With global demand for food reaching peak levels, and climate change and diminishing farmland impacting food production, Kaihan Krippendorff’s article on the future of agriculture addresses both the issues and possible solutions.  Earlier this year, I met up with a friend for lunch at a restaurant out on the water. As I twirled fettuccine noodles and chunks of New England lobster around my fork, I couldn’t help but appreciate the connections that I’ve been able to form over shared…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Christopher Rischard.  Christopher Rischard spent eight years as Digital Leader in the TMT practice at Booz & Company based in Paris and Madrid focused on digitalization, data and tech-enabled growth strategy. After several years as a Principal, he set off as an independent consultant in London in 2014. Prior to Booz and his MBA at INSEAD, Christopher lived in Washington DC where he was raised and he worked for 8 years in enterprise solutions sales…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Luke Xie with Lux Advisors.  Luke is a former McKinsey Business Analyst with the strategy practice and has been independent consulting since 2013. He has operating experience across early & late stage start-ups including Airbnb, Sentio (consumer hardware), and Coda Automotive (electric vehicles). Luke also has venture capital experience from working at Romulus Capital (early stage) and RocketFuel (blockchain). He has functional expertise in digital strategy, due diligence, entrepreneurship, growth, innovation, and support. Luke lives in Los Angeles…

Stephen Redwood provides a post that addresses a common problem most companies face when shifting to a new system: how to organize all the moving parts to prepare for the transformation.    Not since the world went from moving around by horse and cart to the use of steam engines, has the pace of change accelerated as much as it is now. So, when back in February 2018 Forrester published a paper entitled Digital Rewrites the Rules of Business it…

In the digital age, Amanda Setili explains why every company — big or small – needs a platform strategy to connect with customers.   Today’s businesses now live or die based on how well they cultivate and connect those who they do business with. Just look at the seven most valuable companies in 2019—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba and Tencent. Each created their success by deliberately and aggressively building powerful platforms to connect customers, content…