About Kaihan Krippendorff
Kaihan Krippendorff
- Former McKinsey consultant who has trained over 6,000 executives and entrepreneurs
- Strategic advisor to top corporations including Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and Citibank
- High-energy speaker who customizes talks on “outthinking” the competition
- Shares tactics for developing new and creative approaches to old problems
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Kaihan Krippendorff is committed to helping organizations and individuals thrive in today’s era of fast-paced disruptive technological change. Kaihan is known for his ability to turn difficult concepts into easy-to-understand ideas that drive meaningful outcomes and actions. He is an internationally recognized thought-leader, battle-tested consultant, and sought-after keynote speaker on the topics of business strategy, growth, transformation, and innovation.
Kaihan began his career as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company before founding the growth strategy and innovation consulting firm Outthinker. Growth strategies and innovations created through Outthinker have energized countless organizations, teams, and individuals all while generating over $2.5B in revenue for many of the world’s most recognizable Fortune 500 companies.
An accomplished author, Kaihan has written four books on business strategy, growth, and transformation, most recently Outthink the Competition (John Wiley & Sons). For his forthcoming book, Driving Innovation from Within: A Guide for Internal Entrepreneurs (Columbia University Press, 2019), Kaihan deeply researched and interviewed more than 150 internal innovators and leaders in nearly every conceivable industry.
Kaihan is a member of the prestigious Thinkers50 Class of 2019 Radar group – A global selection of the top 30 management thinkers to follow and hear from in the coming year. The group has been described as a “dream team of researchers, advisers, entrepreneurs, and organizational leaders” that will “intrigue, inspire, and guide” people and organizations with their ideas. Also in 2019, he was shortlisted for the Thinkers50 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award in the Innovation category.
Kaihan founded The Outthinker Network – a group of high-level strategists and innovators for large global organizations. Quarterly roundtables are a unique opportunity for senior executives to take part in an intimate, candid, and forward-looking conversation with a network of peer professionals and the world’s most sought-after disruptive thinkers, including Rita Gunther McGrath, John Hagel, and George Day, among others. Quarterly meetings facilitated by Kaihan connect him with both thought-leaders and organizational leaders, providing insights as to what issues are most relevant and how companies can approach and conquer threats of disruption.
Amidst his dizzying schedule of keynotes, consulting projects, ongoing research and writing, Kaihan still finds time to be a consultant with Wharton Executive Education, faculty member of Florida International University and lecturer at business schools throughout the US and internationally. He is regularly featured in key business media outlets, including BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Time, Fox Business, Fast Company, PBS, and Bloomberg Radio.
Kaihan is an advisory board member for a blockchain-powered transportation platform, an international food processing/exporting company, and a B-corporation focused on sustainable products and lifestyle.
He earned a Master of Business Administration at Columbia Business School and London Business School, a Bachelor of Science in finance from Wharton Business School, and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and he holds a Doctorate of Science in economics.
With a mother from Bangladesh and a father from Germany, Kaihan brings a holistic, diverse, and global perspective to everything he does. His work has brought him to 58 countries all over the world. He speaks three languages and has lived or spent significant periods of time in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific. He lives in Greenwich, Conn., with his wife and three children.
Outthink The Competition: Excelling in the New Age. Times of rapid change and heightened uncertainty separate those able to adapt their strategic approaches. While traditionally, near-term plans are more predictable than long-term, current events have thrust us into an uncommon situation in which the two are reversed. What moves can you make to remain resilient during when facing challenges and how can you position yourself, with sufficient agility, to be strong when the “new normal” reveals itself? Marrying the fundamentals of strategic agility – John Boyd’s OODA loop, Sun Tzu’s Art of War – with cutting edge strategic concepts, Kaihan will outline a systematic process to help people start making sense of the future and move forward with confidence. This Outthink the Competition framework is ideal for today’s times as we familiarize ourselves with a changed world. A master storyteller and seasoned practitioner, Kaihan will illustrate these concepts using fresh examples of companies that have pivoted through change to position themselves stronger for the future. In this talk, you will learn:
- How to use The Outthinker Process® to generate powerful ideas that can drive bottom-line results across all levels of the business
- How to find a “Fourth Option”: the option beyond the obvious choices, the option others will not see or respond to
- The Outthinker playbook: five strategic narratives you want to master now
- A simple approach to avoid killing off “crazy” ideas and instead turn them into winning moves
- How to extract value of internal ideas to drive organic growth
- How to build a culture of Outthinking that celebrates fresh strategic and innovative ideas and thinking
- How to empower and inspire your employees so that they are ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas
Outthink The Competition: Excelling In A Digital, Agile, Purpose-Driven Future. As a successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO, Kaihan Krippendorff has worked with and studied thousands of companies and the different approaches they take to drive growth, foster innovation, and set themselves apart from the competition. How is it that some companies are able to continually pivot their strategy, transform, and pursue new growth ideas? The answer is they have a repeatable process and common language that can be learned and taught. Based on his most recent book, Outthink the Competition, Kaihan delivers a systematic process and set of proven business strategy tools he has used with more than 300 clients in almost every industry to create innovative strategies and growth ideas that have generated more than $2.5B in revenue. Blending together first-hand stories of inspiring business and social innovators, from Elon Musk to Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Kaihan’s presentation teaches the audience a tested method for developing actionable growth ideas that unlock growth, increase competitiveness of their business and arm them with the tools needed to excel in today’s digital, agile, and purpose-driven world. In this inspiring keynote you will learn:
- How to use The Outthinker Process® to generate powerful ideas that can drive bottom-line results across all levels of the business
- How to find a “Fourth Option”: the option beyond the obvious choices, the option others will not see or respond to
- The Outthinker playbook: five strategic narratives you want to master now
- A simple approach to avoid killing off “crazy” ideas and instead turn them into winning moves
- How to extract value of internal ideas to drive organic growth
- How to build a culture of Outthinking that celebrates fresh strategic and innovative ideas and thinking
- How to empower and inspire your employees so that they are ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas
Driving Innovation from Within: Harness the Power of the Entrepreneurial Mindset, Drive Growth, Jumpstart Transformation, and Become the Organization of the Future. “Innovation” brings to our mind the maverick entrepreneur who quits their job, at unimaginable odds, to build a business on their own. But this entrepreneurial story is a myth. As a successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO, Kaihan Krippendorff argues that intrapreneurs – employees who incubate new businesses within corporations – have had a far greater impact on the world. Nearly all of the most transformative innovations over the past three decades, from e-mail and the Internet to DNA sequencing and MRI scans, were introduced by employees who did not quit their jobs but instead took the challenge of innovating from within.
Drawing on five years of in-depth research of hundreds of successful innovators and Intrapreneurial Intensity, as well as insights from thought leaders, C-suite leaders, business unit leaders, and front-line employees, Kaihan will share exclusive insights from his next book, Innovate From Within: Change the World Without Quitting Your Job (Columbia University Press, 2019). Kaihan will unveil the most critical internal focus areas for driving innovation and moving your organization forward into the future. He will share specific tools, frameworks and techniques used by successful innovators to manage and unlock the value of employees’ ideas to increase corporate innovation levels and deliver bottom-line results. Audience members will have actionable next steps to transform their organization by testing and scaling fresh ideas that generate value and growth. They will leave feeling inspired and empowered, ready to take on the future.
In this inspiring keynote you will learn:
- What Intrapreneurial Intensity (II) Is And How It Impacts Growth Rates And Shareholder Value
- The IN-OVATE Framework And How To Use It
- Simple Tools, Frameworks And Techniques To Navigate Organizational Barriers To Increase II And Deploy New And Disruptive Ideas That Generate Value In Your Company
- How To Shift Your Organizational Mindset And Culture To Challenge The Outdated Status-Quo
- How To Increase Engagement And Empower Employees To “Be The Change” And Drive Innovation Inside Of Your Company
- How To Extract Value Of Internal Ideas To Drive Organic Growth
- How To Break Free From Traditional Thinking And Operations To Embrace Transformative New Possibilities
- How To Build A Wave Of Support For Growth, Innovation And Creativity By Reinforcing The Idea That Innovation Is Possible, Attainable, And Ultimately Actionable
Innovating Beyond The R&D Lab: Realizing Trapped Value Across The Eight Dimensions Of Innovation. When we say “innovation” we almost always mean “product innovation.” We talk about research & development and possible new solutions to meet unmet needs. This is a one-dimensional and incomplete approach to innovation. Dissect the most innovative companies of the last decade and you will see that great innovators disrupt their markets by reaching beyond the product. Oftentimes their success rests on choices that have little to do with new products.
In this presentation, successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff will take you through engaging examples from a broad array of industries such as Urban Outfitters in apparel, IKEA in furniture, VMware in technology, SpaceX in space launch vehicles, Mastercard in payments, and Vistaprint in printing services, showing how companies that outperform their competition seek disruptive innovation across eight dimensions (8Ps). The "8Ps" framework has proven to be a powerful structure to engage high-level marketers, business strategists and sales staff in an exploration of where competitive advantages lie, where to strengthen them, and where they are being underutilized. Learnings from this session include:
- The "8Ps" strategic innovation framework: systematically uncover new avenues for growth, innovation and transformation
- How to construct a disruptive business model or strategy that leverages an underutilized 8P strength
- Identifying opportunities beyond the R&D lab: identify and reconstruct processes and operations to drive efficiency
- Driving organic growth leveraging the value of unrealized ideas
- How to build real confidence to apply new strategies everyday across all business units and roles
Unleashing Agile: Activate The Power Of An Entrepreneurial Mindset To Drive Growth. In a world marked by accelerated change and innovation, mental agility has proven to be a critical driver of success in sports, warfare, business, career, and life. Yet few agree on what exactly “mental agility” is or know how to develop it. Companies that fail to move on quickly enough from their linear organization will not succeed. In this presentation, successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff shares insights from his work with top-level corporate entrepreneurs and the study of more than 200 successful innovators into what sets them apart from the rest of the competitive pack. Kaihan will share the key practices that distinguish those with high mental agility and arm the audience with tools and frameworks they can immediately apply to their own work. Audience members will learn to:
- Connect the unconnected – pulling together seemingly unrelated pieces of information to rapidly form a mental image of the situation or opportunity.
- Uncover unexpected causes – drilling down into the system to see the cause others overlook.
- Shift your frame – shifting your frame on the problem to reveal solutions others dismiss.
- Question the impossible – understanding why we fall into mental “traps” of false beliefs that prevent us from seeing what is possible and, more importantly, how to dig out of the trap that is keeping you from seizing the solution.
Attendees will leave with a boost of confidence, tools, and energy to increase the velocity and agility level of their organization on a daily basis.
Cutting Through The Blockchain Hype: Understanding And Acting On The Ultimate Disruption. When many hear “Blockchain”, they immediately think of fintech or cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. This is a mistake. Blockchain is a disruptive opportunity for a wide range of industries – banking, real estate, healthcare, legal, supply chain, energy, insurance, media, retail, cloud computing, security, shipping and beyond. In this talk, Kaihan Krippendorff will explain Blockchain in language that normal human beings can understand – cutting through the noise and hype to help the audience understand how it works and the potential ways Blockchain might completely up-end their own industry and business.
In this presentation filled with thought-provoking questions and colorful stories of the latest in Blockchain cases and projects, Kaihan draws on his experience advising and working with companies and individuals leading the Blockchain revolution, along with his work helping strategists from leading companies across a range of industries make sense of disruptive innovations like Blockchain. He zooms back in time to put this cutting-edge technology into historical context. Kaihan makes this unfamiliar but important topic accessible for executive, managerial, and general audiences who have a strong desire to build their understanding of Blockchain, learn how it will impact their business, and discover what opportunities this technology opens up for them. The audience will leave with fresh ideas and next steps about how their organization can be a part of the exciting new future.
You will:
- Learn what Blockchain is, how it works and, more importantly, how will it impact your business
- Understand why the Blockchain concept is so difficult to grasp
- Appreciate how an ancient civilization and a Franciscan friar laid the foundation for what Blockchain could become
- Analyze the four promises provided by Blockchain
- Evaluate the two dimensions of Blockchain networks and decide where your company should play
- Understand the four requirements of Blockchain for business
- Uncover three near-term actions to explore getting started with Blockchain
Be The Disruptor, Not The Disrupted. We are experiencing a historic acceleration in the pace of change in our world. Artificial intelligence, digitization, robotics, 3D printing, social shifts, and the rise of purpose-driven enterprises are reconfiguring how every conceivable industry operates.
These changes divide us into two camps: the “Disruptors” and the “Disrupted”.
Successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff has spent over a decade studying the patterns of disruption. What makes some companies thrive and what makes others fall behind? What gives some the power to shape the future and makes others struggle to keep up? Kaihan has applied his cutting-edge findings to create more than $2.5B in new value and help hundreds of businesses lean into change and thrive in tomorrow's fast-paced, digital, purpose-driven world. In this talk, Kaihan breaks down the underlying patterns of disruption and with compelling stories of successes, failures, and yet-unknown innovations, teaches practical tools to help you take action and become a Disruptor. Learnings and outcomes include:
- The emerging trends – from AI to digitization – that are driving us into an era of disruption and how these will likely shape the future
- How to use The Outthinker Process® to generate powerful ideas that can drive bottom-line results across all levels of the business
- The strategic patterns and best practices that the world's most strategic and innovative companies use to thrive during the ongoing shift of global business structures and thinking
- A systematic process you can use to overcome the "innovator's dilemma" and create breakthrough growth ideas that will disrupt your market without disrupting your organization
- How to empower and inspire employees so that they're ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas
The Purpose Path: Building A Mission-Oriented Organization That Harnesses The Power Of Csr And A Do-Good Strategy. Historically, we were taught corporations existed for one purpose: to maximize shareholder value. But companies are waking up to the realization that such a focus destroys shareholder value over the long term because it creates resistance to your growth.
Successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff draws on years of proprietary research to show that today’s most successful companies more often speak of the strategic power of appealing to all stakeholders. If you design a strategy that benefits shareholders by also benefiting employees, the community, the country, and the environment, you have designed the ultimate strategy. When everyone wants you to win, you remove all competition. This idea goes beyond social responsibility. It points us toward removing the idea that doing good and making profit are inconsistent. You do not have to choose.
By pulling together inspiring stories from organizations ranging from lesser-known jewels like Best Doctors, BrightFarms, and Holstee to leading socially directed corporations like IKEA, Mastercard, and Target, Kaihan will inspire and motivate the audience to rethink their role and how they interact with stakeholders, not just shareholders. The audience will learn:
- The three primary goals of a “be good” socially minded strategy
- Simple yet effective tools and frameworks to apply and create your own “Do Good” strategy that complements your current organizational strengths and strategy
- The next evolution of corporate social responsibility and how to embrace the shift toward a future where CSR is the norm
- How to empower and inspire employees so that they're ready to take action to develop ideas, strategies, products, and programs that everyone benefits from
Winning The Future Of Finance. The financial services industry – from banking to payments to insurance – is undergoing a rapid and historic transformation. The shifting regulatory landscape, changing consumer/investor behavior, an endless stream of agile newcomers armed with disruptive fintech tools, and platforms powered by Blockchain and AI are mounting an attack on incumbent institutions and business models. Kaihan Krippendorff works with many of the world's leading financial institutions, helping them make sense of this uncertain future – understanding key future trends and technologies, designing fresh strategies and agile teams ready to face disruption head on so their organization can be ready to transform, compete, and win the future of finance. A successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO that has created more than $2.5B in revenue for clients, Kaihan uses first-hand experience and actionable insights to present a compelling vision of the future world of financial services, arming the audience with a framework and tools that they can use to succeed in the tech-driven digital economy of the 21st century.
You will learn:
- The key trends shaping the financial services industry – Blockchain, AI, regulatory environment, unbundling/bundling, millennial investors, fintech, financial inclusion and beyond
- What financial services will look like in the near and distant future
- Five key strategies today's most successful firms are adopting to adapt to, and lead, tomorrow
- How to transform into a more agile, inspiring, disruptive competitor, built for success in the digital economy
- Tools and a process for developing concrete ideas and strategic approaches that could disrupt the industry
Disrupting Retail. The retail and apparel industries today are undergoing a rapid, historic transformation. A successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO that has created more than $2.5B in revenue for his clients, Kaihan Krippendorff works at the cutting edge of the disruption, helping many of the world's leading retail and apparel brands navigate a future being shaped by radically shorter times to market, AI, robotics, augmented reality, hyper-personalization, data-driven decision making, and broad shifts in consumer behavior (environmentally friendly lifestyles, focus on health, nutrition, etc.). Drawing from the latest industry developments from Amazon to QVC and stories of yet-under-appreciated new attackers, Kaihan uses in this keynote first-hand experience and actionable insights to present a compelling vision of the future world of retail and leaves the audience with tools and an approach to develop a strategy to succeed in the shifting retail landscape of the 21st century tech-driven and digital economy.
You will learn:
- The key macro-trends that will shape the apparel and retail industries
- An overview of what retail will look like in the near and distant future
- Five key strategies today's most successful retail and apparel players are adopting to prepare for tomorrow
- How to evolve into a more agile and disruptive competitor
- Tools and a process for developing concrete ideas for a strategy and approaches that could disrupt the industry
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