Nature, Nurture and the Environment of Innovation We know that great innovations can be born in garages and dorm rooms, and in corporate R&D programs, universities, labs and innovation hubs. And they emerge from cities famed for their creativity as well as places whose largest resource is ingenuity fueled by need. Turning ideas, wherever they come from, into new products, services, processes, enterprises and even new industries requires innovative leadership, strong teams, and both technical and financial support. We look at a handful of those factors from the perspective of advisors who help early-stage businesses make their way on the road to scale and success. THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT The cultural environment can have a significant impact on whether a fledgling endeavor takes off, and some places seem to be especially hospitable to innovation and entrepreneurship. What are the some of the qualities that foster creativity? What attitudes and support systems can allow business to launch? Deborah Op den Kamp is a consultant with Spencer Stuart in Silicon Valley. “There are some wonderful things about Silicon Valley that make it uniquely able to create the level of innovation: there’s no badge of disgrace for your company failing, there is a wealthy [...]

“…corporate survival today requires the capacity for rapid change, and forward-thinking HR departments are transforming themselves to meet the demand for evolving skills and work models. They’re taking their cues from a surprising source—the IT department, which at many organizations has adopted agile processes to speed its evolution and better serve customers’ needs." - Adi Ignatius, “How Tech is Transforming HR.” Harvard Business Review, April 2018 Digital transformation is impacting nearly every industry, geography and business function. Now it is Human Resources’ turn to experience the impact of some disruptive tech trends. Is HR ready? Recent AESC research identified CHROs as the least prepared, relative to other C-Suite roles, for digital transformation. The HR world itself is being disrupted, and HR leaders need to prepare themselves and their organizations. While the changes are significant and coming fast, some experts welcome the transition. “I would say it’s an extremely positive disruption.” Steve Patscot is the North American leader of Spencer Stuart’s Human Resources Practice. “Technology is making every aspect of the HR value chain better—from pre-employment to benefits, total rewards, employee/executive development and so forth. Technology is disrupting all of that in very, very exciting ways.” Charles Bien, Managing Partner of [...]

Erica Orange is Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at The Future Hunters, one of the world’s leading futurist consulting firms. Orange spoke with AESC about current trends and how they are shaping our future. “It is our job to hunt the future, capture the future, and ultimately answer the question, 'so what?'” - Erica Orange. What’s Happening? No trend can be adequately explained without putting it in the context of the pace of change: what The Future Hunters call ‘templosion.’ Orange says, “It’s a huge question, ‘what’s happening,’ because everything is happening so quickly.” Templosion is a term coined by The Future Hunters to describe “the implosion of everything, including the biggest of events, into smaller and smaller amounts of time.” Orange describes “all of the big, familiar cycles: an economic cycle, a corporate lifespan cycle, generational cycles, communication cycles; they used to take much longer to come to fruition. Now, it’s as if we’re experiencing everything, the world around us, how we work, how we live, how we communicate, in such a truncated and accelerated way, it’s as if we’re experiencing these cycles on steroids.” Consider the way we define generations. “The fact that market researchers and [...]

From Behind the Scenes to the Front Lines The primary role of an executive researcher is to create a search strategy and find a set of first-round candidates that meet the criteria set out by a client. It has always been hard, and it has always been important. But executive research is not immune to disruption and the pace of change. To meet the demands of an evolving role, researchers are developing new skills and adapting to new challenges. In the process, they are building rewarding careers and proving their value. Jane Griffith, a 2008 alum of the AESC Certificate in Executive Research, began her career in executive research and is now a partner and National Diversity leader with Odgers Berndtson, Canada. “Ten, 15 years ago in Canada if you did executive research, you were just doing name generation research, digging and entering the information into the database, but never actually having the external call with candidates or potential candidates.” She says, “I started my career in pure name generation research. It wasn’t that far off from going to the library to look for things in indexes.” Rachel Roche, founder and president of US-based Smart Search says, “It could not [...]

As organizations seek a diversified workforce, Invenias set out to discover what role executive search firms play in driving greater diversity in recruitment. In partnership with MIX Diversity Developers, a boutique consultancy firm specializing in Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), Invenias have undertaken a global survey of executive search professionals to ascertain the impact that diversity is likely to have on their working practices and business strategies in the future. 

Published in 2018 by Wharton Digital Press of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Go Long: Why Long-Term Thinking is Your Best Short-Term Strategy brings together expert voices from Korn Ferry, Fortune magazine, The Wharton School and McKinsey & Company to make the case that CEOs should adopt a long-term mindset and pursue long-term strategies as an alternative to the common corporate focus on short-term results—a focus that often comes at the expense of future growth. With powerful anecdotes from industry leaders who chose to go long, the authors present a compelling argument, spelling out the pitfalls of short-term thinking against the wisdom of a long-term vision. Co-author Rodney Zemmel is Managing Partner for the Northeast (US) at McKinsey & Co. “I spent probably my first ten or 15 years with the firm in some of the most long-term focused industries around, which were pharmaceutical and biotech R&D,” he says. That perspective informed Zemmel’s work on Go Long. “What I realize and what our firm has realized over the last few years is there is an increasing challenge with companies that feel pressured to make decisions that are good for the short-term and aren’t necessarily in the long-term interest of [...]

Technology continues to evolve and disrupt industries, giving way to entirely new sub-industries such as FinTech, Biotech, Telehealth and more. Blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine-learning, virtual reality and connected environments have greatly contributed to these transformations and replaced entire functions within industries. This transformation begins with technology replacing systemic and routine data input functions. The rapid rise of virtual assistants, automation of data capture and aggregated insights from Big Data over the last several years, indicate that technology can quickly learn more complex tasks. As the digital information age continues to give rise to new economies and tech sub-sectors, is executive search and recruitment the next industry to be enveloped by technology? Technology Is Getting More Intelligent Candidate databases and job boards like Indeed.com, ZipRecruiter.com and TheLadders.com have been around for years, catering to lower levels of recruiting. These sites were built for convenience and easy sourcing for both candidates and recruiters. For years, the speculation was that technology such as this could not breach the C-Suite or significantly impact the executive search or recruitment industry. However, new innovations for senior executives like NuRole.com, an invitation only platform that connects and matches board director roles with board ready candidates, are starting [...]