LUKE WILLIAMS
Globally recognized authority on innovation strategy and leadership. He is Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business; Executive Director of the Berkley Entrepreneurship Center for Innovation at New York University. He is the international bestselling author of "Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business."
Luke Williams Speaker Profile
At some time, someone somewhere is going to disrupt your entire industry. Shouldn’t it be you? Luke Williams, author and globally recognized authority on disruptive innovation, reveals a way of thinking that has the power to transform your business and stay ahead of the game.
Luke Williams is one of the world’s leading business thinkers on innovation strategy. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and is a dynamic and sought-after management speaker, having lectured in 21 countries and addressed the United Nations General Assembly and the World Innovation Forum.
Williams is Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business; Founder and Executive Director of the W.R. Berkley Innovation Labs; and a Fellow at Frog Design— one of the world's most influential product strategy and design firms. He is the inventor of 30+ U.S. patents and has designed more than 100 products in industries ranging from transportation to finance, and healthcare to consumer electronics.
His views are regularly featured in media ranging from Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Fast Company to The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. He is the author of the international bestseller, Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business.
Luke Williams is one of the world’s leading business thinkers on innovation strategy. He has worked with leading companies across the globe and is a dynamic and sought-after management speaker, having lectured in 21 countries and addressed the United Nations General Assembly and the World Innovation Forum.
Williams is Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business; Founder and Executive Director of the W.R. Berkley Innovation Labs; and a Fellow at Frog Design— one of the world's most influential product strategy and design firms. He is the inventor of 30+ U.S. patents and has designed more than 100 products in industries ranging from transportation to finance, and healthcare to consumer electronics.
His views are regularly featured in media ranging from Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Fast Company to The Wall Street Journal and The Economist. He is the author of the international bestseller, Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business.
"Luke Williams’ presentation was extremely well received. His Wednesday night keynote was engaging, informative and provocative. People also very much appreciated that he stayed with us Thursday morning for the panel discussion – it really sent a message that he was interested in helping us with our conference objectives. I appreciated that Luke did seem to customize his presentation and his approach to the panel discussion to focus on the work we intended to pursue at the conference."
- Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units
Speaking Topics
Disrupt: Sparking Business Transformation with Innovation
Successful companies operating in mature industries that embrace incremental change find themselves on a path that gets narrower and narrower. Eventually, they reach the end of the path, and by then, their customers have forsaken them for a new offering that nobody saw coming. In cases where companies do take disruptive risks, it’s often because they’re backed into a corner and there’s no other choice. But companies that try to differentiate themselves by focusing on incremental innovation instead of game-changing, disruptive innovation will differentiate themselves right out of business. They simply cannot afford to wait until they get backed into a corner. Companies need to be consistently making bold moves, even at the very peak of their success. This is exactly the sort of thing that new start-ups and small-scale enterprises are best at. But, it’s an approach to business that can be learned and applied just as effectively by large organizations and industry incumbents—in fact, by anyone who’s willing to challenge the status quo wherever they are.
Disruptive Thinking: Fostering a Culture of Game-changing Leadership
To compete today in a fast-changing world, businesses need a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions to stay ahead of the game—solutions that revive stagnant markets or completely reinvent the competitive dynamics of an industry. Disruptive Thinking is about fostering a culture of innovation leadership that provides the framework and motivation to generate those strategies and execute those solutions. It is an essential skill for any business leader, from a small start-up to a global corporation, with the desire to transform organizational processes and behaviors, and ask, “Why hadn’t we ever thought about our business and culture this way before?”
Innovation for Growth: How to Spot Markets Ripe for Disruption
Globalization, accessibility to an overwhelming array of products and information, and technological innovation are rapidly changing the marketplace in significant ways. As a result, consumers are changing the way they buy, and businesses need to change the way they compete. The Internet and the infrastructure of massive connection have already reinvented many industries, but we’ve barely scratched the surface. We’re still surrounded by countless products, services, and business models that are built on the logic of the past. Many of the decisions that define these businesses were made years ago, in a different age, and a different context. Winning organizations in the next decade will be those that discard these old business decisions and remake the market landscape by implementing ideas that are not easily conceived of or replicated by a competitor.
The Disruptive Age: Thriving in an Era of Constant Change
As much as we might desire it, the future we face will not be predictable. We are living in a fast-changing and uncertain time––a disruptive age. And we are entering this new global order with a way of seeing and thinking better suited for a world now several centuries behind us. A world that could be explained in simpler terms, when you could expect and carefully plan for gradual shifts in the status quo. But the scale of the challenges we face and the accelerating speed of innovation demands a new approach to innovation leadership––a new way of opening minds to uncomfortable solutions. A way of forcing improbable insights and fostering counterintuitive ideas. To thrive in this new era, organizations and institutions, executives and entrepreneurs need to rethink the habits that have made them successful in the past, and challenge the conventional wisdom and industry models that have defined their world.
Successful companies operating in mature industries that embrace incremental change find themselves on a path that gets narrower and narrower. Eventually, they reach the end of the path, and by then, their customers have forsaken them for a new offering that nobody saw coming. In cases where companies do take disruptive risks, it’s often because they’re backed into a corner and there’s no other choice. But companies that try to differentiate themselves by focusing on incremental innovation instead of game-changing, disruptive innovation will differentiate themselves right out of business. They simply cannot afford to wait until they get backed into a corner. Companies need to be consistently making bold moves, even at the very peak of their success. This is exactly the sort of thing that new start-ups and small-scale enterprises are best at. But, it’s an approach to business that can be learned and applied just as effectively by large organizations and industry incumbents—in fact, by anyone who’s willing to challenge the status quo wherever they are.
Disruptive Thinking: Fostering a Culture of Game-changing Leadership
To compete today in a fast-changing world, businesses need a steady stream of disruptive strategies and unexpected solutions to stay ahead of the game—solutions that revive stagnant markets or completely reinvent the competitive dynamics of an industry. Disruptive Thinking is about fostering a culture of innovation leadership that provides the framework and motivation to generate those strategies and execute those solutions. It is an essential skill for any business leader, from a small start-up to a global corporation, with the desire to transform organizational processes and behaviors, and ask, “Why hadn’t we ever thought about our business and culture this way before?”
Innovation for Growth: How to Spot Markets Ripe for Disruption
Globalization, accessibility to an overwhelming array of products and information, and technological innovation are rapidly changing the marketplace in significant ways. As a result, consumers are changing the way they buy, and businesses need to change the way they compete. The Internet and the infrastructure of massive connection have already reinvented many industries, but we’ve barely scratched the surface. We’re still surrounded by countless products, services, and business models that are built on the logic of the past. Many of the decisions that define these businesses were made years ago, in a different age, and a different context. Winning organizations in the next decade will be those that discard these old business decisions and remake the market landscape by implementing ideas that are not easily conceived of or replicated by a competitor.
The Disruptive Age: Thriving in an Era of Constant Change
As much as we might desire it, the future we face will not be predictable. We are living in a fast-changing and uncertain time––a disruptive age. And we are entering this new global order with a way of seeing and thinking better suited for a world now several centuries behind us. A world that could be explained in simpler terms, when you could expect and carefully plan for gradual shifts in the status quo. But the scale of the challenges we face and the accelerating speed of innovation demands a new approach to innovation leadership––a new way of opening minds to uncomfortable solutions. A way of forcing improbable insights and fostering counterintuitive ideas. To thrive in this new era, organizations and institutions, executives and entrepreneurs need to rethink the habits that have made them successful in the past, and challenge the conventional wisdom and industry models that have defined their world.
LUKE WILLIAMS - VIDEOS
