Robyn Bolton challenges an article posted in Fast Company that claimed the most popular design thinking strategy is BS. How might we ruin a perfectly good and useful tool?” This might not be the question that innovators, design thinkers, and brainstorm facilitators wanted to answer.  But it seems that it’s the one they did. “The most popular design thinking strategy is BS,” proclaimed the headline on a June 28 article in Fast Company.  “The ‘How might we’ design prompt is…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Colleen Miner. Colleen Miner spent three years as a consultant and Instructional Designer at McKinsey, and has just started her own consulting firm to work on education innovation and future of work projects. Prior to McKinsey, she was Senior Director, Content Strategy for 2U, Inc. and the Digital Learning Project Coordinator at The Museum of Modern Art. Colleen has particular expertise in digital learning, design thinking, and capability building programs at scale. She is currently…

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 Amit Bhagat. Amit Bhagat brings together a combination of corporate and consulting experience.  In the corporate world, he was General Manager of a $300M business unit of a public consumer goods company.  In addition, he was Head of Strategy and M&A. Within his portfolio of responsibility, Amit led teams in each of corporate strategy; M&A and post-merger integration, business insights and analytics; and transformation.  In the consulting world, Amit was Managing Director at PwC Strategy&…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Yi-Hsin Chang with Chang Unlimited.  The secret to Yi-Hsin Chang’s success, no matter the industry, company or situation, is her creativity, tenacity and hard work. She is single-mindedly driven by a need to succeed and to make a positive impact on everything she does. Yi-Hsin has developed and implemented growth strategies, and led transformational change in companies small and large. She is particularly adept at assessing and adapting to new situations, and managing challenging personalities….

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Marla Malluk Gozman.  Marla Malluk Gozman spent nearly ten years at Bain & Company in their Boston, London, and New York City offices. Since then, she has been an independent strategy consultant and also spent three years as Sales Strategy Director with Zearn, a nonprofit education technology organization. Marla has expertise in growth strategy and strategic planning, market and competitive analysis, and pricing, as well as advising start-up and nonprofit organizations. She has experience in…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sai Patil.  Sai Patil spent seven years as a strategy consultant at Bain & Co and then three years at Mattel leading strategy and marketing teams. Sai has particular expertise in growth strategy for consumer/retail companies as well as retail promotional strategy and marketing optimization. Prior clients include Fortune 500 companies in beauty, fashion, home decor, coffee, printing, pet food and education. Sai is highly strategic with deep expertise in utilizing consumer and market insight….

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Lawrence E Adjah with Adjah.  Lawrence is a community builder and business advisor who began his career as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company in its New York office, helping to serve some of the world’s largest professional sports organizations and media companies. After McKinsey, Lawrence served as the Senior Director of Business Development at a premiere sports and entertainment marketing agency in New York. He later became a direct advisor to some of…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Surbhee Grover with Steel & Graffiti Strategy consulting. With 18 years experience in consulting and brand management, Surbhee Grover provides growth strategy, innovation, digital and marketing advice to leading companies across consumer oriented industries (incl. food & beverage, beauty/ cosmetics, education, hospitality, luxury and digital media). She gained considerable experience during her six year tenure with Booz & Company (2004-2010). Her work has included projects such as the development of an innovation strategy & processes…

  James Black shares the first post in a series that explores the development of customer understanding in 2020.  To kick off the new year, I suggested ‘20 Questions to Help Your Brand or Business See 20/20 in 2020.’ To help brands and businesses assess the state of your business and identify opportunities, I wanted to take a closer look at the topic of Customer Understanding. Developing a deeper Customer Understanding is helpful to identify opportunities to strengthen your business….

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Travis McElveen with Matterhorn Advisors. Travis McElveen spent nearly 4 years at McKinsey & Company in a variety of roles, including Engagement Manager, where he served companies in the transportation, aerospace, and basic materials industries across multiple functions, including operations, pricing, advanced analytics, and growth strategy.  Additionally, Travis has extensive experience serving organizations in the federal and non-profit sectors. After starting his career at McKinsey & Company as a Business Analyst, Travis joined the US…

  Kaihan Krippendorff asks a most pertinent question to help companies identify a strategy that will improve customer relations and revenue.   The former president of Starbucks, Howard Behar, told me a few months ago that the most important decision Starbucks made, that led to many of the disruptive choices this category-defining company made, was their decision to be “in the people business serving coffee” rather than the “coffee business serving people”. In other words, Starbucks decided to view their “customer”…

  Eric Hiller’s company blog takes a look at the strategy and growth probability of the Ride-hail market from the perspective of the Lyft CEO. Summary for Lyft CEO Ride-hail is not going away, but it must to get profitable.   You can try to ‘grow to profitability’, but as we have learned in the past, that is a risky proposition. Uber is expanding, but it is already bigger than Lyft.   Is that strategy profitable, and if it is,…

  Jason George uses the evolution of the aviation industry as a means to explore the cost of risk aversion and how it can stymie growth. Building in every possible contingency as part of a strategy can end up producing something so encrusted with extraneous elements that agility is compromised. Alternatively, it may hew so closely to known and safe paths that it ends up losing the novelty that would make it compelling. If you can’t cut yourself loose from…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Seline Karakaya with Excelerate Global.  Seline Karakaya is Founder and Managing Director of Excelerate Global, a venture capital and private equity advisory group. In this capacity, Seline has worked with closely with companies ranging from start-ups to multi-nationals to support their growth priorities. She works closely with founders, CEOs, and Boards of Directors—often as an interim CXO—on the most pressing issues, from hiring to pricing, strategy to fundraising, organization to business development. Prior to founding…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Katarina Podlesnaya.  Katarina spent 8+ years across management consulting at BCG, venturing and blockchain product development at ConsenSys, advising multiple start-ups, and serving as an owner of a retail business. Katarina’s expertise focuses on growth strategy, procurement and negotiation, technology, operational improvement, and organizational design. She currently resides in New York City and maintains a strong network and presence in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Dubai, UAE. Katarina is happy to discuss collaboration opportunities irrespective of…

  Luiz Zorzella explains why non-strategic projects can be a distraction that get in the way of real strategic work and what you can do about it.    When companies define their strategic priorities, it is common to include in this list items that are not building blocks of the company’s strategic goals. At least directly. Some of these items are extraneous, pet projects and/or impositions from third-party actors or the result of internal politics and accommodations and at best…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Michael Casaburi with Revulus Growth Partners to our community. Michael Casaburi spent 13 years at Bain and has been running a boutique consulting firm focused on market due diligence for investors and growth strategy for companies since 2013. Michael brings top tier consulting approaches to investors (e.g., PE firms), the middle market, and BUs of large companies. He’s worked with some of the largest investors/companies globally as well as smaller firms/companies. Michael lives in a Chicago, Illinois suburb…