Outthinker Chief Strategy Officer Roundtable
Creating a Culture of Corporate Innovation w/ Mike Tushman & Andy Binns
October 13 - 14, 2022
Innovation is no longer a word reserved for entrepreneurs and start-ups. Today, corporations that can discover and launch new business models inside organizations have the potential to disrupt their competitors and reap tremendous rewards. Companies who learn to infuse innovation practices into their culture have even greater potential and more resources than startups to turn ideas into action.
Michael Tushman, Professor at Harvard Business School, and Andrew Binns, Director and Co-founder of strategic advisory firm Change Logic, are trailblazers of corporate innovation and co-authors of the newly released book, Corporate Explorers: How Corporations Beat Start-ups at the Innovation Game. Together they have decades of experience helping leaders learn how to apply innovation practices with greater discipline and scale original business models. Their actionable framework explains how executives can activate employees to become Corporate Explorers.
In this in-person roundtable, Mike and Andy will discuss how to transform innovation programs into a thriving source of new business. You’ll learn how innovation programs can help attract, retain, and motivate entrepreneurial talent and energize employees by creating a realistic path to innovation. Now is the time for Corporate Explorers to chart the course for business models of the future.
Agenda
Thursday, October 13th
| Location:Â | Fogo de Chao Brazilian Steakhouse 200 Dartmouth St. Boston MA, 02116 |
| 6:30pm-9:00pm | OSN Member Networking and Dinner reception |
Friday, October 14th
| Location:Â | Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts (Well-B Open Experience Room) 101 Huntington Ave. 2nd Floor, Boston MA 02199 |
| 8:30am-9:00am | Â Check-in and networking breakfast |
| 9:00am-12:00pm | OSN In-person Roundtable with Michael Tushman (Harvard Business School) and Andrew Binns (Change Logic) |
| 12:00pm-1:00pm | Strategy Speed Question / Challenge forum lunch |
Event Attendees
Aaron Leopold
Aaron works with senior teams and corporate innovators to develop and scale new businesses. As Change Logic’s Global Healthcare Practice Lead, Aaron helps clients apply proven innovation methods from other industries to address the challenges of scaling innovation within the complex healthcare ecosystem.
Aaron primarily serves clients in healthcare technology, life sciences, and insurance, and he has a background in healthcare innovation, strategy, and startups. Before joining Change Logic, he developed and executed a corporate turnaround as the strategy director for Source Medical, a privately-held healthcare software company. Prior to that, he worked with leading hospitals to implement complex enterprise software systems at Epic, and developed government affairs and charitable partnership strategies at Dell’s Global Healthcare & Life Sciences unit. Aaron also co-founded a genomic oncology startup, where he led strategy and finance.
Aaron is a graduate of Vanderbilt University with a degree in Music Performance and Political Science. While at Vanderbilt, he consulted to the Costa Rican government as part of a charitable partnership to aid in the development of their fledgling national music education system.
Adam Field
Adam is currently SVP, Technology Strategy and Experience at Kofax where he is responsible for leading product strategy which drives innovation, vision, market analysis, forecasting, and overall success of four different go-to-market areas, focusing on artificial intelligence, cloud, and customer experience. He has previously held roles in engineering, sales, marketing, product development, and client experience at organizations such as Pegasystems, Staples, Sapient, and Fidelity Investments. He holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University.
Adam Zalisk
Adam Zalisk leads Amplify’s corporate strategy team. Before taking on his current role, Adam led non-profit partnerships, operations, implementation, and product teams at Amplify, including serving as chief operating officer for Amplify’s K–5 literacy portfolio. Before joining Amplify, Adam served as senior advisor and led innovation at the Harlem Children’s Zone, and was a founding member of Booz & Company’s North American education practice.
Alok Agrawal
Alok K. Agrawal is an executive with over fifteen years of finance experience in industrial and technology companies. He is proficient in developing and executing organic and inorganic strategies, grounded by experience running a P&L and performing operations turnarounds. He has substantial international exposure, including long-term assignments in Europe and Asia.
Alok is currently the Chief Strategy Officer at Celestica, a $6 billion services company focused on the industrial and technology markets. He is a member of a seven-person Executive Leadership Team (ELT) and reports directly to the CEO.
He recently held leadership positions with global responsibility for strategy and corporate development at Federal-Mogul and Meritor, both multi-billion dollar automotive suppliers. Previously, Alok worked in Johnson Controls' automotive businesses (now Adient) leading strategy development and executing transformation projects, including the turnaround of the interiors business. His assignments included 18 months in China with the Yanfeng Automotive Interiors joint venture and ownership of a $100 million product line P&L.
Earlier, he worked at Kearney as a consultant, primarily on growth strategy and product management engagements. Alok began his career as a powertrain engineer at Ford Motor Company. He received his M.S. and B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and his M.B.A. in strategy and finance from the Ross School of Business.
Andrew Gilman
Andrew Gilman is the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) responsible for transforming NWN Carousel’s Company Branding and Storytelling, Corporate Communications, Press and Analyst Relations, Demand-Generation, Strategic Alliances, Field and Digital Marketing functions. Andrew brings over 15 years leading successful go-to-market (GTM) organizations for venture-backed, and publicly traded (B2B) technology companies, most recently as the Chief Marketing Officer for Immuta – a pioneer in data governance for AI – where he led global sales and marketing resulting in their $20M series B. Prior to Immuta, he held several executive positions at Actifio including General Manager for their SaaS and Software portfolio, and as a founding member of the marketing team where he built and operated the demand generation, inside sales, corporate and channel marketing teams globally. Before Actifio, Andrew led solutions marketing for EqualLogic (acquired by Dell for $1.4B). Prior to Dell, he held a variety of product marketing leadership roles at EMC including leading marketing for the mid-range storage software portfolio, after graduating from EMC’s Marketing Leadership Development Program (MLDP). He frequently contributes articles to industry publications, can be found speaking at industry events and has served as an advisor to emerging technology startups. Andrew earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the Boston University School of Management, and lives outside of Boston with his wife, son and daughter.
Alpa Sutaria
Ann Stanberry
Currently the Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer for Liberty Mutual Insurance and Board Member at Visible Hands.
Ben Clark
Ben Clark became the SVP and CSO of Expeditors in January 2020. Prior to that, he served as Expeditor’s SVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, since joining Expeditors in February, 2015. Before Expeditors, he was the EVP and General Counsel of the Dematic Group, a materials automation company, and the Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Celanese Corp, a chemicals and engineered materials manufacturer. Before Celanese Ben held a variety of positions within the Honeywell Aerospace division, culminating as their Vice President and General Counsel of Global Operations.
Ben is a Six Sigma black belt and a life-long learner. His current hobbies include skiing, diving, math, and learning how to boat and play piano.
Charles Grandson
Having previously served as BPS Chief Academic Officer and before that, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Grandson will leverage his experiences across academics and operations to support the superintendent in the development and execution of the district-wide strategic plan. As Chief Strategy Officer, he will serve as the superintendent’s representative in forging strategic partnerships throughout the city of Boston and in supporting the work of the Office of Equity and Office of Opportunity Gaps.Â
Before returning to BPS in 2017, Dr. Grandson was Interim Superintendent of the Malden Public Schools, Deputy Superintendent of the Poughkeepsie City School District in New York, and a turnaround high school principal in Springfield. He began his career in education as a BPS humanities teacher at the West Roxbury Education Complex, where he worked to close opportunity and achievement gaps by implementing data-driven inquiry cycles and developed culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogy. Dr. Grandson resides in West Roxbury.
Chris Huff
In his role as Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, Chris defines the company’s Vision, Growth Goals and Execution Strategies that drive cross functional alignment. He has responsibility for Corporate Strategy, Technology Innovation, Customer Experience, Ecosystem Alliances and Marketing. Prior to Kofax, Chris spent five years at Deloitte Consulting leading the U.S. Public Sector Robotics and Cognitive Automation practice, seven years as a CEO of a B2C start-up and twenty years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Finance Officer.
Claus Jensen
Claus is a transformational change agent with a track record of driving multi-year transitional agendas in large organizations, bringing together ideas, people and technology.Â
A native of Denmark, Dr. Jensen has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a PhD in computer science from Aarhus University. Earlier this year, he received an IDG CIO 100 Award, and in 2016, he received an InfoWorld and Forrester Enterprise Architecture Award. He has authored numerous publications and holds 14 patents around integration, APIs, and transformation.
Darcy Dement
Darcy Dement is Senior Director of Technologies Platform Management at NI. She has held several positions in general management, business leadership, and product management and has experience in starting up, scaling up, and turning around organizations. She applies her passion for resolving our global challenges through science and technology as an advisor to B2B startups. She is multilingual with experience working and living in the US and Europe.
Devang Parikh
Devang Parikh is the Head of Strategy and Operations responsible for establishing and leading a strategy and operations group across global Precision Medicine and Clinical Research. Overseeing day-to-day department operations, strategic planning, alliance management, project management, business development and finance, Devang is also a core member of the Precision Medicine and Global Clinical Leadership Teams and numerous alliance steering committees.
A dynamic and entrepreneurial senior executive with over 17 years of achievement in the life science industry. Devang excels at strategic planning, operations management, business development, process improvement, organizational design, and leading people.
Prior to joining Pfizer he was a consultant for PA Consulting Group.
He has a BSc in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University, a MSE in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA in Healthcare from the Yale School of Management.
Donald Butts
Elisabeth Moore
Elisabeth is responsible for developing strategies others become passionate about and for working for executive leadership to guide the organization through times of hyper growth and profitability - balancing challenging the status quo while staying true to the company's core values and entrepreneurial roots.
Elisabeth is a member of our Growth Mid-Market cohort. She brings more than 10 years of experience understanding business needs through the lens of market insights and internal #businessintelligence and translating that into tangible results. Her background in M&A and finance coupled with engaging the organization to think critically about the future blends into a unique, CX/EX data-driven and emotionally intelligent approach to strategy development.
She also leads the organization's Emerging Business group that helps support #innovation and launching up-and-coming businesses within the firm.
Greg Johnson
Greg is an experienced healthcare leader with experience across the continuum. In his most recent role with Cancer Treatment Centers of America, he was responsible for the development and execution of growth strategies for facilities in six different markets as well as three de novo companies – a value-based care company, a data aggregation company and a platform company. Additionally, Greg helped turnaround the revenue cycle, normalize expenses and had operational responsibility for all clinical assets in Dallas/Fort Worth. At his current company, Tandem Ventures, Greg is working with private equity firms in the acceleration of the growth of their portfolio companies.
Hans Lidforss
Hans Lidforss was appointed Chief Strategy & Corporate Development Officer in February 2020. In this role, he is responsible for the overall strategy of the company and all M&A activities. Mr. Lidforss joined Sensata as Senior Vice President of Strategy and M&A in 2014. Prior to joining Sensata, Mr. Lidforss served as Senior Vice President, Strategy at Taleo Corporation where he led Taleo’s corporate strategy and M&A activities, including the successful sale of Taleo to Oracle. Mr. Lidforss has also held roles as Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett-Packard Company; Operations Executive at Cerberus Capital Management; and General Manager and Integration Director at GE Capital IT Solutions. Mr. Lidforss holds a Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Linkoping Institute of Technology in Sweden and a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Jacqueline Wiggins
Cross-functional business leader with keen ability to translate corporate strategy into action to drive results. Demonstrated strength aligning initiatives and messaging with strategic objectives. Proven ability to bolster corporate reputation and brand with strategic integration of a variety of methods, including philanthropy, media relations, sponsorship activation, marketing, internal communication and government relations. Expertise in positioning key executives. Extensive background in fostering collaborative engagement with multiple stakeholders.
Jason Ginsberg
Jason Ginsberg joins OSN, having recently come on board at Zoetis as the Head of Global Strategy. His career up to this point has been in strategy / management consulting, starting at Capgemini and then spending the last ~6.5 years at BCG, all focused on healthcare (biopharma and MedTech) and spanning Manufacturing & supply to Commercial. Jason brings a passion challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box. In his spare time, Jason is an avid reader, a big New York sports fan, and a middling golfer. Jason is based in New York, has a BSE in Materials Science from UPenn and an MBA from Chicago Booth.
Joanne Sheppard
Joanne Sheppard is Senior Vice-President for Strategy and Investments at Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. She works for the majority shareholder of Springer Nature and the owner of Digital Science. Sheppard provides CEO-level strategy support globally in the areas of science and technology. In practice, this means working closely with tech startups, gaming out strategic options to challenges facing scientists, and providing both formal and informal advice to our CEOs. Prior to this, Sheppard was the Vice-President of Strategy for Cell Press. Joanne is an American currently living in London.
Joseph Sanborn
Joseph leads corporate development, business operations and planning, and strategic finance at EverQuote. Prior to EverQuote, he spent over two decades as a technology investment banker at firms including J.P. Morgan, Robertson Stephens, Silicon Valley Bank and JEGI-Clarity. Joseph received his M.P.P. in Business Regulation Policy from Harvard University and a B.S. in Business Administration from Georgetown University.
Ken Eng
Ken Eng is the Senior Vice President, Group Strategy and M&A for Macmillan and Holtbrinck. Since 2007 he has led strategic planning, mergers & acquisitions, investments, alliances and incubation initially in its North American division and in recent years as a member of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group (Macmillan’s holding company). Prior to Macmillan and Holtbrinck, Ken held various leadership roles in business development, product development, marketing, and operations at prominent media companies including McGraw-Hill/BusinessWeek, Nielsen Business Media, and Universal Media.  Throughout his career, Ken has been instrumental in helping organizations to navigate market turbulence and to innovate digitally. In his free time, Ken mentors digital entrepreneurs in education, publishing, and media.
Kevin Ilcisin
As Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, Kevin is responsible for ensuring cross-functional alignment of NI's strategy planning and execution activities including the use of partnerships and acquisitions.Â
Prior to joining NI in 2015, Kevin served as the Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Tektronix, where he was responsible for the core technology development, R&D strategy, and portfolio processes governing R&D investments. He has held leadership roles at Novellus (LAM Research) and a number of start-ups including Zight and Technical Visions.Â
Kevin holds a Ph.D. and M.A degrees in plasma physics from Princeton University and B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with Distinction from the University of Alberta.
Lindsay Hanson
Liz Benson
Liz Benson is the Vice President of Strategy for Kofax, managing the corporate and product strategy, customer experience and strategic alliances. She previously led the Conversational Artificial Intelligence practice for Deloitte across the federal, state, and local government and higher education markets, which encompassed delivery and sales. Ms. Benson spent many years solving clients’ complex business issues using automation technology, such as intelligent automation, intelligent chatbot, analytics and machine learning, and systems integration. Additionally, she serves on the Executive Board of the Ascend Greater Washington Chapter to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. She is a graduate of West Virginia University.
Lyndsay Brown
Lyndsay Brown as a Chief Strategy Officer of Cambridge Public Schools strives to build a system-wide strategic culture focused on improving alignment, coherence, efficiency, and effective implementation of best practices. She provides senior leadership for these efforts, working collaboratively with district and school leaders to support planning, implementation, and continuous improvement efforts. They oversee district and annual planning, implementation and monitoring, research and evaluation, procedure development, and special projects and initiatives.
Michael Schrage
Michael Schrage is a Visiting Fellow in the Imperial College Department of Innovation and Entrepreneurship where he examines the various roles of models, prototypes, and simulations as collaborative media for innovation risk management.
He has served as an advisor on innovation issues and investments to major firms, including Mars, Procter & Gamble, Google, Intel, BT, Siemens, NASDAQ, IBM, and Alcoa.
In addition, Michael has advised segments of the national security community on cyberconflict and cybersecurity issues. He has presented workshops on design experimentation and innovation risk for businesses, organizations, and executive education programs worldwide. Along with running summer workshops on future technologies for the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, he has served on the technical advisory committee of MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory. He has been a contributor to such prestigious publications as the Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, strategy+business, IEEE Software, and the Design Management Journal.
Michelle Micone
Michelle Micone is an experienced sales and marketing executive with a general management background across multiple industries – professional sports, licensing and entertainment, toys and packaged goods. Recently, she served as a consultant for the Globe, helping to expand its Rhode Island bureau. Prior to that, she was the Head of Consumer Products at the National Football League, where she led the expansion of the the NFL’s brands into new and expanded categories. Prior to the NFL, Michelle held a variety of leadership positions over a 17-year career at Hasbro in Rhode Island. She led North American licensing, bringing merchandise and experiences to market for Hasbro's portfolio of brands. As a global brand strategy leader, she steered new product development and marketing for various brands at Hasbro, growing retail presence, entertainment distribution and revenue globally.
Naghmeh Heil
Naghmeh Heil currently works as Analyst, Group Strategy and M&A for Holtzbrinck.
Nick Smith
Nick Smith is senior vice president of strategy and business development at Bose. He is responsible for enterprise-wide strategy development and deployment, enterprise partnerships and business development, creating and building an emerging technology licensing business, a design-thinking practice, and a data center of excellence and advanced data strategy.
Prior to joining Bose in 2021, Nick was the chief strategy and operations officer of global e-commerce at Pitney Bowes Inc. While there, he led the creation of new operating platforms, partnership programs, and logistics networks to enable increased revenue growth. He also led mergers and acquisitions, and post-merger integrations, as well as collaborative innovation programs.
Nick completed his MBA at the University of Connecticut School of Business and he received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University.
Nicolas Chapman
Rich Haas
Rich Haas is the Global Leader for Business Model Innovation at Kyndryl. In this capacity, he leads a team focused on developing and launching innovative business models that drive value for customers, partners, and Kyndryl through new value propositions and operating modes – working across the Kyndryl organization and ecosystem.
Prior to this role, Rich served as Vice President of Strategy and Transformation for Global Technology Services (GTS) at IBM. He supported the creation and evolution of GTS’ strategic direction and business model – shaped by market and competitive dynamics, impacts of new technologies, and business capabilities. His activities covered both Infrastructure Services and Technology Support Services.
Rich joined IBM in 2003 in Global Business Services. He started as a consultant to Financial Services clients, helping them with their business and product strategies, as part of the Strategy & Change practice. He eventually moved to a role as a Strategy advisor for the North America Financial Services Sector, where he helped formulate both near- and long-term strategic actions to address emerging areas of competition, support execution of operational initiatives, and align unit strategy to overall IBM strategy.
Robert Wu
Rob is currently Chief Operating Officer at CDS Global, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hearst (a global diversified media, information, and services company with more than 360 businesses). As COO, Rob oversees long term strategy and day-to-day operations of a 1,000-person fulfillment organization spanning 8 sites across 6 diverse business units – Lettershop, Lockbox, Contact Center, Distribution Center, Procurement, and Data Studio. Prior to joining CDS Global, Rob led global revenue operations and strategy at Fareportal, a $5B e-commerce travel company. Additionally, as a management consultant, Rob spent time at Bain working on some of the most complex strategic, financial, and operational challenges facing Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries.
Roopa Unnikrishnan
Roopa is SVP of Strategy and Corporate Development for IDEX. She is responsible for leading enterprise strategy and the corporate development (M&A) function. In this role, she helps to build strategy and business development capabilities for IDEX. Roopa has more than 20 years of corporate strategy experience across a variety of industries, through a mix of consulting roles and corporate leadership positions. Most recently, she served as Chief Strategy Officer for Vontier, a global industrial manufacturing company focused on smarter transportation and mobility. Previous strategy positions have included roles with Harman International, Citi, BlackRock, and Katzenbach Partners – which was formed by past members of McKinsey & Co. consulting. At Pfizer she also stepped outside her traditional strategy and innovation roles to lead the Talent and Organization capability for the pharmaceutical division. She often serves as a professional coach and is the author of the book, “The Career Catapult.”
Samantha Teltser
I work for a large construction company trying to transform the stagnant and fragmented construction industry using technology. We are adding various lines of service to reduce fragmentation/friction in order to more effectively embed innovation.
Sukanya Soderland
Tahirou Assane
Tahirou has over 20 years of experience in leadership roles, civil engineering, strategy, transformation, and project management. As Director of Brightline at PMI, Tahirou oversees the activities under the three benefit pillars of thought and practice leadership, networking, and capability building. Through Brightline, Tahirou led the development of the Organizational Transformation Series, championed Brightline flagship event Strategy@Work, and pioneered the very first Digital Transformation in Action Conference.
Prior to PMI, Tahirou worked as the deputy director of infrastructure and project management group in the United Nations Office for Project Services supporting the successful implementation of peacebuilding, humanitarian, and development projects around the world.
Before the United Nations, Tahirou was a senior project manager with the Ministry of Transportation in Ontario where he provided technical capabilities and expertise to ensure excellence in the delivery of complex highway projects with multi-disciplinary teams. He led among other the design of the widening of Highway 410 in the Greater Toronto Area from 6 lanes to 10 lanes.
Tahirou is a co-author of several book articles and reports including Blockchain-Driven Transformation (2021), The Transformation Playbook (2019), Transforming Beyond the Crisis (2020), and Perpetual Transformation (2022).
Tahirou won UNOPS Growth and Innovation Award (2013) and received the Plaque for highest standing in Civil Engineering from the University of Ottawa (2004). Tahirou was awarded Niger Presidential award for highest standing in high school (1998) and was champion of Niger’s Mathematics and Logics Games (1997).
His work and passion for travel have taken him to six continents and over 50 countries.
Tess Caputo
 Tess Caputo joined Zoetis in 2020 and is currently VP US Strategy, Digital and Analytics. In this role, Tess oversees several strategic insights functions, including strategic pricing, business analytics, market research, digital products, and strategy. Tess was previously the Head of Corporate Strategy at Zoetis. Prior to Zoetis, Tess spent seven years at the Boston Consulting Group. As a core member of BCG’s team serving biopharma and biotech clients, Tess gained experience in corporate strategy, transaction, brand strategy and transformation topics. Prior to BCG, Tess worked for Capgemini Consulting. Tess has an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from Duke University.
Todd Shriber
Todd is a member of the U.S. Insurance & Retirement (USIR) senior leadership team where he is responsible for strategy development, market intelligence, and strategic initiatives for USIR and its businesses, including Retirement Strategies, Individual Life, Group Insurance and Retail Advice & Solutions.
Prior to joining Prudential in 2012, Todd was with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (MSSB), where he served as Managing Director & Business Head for Annuities and Insurance. During 11 years at MSSB and its predecessor firm, Smith Barney, Todd held several other positions including Managing Director & Global Business Head, Global Stock Plan Services. Todd also served as head of Corporate Development for Global Securities Services at Citigroup, and as a Senior Engagement Manager in the Strategic Change Group at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Todd holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in government from Harvard University and an MBA, with concentrations in finance and marketing, from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is a CFA charterholder.
Valerie Radford
I am an experienced executive leader who operates at the intersection of the future of work, financial security and retirement. I do things that "can't be done" and have a successful track record of translating novel concepts into growth opportunities for some of the largest financial services institutions.
I see both the vision and the details and innovate through creation (not destruction). No breaking glass here. Design thinking and agile development are my tools. I also thoroughly enjoy building new teams and creating new business models.
My interests are: Future of Work, Financial Security, Retirement Solutions, Lifetime Income, Role of Employer, Strengthening 401k, IRA, Portability, Digital Transformation, Agile Leadership
Ying McPherson
Ying has over 15 years of experience in financial analysis and commercial analytics and oversees the strategy development and execution activities for the company.  Ying also leads our analytics, resource planning, and corporate marketing functions. Previously Ying was Vice President of Operational Finance and responsible for strategic pricing and planning.  Prior to Unifi, Ying held several leadership positions at WestRock, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, supply chain optimization and commercial analytics.  Ying started her career at Price Waterhouse Coopers in audit and spent the next 7 years in investment banking with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (now Truist) and a boutique M&A shop (now Citizens M&A Advisory).  Â
Ying was elected winner of Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2021 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from Goizueta Business School at Emory University.Â
Overview
The Outthinker Strategy Network (OSN) is an invitation-only network of Chief Strategy Officers and executives leading strategy for large companies.Â
OSN members get exclusive access to a global peer group of strategy executives and world-class thought-leaders. Members engage in curated learning, practical conversations, and 1:1 networking with connections hand-selected by the Outthinker team based on their needs.
The individuals representing their organizations have described the Outthinker Strategy Network as invaluable for bringing new ideas and transformative thinking into their organizations – enhancing the efficacy and success of their strategy teams and furthering the trajectory of their individual careers.Â
The ultimate purpose of the Outthinker Strategy Network is to help strategy executive members in solving their top challenges. Â
There are two sub-groups of the Outthinker Strategy Network.Â
- The OSN Large Enterprise group – comprised of strategists from $1B+ revenue businesses
- The OSN Growth Mid-Market group – comprised of strategists from $100-$900M revenue businesses
Both of these groups are comprised of Chief Strategy Officers and executives leading strategy for their respective organizations. The Large Enterprise group and Growth Mid-Market group have a mix of programming and networking opportunities that are both exclusive and non-exclusive to their respective sub-groups.
Thought leaders
Community
Made
How members engage?
STRATEGY RoundtableS
In-person and virtual events with a capped number of participants to enable conversation and dialogue.
Networking
Formal and and informal networking through events, meetups, 1:1 curated introductions, happy hours, etc.
Challenge Forums
Members convene to discuss and experience-share around a specific challenge being faced by an OSN peer.
