Creativity and innovation psychologist

Afternoon Master Class:
‘Innovate like the heavyweights – proven stuff, no fluff’ (November 28, 2.30-5.30pm)

Dr Amantha Imber is a creativity and innovation psychologist. She gives her audiences practical, science-based tools that they can use to immediately get their brain unstuck, get creative juices flowing and uncover great ideas that will lead to business growth – all delivered in a way that engages, educates, and is often downright quirky.

Unlike many self-proclaimed experts in the creativity and innovation arena, Amantha has both the science (a PhD in organisational psychology) and the clients (including Coca-Cola, LEGO, Medibank Private, Red Bull, Deloitte, Vodafone and Westpac) to back her up. She works across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the United States, and Europe helping turn people into creative dynamos.

Amantha is a regular media commentator on creativity and innovation, and has appeared on Today, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Insight, and ABC Radio. She writes a regular column on science-based innovation for Fast Thinking, is an in-demand conference speaker around the world on creativity, and has helped literally thousands of people  solve problems more creatively and as a result, bring better innovations to market.

UCLA Chair in Business and Society, global leader on strategy

Afternoon Master Class:
‘Strategic Diagnosis and Actions’ (November 28, 2.30-5.30pm)
Presentation:
Keys to Good Strategy in Volatile Times (November 30, 1.30pm)

Richard Rumelt is the Harry and Elsa Kunin Professor of Business & Society at UCLA , a graduate school of business and management. He was voted to be one of the “Top 50 Business Thinkers” in the world (rank 20 in 2011) by the Thinkers50 program, sponsored by the Harvard Business Review and McGraw Hill. His teaching, research and consulting focus on competitive strategy, the nature of competitive advantage, industry dynamics and general management.

He is the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy–The Difference and Why It Matters. This book was chosen as one of six finalists for the 2011 Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. He is also a co-author of Fundamental Issues in Strategy–A Research Agenda and the author of Strategy, Structure, and Economic Performance.

He has been a consultant to numerous firms, non-profit organizations, the Department of Defense and several governments. He earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley. He studied decision sciences and corporate strategy at the Harvard Business School, receiving his doctorate in 1972.

He was on the faculty of the Harvard Business School, with two of those years spent on assignment in Tehran to found the Harvard-sponsored Iran Center for Management Studies. In 1976 he joined the UCLA faculty. During 1992-96 he was on long-term leave from UCLA, serving on the faculty at INSEAD, France. At INSEAD, he headed the Corporate Renewal Initiative, a research/intervention center devoted to the study and practice of corporate transformation.

His keynote will introduce the concepts of “good” and “bad” strategy and explain the logic underlying each.

• “Bad Strategy” is long on goals and visions and short on presenting a coherent set of actions for actually solving the fundamental problems facing an organization.
• “Good Strategy” flows from an honest diagnosis of the situation and from a focus on overcoming a critical challenge. Couples problem-solving policies to proximate objectives which the organization can actually accomplish.

Managing Director of Innosight Asia-Pacific, expert on disruptive innovation

Morning Master class:
‘Creating a Culture of Innovation’ (November 28, 9.00am-12.00pm)
Deep Conversation:
‘Getting Unstuck! Using innovation to create change in large organizations and government’ (November 28, 12.15-2.15pm)
Presentation:
Innovation Lessons from Asia and Driving Growth in Emerging Markets (November 29, 4.30pm)

Scott has written extensively about innovation. His most recent work is his fourth Harvard Business Review Press book, The Little Black Book of Innovation (January 2012) and the Harvard Business Review article ‘How P&G Tripled Its Innovation Success Rate,’ co-authored with Procter & Gamble’s Chief Technology Officer, Bruce Brown. He has written articles for publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Sloan Management Review, Advertising Age, Marketing Management and Chief Executive, and serves as a judge in the Wall Street Journal’s Innovation Awards. He has a regular column at Harvard Business Online (www.hbr.org).

He is also the author of The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work and The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times (Harvard Business Press).

Prior to joining Innosight, Scott was a senior researcher with Innosight co-founder and Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, managing a group that worked to further Christensen’s research on innovation.

His passion is in enabling innovators around the world to realize their untapped potential. In early 2010 Scott and his family relocated from the United States to Singapore to take advantage of the booming opportunities for innovation in Asia. He has spent significant time on the ground in India, China, Singapore, Korea, and the Philippines.

Scott is a sought after strategic advisor who has worked closely with senior leaders in companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, General Electric, LG, SingTel, the Ayala Group, Credit Suisse, and Cisco Systems on topics of growth and innovation. He joined the Board of Directors of Media General in 2009.

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