Kaihan Krippendorff

Kaihan Krippendorff has made a commitment to helping organizations and individuals thrive in today’s era of fast-paced disruptive technological change.

He began his career with McKinsey & Company before founding the growth strategy and innovation consulting firm Outthinker. His growth strategies and innovations have generated over $2.5B in revenue for many of the world’s most recognizable companies including BNY Mellon, Citibank, L’Oréal, Microsoft, and Viacom. He is a best-selling author of five books, most recently the Edison Award-nominated, Driving Innovation From Within: A Guide for Internal Entrepreneurs.

Kaihan has been recognized by Thinkers50 as one of the top thinkers in the world to look out for and as one of the 8 most influential innovation thought leaders in the world. Kaihan was also ranked Thinkers360 as the #1 Global Innovation Thought Leader and Thinkers360 #1 Global Business Strategy Thought Leader in 2019.

Kaihan founded the Outthinker Strategy Network, an exclusive network of Chief Strategy Officers from large organizations with over $1B in revenue. A trusted advisor to these Fortune 500 Strategy Executives, Kaihan is known for facilitating powerful conversations that create strategic clarity and yield actionable and impactful ideas for this diverse cross-industry group.

Amidst his dizzying schedule of keynote speeches, consulting projects, ongoing research and writing, Kaihan still finds time to host the Outthinkers Podcast and teach at business schools throughout the US and internationally (including NYU, FIU, and Wharton Executive Education). A regular contributor to Fast Company and other major business media outlets, Kaihan is an advisory board member for high-growth startups in the spaces of IoT-human-machine collaboration, blockchain-powered transportation, international food processing/exporting, and sustainability focused products and lifestyle B-Corporations.
 

He holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering, Wharton, Columbia, and London Business Schools and a doctorate in strategy. With a mother from Bangladesh and a father from Germany, Kaihan brings a holistic, diverse, and global perspective to everything he does. His work has brought him to 58 countries all over the world. He speaks three languages and has lived or spent significant periods of time in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific. He lives in Greenwich, Conn., with his wife and three children.
 

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus has said, "Kaihan shows that with a compelling idea anyone can change the world" and that message has made Kaihan one of the most sought-after speakers on the topics of business strategy, growth and innovation.

Speaking Topics - 

Driving Innovation From Within

In our accelerated world of technology and disruption, the benefits of turning employees into Intrapreneurs are well documented. Companies that treat their people as Intrapreneurs have innovation infused into their DNA. Transformation becomes a toned muscle and capability that can be exercised repeatedly as needed. Best-selling author and globally ranked innovation expert Kaihan Krippendroff's research shows companies with active Intrapreneur networks are 3X more likely to be in the top quintile of financial performance and enjoy 2.5X advantage in their ability to recruit and retain top talent.

The IN-OVATE framework provides a specific and practical approach to turn your employees into Intrapreneurs, and build capacity for enterprise-wide transformation and smart innovation. 

In this inspiring, timely, and high-impact keynote, Kaihan shows how organizations can unlock the power of Intrapreneurship, and how you, the individual Intrapreneur, can navigate barriers, overcome resistance, and take initiative to drive transformation across your organization. 

Key Takeaways

• A framework to identify and overcome the seven blockers of innovation
• The six characteristics, mindsets, and habits of successful Intrapreneurs
• Appreciation and understanding of the human side of innovation and how to spread Intrapreneurship across the organization
• Inspiring and memorable stories to fuel their Intrapreneurial journey

Outthink The Competition

As a successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO, Kaihan Krippendorff has worked with and studied thousands of companies and the different approaches they take to drive growth, foster innovation, and set themselves apart from the competition. How is it that some companies are able to continually pivot their strategy, transform, and pursue new growth ideas? The answer is they have a repeatable process and common language that can be learned and taught. Based on his most recent book, Outthink the Competition, Kaihan delivers a systematic process and set of proven business strategy tools he has used with more than 300 clients in almost every industry to create innovative strategies and growth ideas that have generated more than $2.5B in revenue. Blending together first-hand stories of inspiring business and social innovators, from Elon Musk to Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, Kaihan’s presentation teaches the audience a tested method for developing actionable growth ideas that unlock growth, increase competitiveness of their business and arm them with the tools needed to excel in today’s digital, agile, and purpose-driven world. 

Key Takeaways

• How to use The Outthinker Process® to generate powerful ideas that can drive bottom-line results across all levels of the business
• How to find a “Fourth Option”: the option beyond the obvious choices, the option others will not see or respond to
• The Outthinker playbook: five strategic narratives you want to master now
• A simple approach to avoid killing off “crazy” ideas and instead turn them into winning moves
• How to extract value of internal ideas to drive organic growth
• How to build a culture of Outthinking that celebrates fresh strategic and innovative ideas and thinking
• How to empower and inspire your employees so that they are ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas

Unleashing Agile

In a world marked by accelerated change and innovation, mental agility has proven to be a critical driver of success in sports, warfare, business, career, and life. Yet few agree on what exactly “mental agility” is or know how to develop it. Companies that fail to move on quickly enough from their linear organization will not succeed. In this presentation, successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff shares insights from his work with top-level corporate entrepreneurs and the study of more than 200 successful innovators into what sets them apart from the rest of the competitive pack. Kaihan will share the key practices that distinguish those with high mental agility and arm the audience with tools and frameworks they can immediately apply to their own work. 

Key Takeaways

• Connect the unconnected – pulling together seemingly unrelated pieces of information to rapidly form a mental image of the situation or opportunity.
• Uncover unexpected causes – drilling down into the system to see the cause others overlook.
• Shift your frame – shifting your frame on the problem to reveal solutions others dismiss.
• Question the impossible – understanding why we fall into mental “traps” of false beliefs that prevent us from seeing what is possible and, more importantly, how to dig out of the trap that is keeping you from seizing the solution.

Be the Disruptor

We are experiencing a historic acceleration in the pace of change in our world. Artificial intelligence, digitization, robotics, 3D printing, social shifts, and the rise of purpose-driven enterprises are reconfiguring how every conceivable industry operates.

These changes divide us into two camps: the “Disruptors” and the “Disrupted”.

Successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff has spent over a decade studying the patterns of disruption. What makes some companies thrive and what makes others fall behind? What gives some the power to shape the future and makes others struggle to keep up? Kaihan has applied his cutting-edge findings to create more than $2.5B in new value and help hundreds of businesses lean into change and thrive in tomorrow’s fast-paced, digital, purpose-driven world. In this talk, Kaihan breaks down the underlying patterns of disruption and with compelling stories of successes, failures, and yet-unknown innovations, teaches practical tools to help you take action and become a Disruptor. 

Key Takeaways

• The emerging trends – from AI to digitization – that are driving us into an era of disruption and how these will likely shape the future
• How to use The Outthinker Process® to generate powerful ideas that can drive bottom-line results across all levels of the business
• The strategic patterns and best practices that the world’s most strategic and innovative companies use to thrive during the ongoing shift of global business structures and thinking
• A systematic process you can use to overcome the “innovator’s dilemma” and create breakthrough growth ideas that will disrupt your market without disrupting your organization
• How to empower and inspire employees so that they’re ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas