Kaihan Krippendorff

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

• Outthink the Competition: Excelling in a Digital, Agile, Purpose-Driven Future

  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, clarify and refine strategy, transform their business, 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 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 breaks down a tested method for developing actionable strategic growth ideas that increase competitiveness of your business and arms you with the tools needed to excel in today’s digital, agile, and purpose-driven world:

  • Learn the Outthinker Process (IDEAS) and generate a portfolio of ideas to drive bottom-line results across all levels of the business
  • Identify a “Fourth Option”: the option beyond the obvious choices that can transform your business
  • Learn the five best strategic narratives to master now – The Outthinker Playbook
  • Master a simple approach to avoid killing off “crazy” (valuable) ideas and instead turn them into winning moves
  • Build a culture of Outthinking that celebrates fresh strategic and innovative ideas and thinking
  • Empower and inspire your employees so that they are ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas

• Driving Innovation from Within: A Guide for Employees and Organizational Leaders

  “Innovation” brings to our mind the maverick entrepreneur who quits their job, at unimaginable odds, to build a business on their own. But this entrepreneurial story is a myth. As a successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO, Kaihan Krippendorff argues that intrapreneurs – employees who incubate new businesses within corporations – have had a far greater impact on the world. Nearly all of the most transformative innovations over the past three decades, from e-mail and the Internet to DNA sequencing and MRI scans, were introduced by employees who did not quit their jobs but instead took the challenge of innovating from within.

  Drawing on five years of in-depth research of hundreds of successful innovators and Intrapreneurial Intensity, as well as insights from thought leaders, C-suite leaders, business unit leaders, and front-line employees, Kaihan will share exclusive insights from his next book, Driving Innovation From Within: A Guide for Internal Entrepreneurs (Columbia University Press, 2019). Kaihan will unveil the most critical internal focus areas for driving innovation and moving your organization forward into the future. He will share specific tools, frameworks and techniques used by successful innovators to manage and unlock the value of employees’ ideas to increase corporate innovation levels and deliver bottom-line results. Audience members will have actionable next steps to transform their organization by testing and scaling fresh ideas that generate value and growth.  They will leave feeling inspired and empowered, ready to take on the future.

  In this inspiring keynote you will learn:

  • The IN-OVATE Framework: seven barriers of internal innovation and how to overcome them
  • The six characteristics of Internal Innovators
  • Steps to building an agile innovation team
  • How to shift your organizational mindset and culture
  • What it takes to lead an innovative organization and drive transformation
  • How to build a wave of internal support for growth, innovation and creativity by reinforcing the idea that innovation is possible, attainable, and ultimately actionable

• Innovating Beyond Your Product: Eight Dimensions of Innovation to Uncover Growth and Competitive Advantage

  When we say “innovation” we almost always mean “product innovation.” We talk about research & development and possible new solutions to meet unmet needs. This is a one-dimensional and incomplete approach to innovation. Dissect the most innovative companies of the last decade and you will see that great innovators disrupt their markets by reaching beyond the product. Oftentimes their success rests on choices that have little to do with new products.

  In this presentation, successful entrepreneur, author, consultant, and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff will take you through engaging examples from a broad array of industries (as well as your own) such as Urban Outfitters in apparel, IKEA in furniture, VMware in technology, SpaceX in space launch vehicles, Mastercard in payments, and Vistaprint in printing services, showing how companies that outperform their competition seek disruptive innovation across eight dimensions (8Ps). The “8Ps” framework has proven to be a powerful structure to engage high-level marketers, business strategists and sales staff in an exploration of where competitive advantages lie, where to strengthen them, and where they are being underutilized. Learnings from this session include:

  • The “8Ps” strategic innovation framework: systematically uncover new avenues for growth, innovation, and transformation
    • Positioning
    • Product/service mix
    • Pricing/fees
    • Placement/delivery
    • Promotion/client acquisition
    • Processes/operations
    • Physical experience
    • People
  • How to construct a disruptive business model or strategy that leverages an underutilized 8P strength
  • Identifying opportunities beyond the R&D lab: identify and reconstruct processes and operations to drive efficiency
  • Driving organic growth leveraging the value of unrealized ideas
  • How to build real confidence to apply new strategies everyday across all business units and roles

• Unleashing Agile: Activate the Power of an Entrepreneurial Mindset to Drive Growth

  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. Audience members will learn to:

  • 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.
  • Empower and inspire your employees so that they are ready to take action to develop, test and scale innovative growth ideas
  • 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.
  • Attendees will leave with a boost of confidence, tools, and energy to increase the velocity and agility level of their organization on a daily basis.

• Winning the Future of Finance

  The financial services industry – from banking to payments to insurance – is undergoing a rapid and historic transformation. The shifting regulatory landscape, changing consumer/investor behavior, an endless stream of agile newcomers armed with disruptive fintech tools, and platforms powered by Blockchain and AI are mounting an attack on incumbent institutions and business models. Kaihan Krippendorff works with many of the world’s leading financial institutions, helping them make sense of this uncertain future – understanding key future trends and technologies, designing fresh strategies and agile teams ready to face disruption head on so their organization can be ready to transform, compete, and win the future of finance. A successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO that has created more than $2.5B in revenue for clients, Kaihan uses first-hand experience and actionable insights to present a compelling vision of the future world of financial services, arming the audience with a framework and tools that they can use to succeed in the tech-driven digital economy of the 21st century.

  You will learn:

  • The key trends shaping the financial services industry – Blockchain, AI, regulatory environment, unbundling/bundling, millennial investors, fintech, financial inclusion and beyond
  • What financial services will look like in the near and distant future
  • Five key strategies today’s most successful firms are adopting to adapt to, and lead, tomorrow
  • How to transform into a more agile, inspiring, disruptive competitor, built for success in the digital economy
  • Tools and a process for developing concrete ideas and strategic approaches that could disrupt the industry

• The Purpose Path: Building a Mission-Oriented Strategy that Harnesses the Power of CSR and Doing Good

  Historically, we were taught corporations existed for one purpose: to maximize shareholder value. But companies are waking up to the realization that such a focus destroys shareholder value over the long term because it creates resistance to your growth.

  Successful entrepreneur, author, consultant and CEO Kaihan Krippendorff draws on years of proprietary research to show that today’s most successful companies more often speak of the strategic power of appealing to all stakeholders. If you design a strategy that benefits shareholders by also benefiting employees, the community, the country, and the environment, you have designed the ultimate strategy. When everyone wants you to win, you remove all competition. This idea goes beyond social responsibility. It points us toward removing the idea that doing good and making profit are inconsistent. You do not have to choose.

  By pulling together inspiring stories from organizations ranging from lesser-known jewels like Best Doctors, BrightFarms, and Holstee to leading socially directed corporations like IKEA, Mastercard, and Target, Kaihan will inspire and motivate the audience to rethink their role and how they interact with stakeholders, not just shareholders. The audience will learn:

  • The three primary goals of a “be good” socially minded strategy
  • Simple yet effective tools and frameworks to apply and create your own “Do Good” strategy that complements your current organizational strengths and strategy
  • The next evolution of corporate social responsibility and how to embrace the shift toward a future where CSR is the norm
  • How to empower and inspire employees so that they’re ready to take action to develop ideas, strategies, products, and programs that everyone benefits from