harvard Business School

Finding Your Next Growth Engine

The search for sustainable, profitable growth is at the top of most executive teams' agendas, yet rapid shifts in markets and technologies have made this goal increasingly difficult to achieve. Drawing on Bain’s recently completed seven year analysis of thousands of companies along with his latest book Unstoppable, Chris Zook will reveal the key determinants of successful growth, the telltale signs that your business model is deteriorating, and how to redefine your core and find a new growth engine. 

Dr. Christopher Zook, Director and Worldwide Strategy Practice Leader

Bain & Company, Inc.

Turning Strategic Risk into Growth Opportunities

Adrian Slywotzky takes the worst possible business risks—your customers change their preferences and leave you for competitors, the margins compress in your industry, a technology shift makes your product obsolete, your brand erodes—and shows that through astute anticipation and management of those risks, you can turn the threats on their head and create enormous upside potential.

Adrian J. Slywotzky, Managing Director

Oliver Wyman Consulting

Featured Speakers

Balancing Innovation and Risk in Applying New Technologies

Space missions are enormous engineering challenges and require innovative new technologies to be successful. However, new technologies present formidable risks. Balancing the advantages of innovation against its inherent risks is one of the most critical of all design processes. As Gentry Lee will illustrate, achieving that balance requires a careful analysis of “what bad things might happen” and a systematic approach to mitigating those risks throughout the life cycle of a product or a project.

Gentry Lee, Chief Engineer, Planetary Flight Systems Directorate

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Integrating People, Process and Technology: Harrah’s Winning Hand

Harrah's strategy is based on building customer loyalty and value through a combination of innovative capabilities, operational excellence, and technology leadership—a winning hand that has fueled record results in share price, revenue/earnings growth, and customer satisfaction. Hear how Harrah’s executes its strategy by integrating people, processes, and technology into a seamless customer experience.

Tim Stanley, Senior Vice President, Innovation, Gaming and Technology, and CIO

Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc.

Featured Case Studies

Improving R & D Innovation and Productivity with Scorecards and Performance-Based Compensation

Learn how Wyeth Pharmaceuticals achieved dramatic improvements in R & D innovation and productivity over a five year period by utilizing a combination of personal scorecards and performance-based compensation, and how Wyeth is beginning to use the BSC framework to further improve strategy management.

Dr. Timothy N. Burelle, Vice President, Performance Management and Operations, Global Medical Affairs

Wyeth Research

Executing a Customer-Centric Innovation Strategy

For nearly 40 years, the technology needs of customers have shaped AMD’s strategic vision. Bharath Rangarajan will describe how AMD is executing on its “customer-centric innovation” strategy, and how it has enabled the company to win market share for five years running.

Dr. Bharath Rangarajan, Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices

Innovation by Popular Demand: Enhancing the Fan Experience at AT&T Park

AT&T Park is consistently ranked among the most technologically advanced sports facilities in the world. Bill Schlough will discuss why the San Francisco Giants consider innovation to be a strategic imperative and how this impacts the ballpark experience for fans.

Bill Schlough, Senior Vice President and CIO

San Francisco Giants

Breaking with Tradition: Making the Transition to Open Innovation at IBM

IBM has traditionally operated with a highly integrated and largely inwardly focused innovation model, though it has now shifted to a far more explicitly open approach. Bob Sutor will describe IBM’s evolving approach to innovation, and how it’s driving greater value for IBM’s partners and customers.

Dr. Robert Sutor, Vice President, Open Source and Standards

IBM Corporation

Applying Technological Innovation to Solve Critical National Problems

Stephen Huffman will describe the unique challenges and opportunities in managing technological innovation at MITRE, a not-for-profit corporation that applies emerging and enabling technologies to some of the government’s most complex problems. Dr. Huffman will also discuss MITRE’s experience in using the Balanced Scorecard as a catalyst for change in R & D management and execution.

Dr. Stephen D. Huffman, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer

MITRE Corporation

Creating Value Through Open Innovation and Intellectual Asset Management

Global companies are discovering that innovation is not limited to what they can create with their own employees. Collaborating with outside partners decreases both the time to market as well as the costs of development. John Tao will describe Air Products’ journey towards Open Innovation, including the various external organizations they work with and the toolkits they use.

Dr. John C. Tao, Corporate Director, Technology Partnerships

Air Products and Chemicals

Driving Transformational Change: A Pragmatic Approach to Strategy Execution at Merck

Despite the challenges faced by the pharmaceutical industry, significant opportunities remain for companies that innovate successfully and meet the evolving needs of key stakeholders. Vittorio Nisita will describe how Merck is transforming itself to consistently deliver innovative and differentiated products, and reclaim its leadership position in the industry.

Vittorio Nisita, Senior Director, Strategy Realization Office

Merck & Co., Inc.

Einstein, an HR Guy and Life at a Pinnacle: Solving the Strategic Agility Equation and Creating a “Built to Thrive Company”

Heart-stopping change is the new pace of business. Hear Jack Mollen, the "HR Executive of the Year" discuss strategic agility, death defying transformation, and what BusinessWeek deemed “one of the most remarkable turnarounds in the history of the tech.” Mr. Mollen will share a framework for successful strategy execution via a resilient workforce that quickly and continually adapts to changing business circumstances.

John T. (Jack) Mollen, Executive Vice President, Human Resources

EMC Corporation

Embracing Risk to Grow and Innovate

When it comes to driving new growth through innovation, the stakes are high and risk is everywhere. A “design thinking” approach can help you manage risk by focusing on the key assumptions at each stage of the product’s development. David Rudolph will describe how Turner Broadcasting is applying design thinking to bring disruptive products to market.

Guhan Selvaretnam, Vice President and New Product Group Lead

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

Maintaining an Innovation Culture During Transition

Sprint Nextel combines legacies of innovation in wireless technology, and is now converging its assets to deliver the power of mobility. Jack Dziak will describe Sprint Nextel’s approach to innovation, how the company continues to innovate in the face of ongoing operational requirements, and how it has used the Balanced Scorecard to drive sustained long-term success.

John J. (Jack) Dziak, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy

Sprint Nextel Corporation

Banking Without Boundaries: Leveraging the Power of the Web to Enhance the Customer Experience

Boldness is the willingness to assume significant risk for the sake of great reward.  The Wholesale Internet and Treasury Solutions group at Wells Fargo is an exemplar in taking considerable technology risk to keep things simple for their customers.  The reward has been an exponentially growing base of happy, loyal customers at nominal added cost.  Danny Peltz will discuss how his technology bets have paid off, earning his group the CIO 100 award for the last two years running. 

Danny Peltz, Executive Vice President, Wholesale Internet and Treasury

Wells Fargo & Company

Reinventing High Potentials with Profitable Action Learning

Dan Gallagher will present Comcast's unique approach to high-potential leadership development that begins, not in the classroom, but in a hospital!  He'll illustrate how the model of reinvent self, others and the business producese innovation at Comcast. You'll find out how to align leadership development programs with company goals, apply learning models via action learning, and measure results in terms of the individual, the bench and the business.

Daniel P. Gallagher, Senior Director, Organizational Development, Comcast University

Comcast Corporation