corporate incubator

Client: $4B sales consumer discretionary firm, 100+ year old private family-owned firm. Kansas City, MO.

Problem: core demographic Baby-Boomer customer base slowly declining and not aggressively engaging more digitally savvy younger customers with new innovative offerings.

Action: advised global head of innovation and senior leadership team on the internal multi-year funding of new corporate innovation-led incubator. Acted as an entrepreneur-in-residence to advise on the roll-out of a portfolio of internal start-ups. Advised on co-creating, funding and managing a diverse portfolio of opportunities.

Result: Multi-year funding received and several dozens of new ideas tested, funded and launched with proof of fit, proof of concept, proof of revenue and proof of scale milestones. Major corporate-wide restructuring saw the various opportunities spun-off and grown within their new divisions.

non-profit

Client: $100M non-profit leadership center, 50+ year old, top 10 globally recognized firm. Greensboro, NC.

Problem: growing number of global for-profit consulting and technology firms targeting its core leadership and firm required an sustainable innovation growth strategy to defend and grow its market share.

Action: advised senior executives in supporting their new innovation growth strategy. By using a people, portfolio and process framework that integrates financial, human, intellectual, social and soulful capital, we were able to frame an innovation growth strategy, including adoption of a new innovation-based assessment.

Result: firm adopted new innovation assessment tool which significantly reduced costs and created better assessment related outcomes, and COVID severally impacted open-enrollment and other programs, including implementation of new strategies and resulted in major reorganization

developer

Client: 40+ year old private urban adaptive re-use property developer, specializing in mixed-use urban re-development, utilizing city, state and federal tax credits and subsidies. Baltimore, MD.

Problem: Developed over 17 million sq. ft. of adaptive reuse opportunities. After losing significant value and restructuring in Great Recession aftermath in 2009, they created a pipeline of over 6.7 million sq. ft. of mixed-use urban re-development opportunities, with over $1.5B in total debt, equity and tax credits-subsidy capital requirements.

Action: Advised on creating an innovation growth strategy at the intersections of: i) institutional impact investing; ii) urban adaptive re-use of mixed-use neighborhood transformations; iii) innovation districts; and iv) the new urban crises impacting marginal income citizens in urban centers. Using a people, portfolio and process framework that integrates financial, human, intellectual and social capital, we framed an innovation growth strategy, to develop their long term impact investing goals.

Result: Identified institutional impact and other investors with indications of interest and soft circles for draft terms sheets. Partners split firm into separate legal entity

vocational college

Client: 30+ year old non-profit vocational college, with 10K+ graduates from its nationally recognized culinary and nutritional programs for professionals. Berkeley, CA.

Problem: Challenged by increasing competition, lower tuition fees price points, and the absence of federal accreditation to support student loan requests. Legacy long-term real-estate lease with local city government as landlord, and COVID local regulations impaired use of building.

Action: Acting as a trusted advisor to the founder and the board of directors we structured and negotiated the divestiture of their vocational school, the restructuring of the lease of its primary location with the city government and the design and planning and implementation of its new strategic plan with an integrative wellness workplace and community education social enterprise.

Results: Significant financial real estate burden relieved , proceeds from sale of college, and unsolicited bequest provided cash flow. Business development opportunities with new integrative wellness solutions implemented.

private school

Client: Alternative private school focused on moral education and global citizenship. London, ON.

Problem: The school was spun out of its for-profit parent, as stand-alone non-profit entity, and moved from a small town to a mid-sized urban city. The growth strategy could not be sustained relative to the significant cost structure brought on by a much larger property and the slower growth in international students. The culture of the organization required a dynamic integration of financial, human, intellectual, social and soulful capital in order to navigate a difficult shift back to its core focus.

Action: Acting as a trusted advisor to the founder, principal and executive director, and interim CFO, the property was ultimately sold and leased-back, and the school successfully moved back to its original smaller city.

Results: The school is thriving and attracting international students in its original location.

workshops, coaching & mentoring

Clients: Individuals, communities and institutions from diverse for-profit, non-profit, educational and government entities in North-East and Mid-West, USA and Ontario, Canada locations.

Problem: Understanding and integrating soft-skills and emerging conceptual frameworks in the human innovation process, with traditional competency frameworks.

Actions: Action and reflection oriented workshops, coaching and mentoring that integrates the use of conceptual frameworks with the Innovation Strengths Preference Indicator (R) (ISPI) and CharacterYAQ Assessments.

Created and delivered over 35 “innovation-ready graduate” workshops to over 550 participants, with over 700 ISPI and 200 CFA assessments, with over 65 volunteers and over 1,200 volunteer hours.

Results: Better individual, community and institutional self-awareness and practice of human Innovation programs that integrates the use of character-based , innovation strengths, and culture assessments with frameworks to explore and focus on the human dynamics that drive innovation on individual, team, community and institutional levels.