“When companies innovate, all of our lives are better.”
– Dr. Kumar Mehta
In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Dr. Kumar Mehta, author of the new book THE INNOVATION BIOME: A Sustained Business Environment Where Innovation Thrives. He has been at the forefront of innovation, research and data analytics for over 25 years. Dr. Mehta founded Bridges Insight, an innovation think tank committed to researching innovation and helping organizations accelerate their rate of innovation. Kumar has studied innovation before innovation was a buzzword, basing his 1990 Ph.D. dissertation on the diffusion of innovations. Since then he has applied many innovation frameworks in his 14 years at Microsoft and throughout his tenure building out innovative companies. Just as Kumar built a successful enterprise with a vision around the institutionalization of data analytics a decade ago, today he is embarking on a journey to institutionalize innovation science.
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Podcast Topics Include:
- Building a sustainable environment where innovation thrives
- Becoming more innovative
- Understanding the meaning of biome
- Types of creativity and characteristics of innovative people
- The correlation between intelligence and creativity
- Harvard study on Brainstorming vs Individual Thinking and understanding why brainstorming creates an unwelcome setting for creativity
- How to attract and retain innovative employees
- Why employees leave and become entrepreneurs (and take their talent with them)
- Creating a culture of innovations in every single area of a business (product, packaging, marketing and more)
More About Dr. Kumar Mehta
Kumar also serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California.
From 2007 – 2016, Dr. Mehta was the CEO of a group of four companies employing over 1200 professionals worldwide. The companies he grew and managed included: Blueocean Market Intelligence, one of the world’s premier data analytics firms; Cross-Tab Marketing Services, a global leader in market research services; Borderless Access, a specialist in emerging markets; and Informate Mobile Intelligence, the world’s largest measurement company and acquired by Nielsen. Kumar managed this group of companies with high growth and profitability, and without any external investment.
Before that, Kumar was at Microsoft for almost 14 years. He started as one of the founding members of the very first research and analytics team at Microsoft and over time managed some of Microsoft largest and most strategic projects. He has directed over quarter billion dollars of consulting, research, and analytics at Microsoft. Kumar also worked in Business Strategy, Corporate Development, Competitive Intelligence, Corporate Finance and has directly led a some of the most strategic analytic initiatives at Microsoft.
Kumar is passionate about education and is active as a board member for the Committee for Children (CFC), a global nonprofit dedicated to fostering the safety and well-being of children through social-emotional learning and development. CFC is the world’s largest provider of research-based educational programs that promote social-emotional skills and prevent bullying and sexual abuse. Today the organization’s curricula reach schools in over 70 countries, including 30 percent of all U.S. elementary schools. Each year, more than 10.6 million children benefit from these programs.
More About Gina Trimarco
Learn More About Pivot10 Results
The Pivotal Leader is a production of Pivot10 Results, a strategy and training company that helps businesses shift from people problems to performance results.
