Our writing has been informed by our combined 75-plus years in industry. This includes:
Paul Mugge
Paul Mugge has 35 years in product development, global business strategy, and business innovation services at IBM and 15 years of researching and teaching innovation as the Executive Director of the Center for Innovation Management at NC State University. It was through this experience that Mugge learned that more important than technology or product innovation is business model innovation. It, by far, is the hardest to copy—and the most important to establishing long-term growth. He captured these ideas—and the actual methods to perform business model innovation—in a book he co-authored with Dr. Stephen Markham, titled, Traversing the Valley of Death: A practical guide for corporate innovation leaders. Most importantly, Mugge spent his entire career – both at IBM and NC State University – listening and sharing what he has learned with scores of organizations that intend to separate themselves through innovation.
Haroon Abbu
Haroon Abbu is Senior Vice President of Digital Technology & Data Analytics at Bell & Howell headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. He is an accomplished leader with more than 25 years’ industry experience in leading technology-enabled business transformation.
He has vast experience and expertise in implementing and integrating enterprise applications, streamlining processes, and building digital and analytics products. A recipient of multiple awards including recognition in the 2022 Global Top 100 Innovators in Data and Analytics report and 2023 DataIQ 100, The Most Influential People in Data, Haroon has realized digital transformation to bring about organizational breakthroughs driven by digital technology, taking advantage of innovations such as IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and more. He is a sought-after thought leader, keynote speaker at industry events, and coauthor of Trust: The Winning Formula for Digital Leaders, a Practical Guide for Digital Transformation. He presents regularly at leading industry conferences and has published his work in industry publications and academic journals such as the Journal of Business Research and Research-Technology Management.
Gerhard Gudergan
Gerhard Gudergan is the deputy managing director at FIR Institute for Industrial Management at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He is a renowned researcher with over 20 years of experience in the fields of service management, business transformation and digital leadership. Besides his research, Gudergan translates his entrepreneurial mindset into numerous spinoffs. Currently his focus is on the Metropolitan Cities Initiative, as the acting head of this latest project. The vision is to use urban innovation to transform the fifth largest metropolitan region in Europe, Rhine-Ruhr, into the most livable metropolitan area possible.