Company - Leadership

InnovationPoint's leadership team brings a deep heritage in the best practices of Strategic Innovation. We are business leaders and practitioners with proven backgrounds and experience focused on driving business growth.

Soren Kaplan, Ph.D.

Soren Kaplan's passion for innovation is exemplified through his diverse experience – from managing Hewlett-Packard's internal strategy consulting group, to co-founding a web 2.0 collaboration software company, to consulting to start-ups and Fortune 1000 companies.  As a co-Founder and Principal of InnovationPoint, he has led strategic growth initiatives for some of the world’s most innovative companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Kimberly-Clark, Frito-Lay, Sealed Air, Philips, Disney, Visa, Wells Fargo, Cisco Systems, and many others.

Prior to InnovationPoint, Soren founded iCohere, one of the first web 2.0 collaboration software platforms for building social networks and communities of practice.  Soren previously served as Manager of Business Strategy Consulting at Hewlett-Packard where he led an internal consulting group that assisted leadership teams across HP with strategic planning, product and service innovation, and organizational change management.  Prior to joining HP, Soren was a consultant with Cambridge, MA based IdeaScope Associates and consulted to global 500 companies – including Kodak, Siemens, Nestle, Avery Dennison, and 3M, in the areas of new opportunity identification, new product and service development, and business process design to support sustainable innovation.

Soren has presented and lectured at dozens of conferences and institutions, including the Creative Education Foundation and the Harvard Business School.  In addition to his consulting, Soren is an adjunct professor within the Imagineering Program at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands.  Quotes and articles from Soren have appeared in numerous publications including Fast Company, Strategy & Leadership, and the Journal of Creativity and Innovation Management, among others.  He holds Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Organizational Psychology.

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Derrick Palmer

Derrick Palmer consults on strategic innovation with global and Fortune 1000 companies, medium-sized businesses and new ventures. His areas of focus include corporate strategy, consumer-inspired new product innovation, designing best-in-class innovation processes, and strategic innovation training.

With 25 years of line management and consulting experience, Derrick brings a wealth of traditional and non-traditional consulting approaches. He has extensive experience leading cross-functional and multi-cultural teams 'from chaos to clarity', and in fostering collaboration across organizational lines, brokering business relationships and facilitating decision-making.

He sits on the Advisory Board of Idea Crossing and is a final-round judge for its annual Innovation Challenge®, the largest business innovation competition in the world. Prior to co-founding InnovationPoint, Derrick served as Vice President, Business Strategy with NOVO/Giant Step, an Internet Professional Services consulting firm where he established and grew the Business Strategy practice.

Previously, he was a Senior Director with IdeaScope Associates, an innovation management consulting firm, where he worked with global companies to identify new revenue opportunities, develop innovative business strategies, create new lines of business and develop new products/services.

A transplanted European, Derrick has lived in six countries and is attuned to the cultural sensitivities of working with global teams. Fluent in several languages, he holds a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the University of York, England, and a Masters degree in Marketing Management from Lancaster University, England.

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Stu Winby

Stu Winby’s expertise lies in strategy innovation, management of innovation, and organizational strategy and design. Stu has over 25 years management experience as well as cross-industry international consulting experience. His recent work has been mostly with CEO, Chief Innovation Officer, and executive team members of medium to Fortune 500 size firms, including Microsoft, Yahoo!, Alegent Health, Kimberly-Clark, Abgenix, and Procter & Gamble.

For over ten years Stu was Director/General Manager of Hewlett Packard's Strategy, Organization, and Change Group, which included four practice areas: Business Strategy Innovation, Organization Architecture and Change, R&D Solutions Lab, and Product Generation Solutions. He worked on the Compaq-HP merger as a key member of the Central Program/Change Office Merger Integration Team. Prior to this Stu managed HP's Factory of the Future organization and program.

Stu is on the board of the University of Southern California’s Center for Effective Organizations (CEO). He was Vice-President for Advisory Services at the American Productivity Center (APC) where he was responsible for productivity management, organization strategy and design, and work innovations research and application. His work has been documented in numerous books, articles and professional journals. Several Harvard Business School Cases have been written on projects on which he has consulted, as well as numerous best practice case studies documented by the Conference Board and others.

Stu has been an active member in numerous initiatives such the White House Initiative on Productivity and the California Governor Workplace forums. He has been a frequent guest lecturer at various Universities such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Wharton, UCLA and USC business schools.

He received degrees from San Jose State University with additional graduate studies from Stanford University. He is a graduate of Harvard's program on Professional Services Management and Stanford’s program on Innovation Management.

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Cheryl Perkins

Cheryl Perkins is a thought leader in innovation and a creative catalyst in brand-building initiatives for companies looking for that innovative edge. In 2006 Business Week magazine chose Cheryl as one of the a Top 25 Champions of Innovation in the world. She was also named as a top executive driving vision within the consumer goods industry (Visionaries 2006) by Consumer Goods Technology magazine.

Cheryl works closely with InnovationPoint as a key partner across a range of strategic innovation initiatives. With over 20 years experience directing growth and innovation, Cheryl most recently served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer for Kimberly-Clark. She ran the company’s innovation and enterprise growth organizations, including research and development, engineering, design, new business, global strategic alliances, environment, safety and regulatory affairs, and oversaw innovation processes, systems and tools. She has ten U.S. Patents and several more pending. Few consultants are able to do what Cheryl does: Identify and transform insights, designs, technologies and capabilities into total solutions and new-to-the-world innovations.

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Sally Crawford

Sally Crawford is a business leader with over 25 years' experience driving innovation and strategic organizational change within the Fortune 500. After working at Xerox Corporation, Sally founded Crawford International, a consulting firm focused on driving innovation through people development, training and change management solutions for clients including Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Wells Fargo Bank, JD Power & Associates, and numerous others. After selling her firm, Sally joined the InnovationPoint team.

Sally's project leadership spans high-tech, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and finance industries. Sally is highly regarded for her expertise in “whole brain thinking” and the Hermann Brain Dominance Indicator (HBDI), an approach to team-based innovation originally established and developed by General Electric. For more than two decades, Sally has applied whole brain principles to spark innovation, increase learning, improve communications and enhance team dynamics to create breakthrough solutions.

In recognition of her strong entrepreneurial skills, Sally has received numerous awards including the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year (Inc. magazine and Ernst & Young) and the Top 25 Women Making Business History (National Association of Women Business Owners). Women in Technology International inducted Sally into their Technology Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2006, Sally was honored as a finalist for the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal Women of Distinction awards. Sally also served as president of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Alliance of Technology and Women from 2004-2006. She is an advisory board member for the Council of Adult and Experiential Learning and the Institute for Women’s Leadership.

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Constantinos Stavropoulos

InnovationPoint’s representative in South East Europe, Constantinos Stavropoulos has a long history of helping companies to recapture and build their business value, and to innovate strategically by defining and implementing next-generation growth strategies.

A committed "game changer" himself, he draws upon his experience with Big Four consulting firms in Greece and the U.S., and has held management roles with major Greek organizations operating in Greece and South East Europe. He is a member of the Institute of Management Consultants U.S.A., and a judge for Idea Crossing's "Innovation Challenge", the largest business innovation competition in the world.

During his 20+ year business career, Constantinos has supported over 200 companies operating in more than 20 different business sectors in over 350 diverse projects. He holds an M.B.A. degree (Management) from Washington State University and a BSc degree (Business Administration) from the American College of Greece.

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Harvey Ehrlich

What do you get when you combine customer insight with visionary thinking and then substitute the Power Point for colored markers, butcher paper, eye-catching persuasive artwork and stand-up comedy?

As InnovationPoint’s creative gadfly and Illustrator/Visual Illuminator, Harvey Ehrlich infuses an inspirational visual dimension into the innovation process – and drives a team’s creative imagination to new heights. InnovationPoint’s shirt-sleeves work sessions bring Thought Leaders, customers and consumers face-to-face with client teams. In these sessions Harvey creates provocative, real-time illustrations that capture (and spark) innovative thinking. His illustrations bring bold new ideas to life – at the conceptual, strategic and executional level – crystallizing and communicating consumer insights, emerging trends, growth opportunities, and strategic directions, as well as packaging, branding and new product concepts.

Harvey does not merely document ideas generated by the client team, Thought Leaders and consumers – he advances and expands upon these ideas – and is himself a prolific source of radical concepts that inspire the team to envision breakthrough opportunities on entirely new level. After our work sessions his visual renderings are often taken into concept testing with customers and consumers. They also provide a compelling visual record of the team’s work that serves as a communication aide to build support across the larger organization. Harvey helps client teams discover the power of the visual image as a communications medium when presenting to the Board, key accounts or other key stakeholders.

Harvey's career as a designer, illustrator and fine artist spans more than thirty years. He has designed products, exhibitions, museums and world's fair pavilions, Broadway and movie posters, packaging, corporate identity, animated sculpture and film, advertising, editorial illustration and direct mail, point-of-purchase, industrial shows, paintings and drawings. His extensive client list includes Hewlett-Packard, Agilent, IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, General Foods, Quaker Oats, Coca Cola, Lipton, Nestle, and Pizza Hut. His range and expertise in creative idea generation makes his rare talent and contribution invaluable to the Strategic Innovation process.

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Jeannette de Noord

Jeannette de Noord possesses a passion for exploring and uncovering untapped opportunities, and defining innovative solutions that make them reality. Her 20 years of line management in international consumer business have shaped and strengthened her conviction that the biggest successes are created at the intersection of analysis and creativity, and by balancing visionary thinking with pragmatism.

During her career with Royal Dutch Philips, Jeannette held a variety of international marketing, business development and sales management roles.   With a focus on business innovation and growth, she led teams across Europe and Asia, always ensuring success through her sensitivities to local cultural and adapting her approaches to leadership and market strategy.  Jeannette’s experience spans product, service, and business model innovation, including integrating product design strategy into strategic solutions through ensuring close collaboration with Philips Design, one of the premier in-house design organizations.  She most recently led Philips’ “Senior Solutions” initiative which resulted in the acquisition of Lifeline Systems and was nominated for the One Philips award.
 
She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Kids 2020 Foundation and an advisor to several European start-ups.  She is based in The Netherlands.

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