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Frans Johansson

What trailblazers share is not just the breakthrough nature of their discoveries, but where they went to find them…

THAT'S THE MESSAGE FROM AUTHOR AND ENTREPRENEUR, Frans Johansson, who says that individuals, teams and organizations can create an explosion of remarkable ideas at the intersection of different fields, cultures, and industries.

Frans Johansson is an entrepreneur and thought-leader. He is also a consultant and the managing director for a hedge fund. This young businessman, previously co-founded and managed two companies, a Boston-based software company and a medical device company operating out of Baltimore, Maryland and Stockholm, Sweden.

Raised in Sweden by his African-American and Cherokee mother and Swedish father, Frans earned an MBA at Harvard Business School and a ScB in environmental science at Brown University.

Frans, a successful author, has written on a variety of topics, from business management to healthcare to sport fishing to how to save our oceans. His bestselling book, The Medici Effect, has been translated into 14 languages and was named One of the Ten Best Business Books of 2004 by Amazon.com.

In his book, The Medici Effect, Frans Johansson takes us on a fascinating journey to the Intersection: a place where ideas from different fields and cultures meet and collide, ultimately igniting an explosion of extraordinary new innovations. Learn how your organization can find new paths by taking what they do best and combining it with something slightly different to change the world.

Frans has, in fact, lived at the Intersection most of his life: he was raised in Sweden by his African-American and Cherokee mother and Swedish father.

What do termites and architecture have in common? Music records and airlines? And what does any of this have to do with healthcare, card-games or cooking? Most of us would assume nothing. But out of each of these seemingly random combinations have come ground-breaking ideas that have created whole new fields.

Prepare for a talk unlike any other where Johansson will show:

How to find ground-breaking ideas by combining different fields and cultures
How to make these intersectional ideas happen
How to think differently about the risks involved (hint: they are not as great as you may think)

Speaking Topics

The Medici Effect: Ground-breaking Innovation at the Intersection of Disciplines and Cultures

What do goat milk, spiders, and fishing lines have in common? Music records and airlines? Ant behavior and telecommunications routing? Most of us would assume nothing. But out of each of these seemingly random combinations have come radical innovations that have created whole new fields. In this talk, Frans Johansson takes us on a fascinating journey to the Intersection: a place where ideas from different fields and cultures meet and collide, ultimately igniting an explosion of extraordinary new innovations. See how companies become global leaders, how products and services yield huge margins, how researchers, managers and artists outdo their peers. Prepare for a talk unlike any other where Johansson will show:

How to find ground-breaking ideas by combining different fields and cultures
How to make these intersectional ideas happen
How to think differently about the risks involved (hint: they are not as great as you may think)

Diversity Drives Innovation

The world is changing fast. Today more people than ever move between cultures and countries. Companies, cities, even nations, must compete on a global basis just to stay even. In this world, diversity has become a key driver for innovation. Johansson explains how today's most innovative companies form culturally diverse talent pools and teams as a specific strategy to innovate. These companies have become #1 brand leaders, R&D centers—and very profitable. In this program, Frans clearly and persuasively shows what happens when different cultures collide and ignite an explosion of extraordinary new ideas and discoveries. Johansson shows:

Why diversity drives innovation
How critical diversity is for companies that want to innovate
That most companies have a long way to go in leveraging any diversity they have

The Medici Executive: How to Break out of the Pack

Today's executives face more uncertainty than ever before, while the pressure to outperform continues to rise. Those who will succeed must find new markets and create new groundbreaking products, services, policies and strategies. So what makes for such a successful executive? To out-innovate their competition, these execs must search for new ideas where others don't, be able to work with a wide variety of people, and be prepared to think differently abut risks and failures. In this talk, Johansson will show your audience how to:

Become successful in generating new and novel ideas
Ensure their companies foster Medici-thinking among their managers and executives
Think differently about innovation, the execution of ideas, and risk-taking.

Testimonials

[You] captured the tremendous value of cultural diversity and its impact on innovation—in a very fun way…your presentation was one of the highlights of our conference.
- Sam Palmisano, CEO, IBM

Frans spoke to our global marketing team in January and the creative spark that he started still burns hot today… six months later.
- Jay Lenstrom, CEO, The Radiate Group

Engaging, inspiring and very thoughtful!
- Stefan Johnsson, Sr. VP & CFO, Volvo

Frans, your energy and passion were electric and your content created a lot of buzz throughout the meeting.
- Anne Bloulin, Chief Learning & Community Officer, ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership

Thank you for an inspiring presentation. People were quoting you throughout the week.
- Mindy Grossman, CEO, IAC Retailing

An incredibly dynamic speaker. He kept our audience…enthralled…Anyone interested in being in the forefront shaping a new future for their organization or society in the 21st Century must read The Medici Effect, and list to Frans speak.

Frans Johansson is a remarkable and very engaging speaker. He is a probing, passionate intellectual who will drive change for business on a global basis.
- Edie Fraser, President, Diversity Best Practices (NBC)

* speaker fees subject to changes without notice