Tag Archives: BBDCEO

Keith Yamashita is an inspiring chap. He wasn’t content with sharing how SYPartners engages with clients, but wanted to reach further. He asked us “What shared agenda should New Zealand set with the world that drives deep impact – and … Continue reading →

Method co-founder Adam Lowry presented at the BBD CEO summit this year, and was excellent. The tour reinforced what a great company this is and also showed how small and simple they really are. There is nothing going on here … Continue reading →

SY Partners helps companies facing major transformation. The session was aimed at helping the group push the thinking a little, and we very privileged that Chairman Keith Yamashita flew west to run the session. SYPartners see themselves as consistently choosing … Continue reading →

Turns out Kiwis buy more Klutz items per capita than anywhere else. They are a toy company that specialises in helping 8-10 year olds build things. Klutz was started by two graduating students with a book on how to juggle … Continue reading →

Hyatt have about 500 hotels worldwide. A year ago the CEO saw that they needed an innovation drive, so hired a Chief Innovation Officer who started holding think tank sessions around the world. These brought in a diverse group of … Continue reading →

Next up from Cisco was Joanne Bethlahmy Director Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group, which is an internal strategy consulting group charged with coming up with provocative ideas challenging business models and approach to customer engagement. They work with customers to … Continue reading →

Intuitive Surgical makes giant surgical robots (surgeon assistance devices), and is publicly listed, delivering $1.76b of revenue last year. The have 2341 of their systems installed globally, mostly in the US and with 5 in NZ. Their revenue model is … Continue reading →

People use the SurveyMonkey tool for a large number of purposes with performance reviews, training and parent feedback my favorite non-traditional uses that CEO David Goldberg mentioned. The product is easy to use, simple to set up and marketed essentially … Continue reading →

“We really are in the people business” said David Lawee today to the BBD CEO Study Tour Group at Google. Our study tour group got the standard walk around Google, which starts with free food, and shows the volleyball court, … Continue reading →

I’m on the Better by Design CEO Study Tour, visiting a host of companies in the SF Bay area. I’ll try to post notes as I go. IDEO is held up by many of the exemplar of user centered design, … Continue reading →

John Brackenridge is Chairman of the The New Zealand Merino Company, a key supplier to Icebreaker. He sees their goal as being the smartest most robust and valuable part of the primary sector. Smart means listening to others, robust means … Continue reading →

Casey Sheahan is the CEO of Patagonia, the apparel company with a conscience. He was introduced by Jeremy Moon from Icebreaker who is a big fan of the company. (When living in the US a friend and I used to … Continue reading →

Dev Patnaik is from Jump Associates, which apparently sites between McKinsey and IDEO. He is the author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy Dev (pronounced Dave) started with the announcement of the Sony PS2, … Continue reading →

In the intro Jeremy Moon recounted how clothing companies moved from wholesaling to wholesaling and retailing, worrying unnecessarily as it turns out, about retailer concern about disintermediation. , Their latest challenge for the industry is selling directly online, again worrying … Continue reading →

Matt McKendry Learned from Apple that the employee experience is as important as the customer experience, something that applies absolutely to consulting companies like Deloitte. Learned from Stanford D School (design school) to move away from Powerpoint. Ironically Matt is … Continue reading →