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Adam Hartung        

CEO of Content Laboratory, Spark Partners & Soparfilm Energy; Expert on Innovation Management, Trend Analysis & Strategic Planning

Adam Hartung has a substantiated 20-year experience in innovation management, where he has devised and employed strategies that have assisted companies globally to harness business growth through innovation. His far-reaching understanding of emerging trends has been consistently shared through his columns for Forbes.com, claiming the top spot for eight years, as well as his contributions to the quarterly Strategy & Leadership column in CIO Magazine for a span of seven years. Hartung's accurate predictions of the success of industry game changers like Netflix, Amazon.com, Apple, Facebook, and Tesla, coupled with his foresight on the negative impacts these disruptors had on former leaders like Sears, Tribune, and Research in Motion, have been instrumental.

Aside from writing, Hartung's occupational journey encompasses noteworthy leadership roles. Since 2004, he has been CEO and Managing Partner of Spark Partners, a strategy and transformation consultancy. In 2010, he took up the mantle of founding CEO of Soparfilm Energy, a corporation that invested early in fracking for oil and gas production. He also serves as CEO of Content Laboratory, communications for pharma and bio-pharma companies. Hartung has also served on the Board of Directors for several prosperous privately held companies, both in the U.K. and the U.S., including Crosfield Electronics and Benchmark Technologies in the U.K., Biometric Access Corp., and Apex Interactive in the U.S. Applying his deep understanding of strategy and leadership during periods of innovation upheaval, he provides board advisory services.

Hartung, recognized as a Certified Board Leadership Fellow by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and a certified financial expert by the SEC, also joined the Board of Advisors of the Global Innovation Institute (GInI) in 2020. As a popular interviewee in the press, his insights about top tech companies and the leaders of the automobile, media, and retail industries are frequently sought. His work has been featured in over 600 journals, including Inc, Adweek, Fortune, and Washington Times, and he has appeared in multiple radio and television interviews. He is the author of "Create Marketplace Disruption: How to Stay Ahead of the Competition." A Harvard Business School MBA graduate with Distinction, Hartung now travels across the globe to give keynotes, lead strategy and innovation management workshops, and coach executives and boards, with the aim to enhance their success trajectories.

Speech Topics


Is Your Strategy Amazon Prime, Netflix or Windows 10?

Microsoft created and dominated the personal computer world. But users tired of unnecessary updates, especially as they shifted to mobile platforms that had advantages the PC could not match. Microsoft’s relevancy waned. Meanwhile Amazon.com rapidly moved from innovation to innovation, pioneering not only new products but entirely new business models that have shaken retail, distribution and consumer goods industries to their core. Leaders make choices. Is your future going to be a slide into irrelevancy, or are you going to innovate to grow? Understand how to resource your future to adopt market shifts and innovate for growth.

Takeaways:

  • Why most failures arise from sticking to your core
  • How to identify external forces that put you at risk
  • Breaking away from what you do to refocus on what customers value
  • How to put resources where the payoff is greatest
  • How to make the right future bets

Market Disruptors Don’t Get Ubered: How To Stay Ahead

WalMart is the world’s greatest retailer – bigger and better than anyone before. But Walmart’s future is in the hands of innovator Amazon, who changed the game. Being good at what you’ve always done isn’t worth much when it is so easy for innovators to change the rules. Learn how to avoid being caught off guard, and instead be a fast-adapting organization that leverages innovation to grow and succeed.

Takeaways:

  • How to tame your fear of external disruptions
  • Why your greatest strength is always your greatest weakness
  • Succeed by seeing trends, and adapting to them
  • Change the rules, rather than excelling at the game, to win
  • Cut your risk while improving your gains

Growth Winners are Transformers Not Avengers

Every super hero has a weakness. And competitors figure it out fast. Sears, Blackberry, Hostess Baking – they were the best at what they did, until competitors destroyed them. Today’s new superheroes are destroyed as fast as they are born – Blackberry, mySpace, Sirius/XM…. Tomorrow’s winners are modeled on Netflix and Facebook – not trying to be Superman. Instead they pivot – adapt — transforming rapidly to meet changing customer needs using the latest trends so they don’t become obsolete. Learn how you and your organization can be flexible to grow in an ever-changing marketplace

Takeaways:

  • How to find your Kryptonite – it’s easier than you think
  • Recognizing your path to obsolescence
  • Using trends to leverage your success
  • Identifying game changing opportunities
  • Implementing Shapeshifting Teams

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