Thought Leaders

I am a civil engineer electronic by training. In 1997 I joined AGC Mol (then still Glaverbel) a glass manufacturer at walking distance from my home. At first I managed the general services such as plan maintenance, purchasing, miscellaneous projects and evolved to site manager of the Mol plant in...

English: Greater Montréal, Québec’s economic heartland, definitely beats in tune with digital innovation. We have one of the richest tech ecosystems in terms of knowledge, know-how, and creativity. A source of great pride for Québec and Canada. We stand out on the global scene with our world-class academic institutions and...

I’m a futures strategist who combines human behaviour and future studies to create keynotes, masterclasses and books that help people, businesses and brands build the courage and clarity they need to forge the future they want. Driven by the real world, by humanity and ‘the now’, as a Futures Strategist...

My journey with RJ Young began while I was still a student at Ole Miss, working alongside my father and learning the business from the ground up. Back then, Nashville was a very different city – still rooted in tradition, but the seeds of change were beginning to sprout. Today,...

Robert Salcedo was born in the Dominican Republic on August 26,1964. When he was ten years old, his family decided to immigrate to the United States in search of better opportunities. At an early age Robert understood the need of medicine accessibility for everyone regardless of social status or race....

Ahti Heinla is one of Estonia’s most visionary minds – the co-founder of Starship Technologies and formerly the Chief Technical Architect of Skype. His impact on global communication and autonomous technology is immense, yet his story is deeply rooted in Estonia’s culture of curiosity, experimentation, and civic spirit. Heinla wrote...

One of these cognitive errors is a failure to recognise the impact that outliers have in our increasingly interconnected world. Take for instance, the decision to create the Vitality programme. It is one outlier decision that had, and continues to have, an enormous impact on our entire business. A few...

My parents brought me to Adelaide from Poland at age 12, attracted by the Australian national values of freedom, respect, equality and a fair go. At age 21, while completing my Information Technology studies at Flinders University, a friend and I bought a fledgling web development business for $200. Nearly...

n I discovered 42 in France it was my ‘eureka” moment! A school that had mastered the way to disrupt learning, so it could serve a more authentic purpose. A belief that ‘everyone can be great’ and ‘someone’s social status should not hinder them from learning’. With this belief at...

Innovating by OptimizingIn 1980 I founded Princeton Consultants based on the thesis that optimization could improve business decision making. Princeton University, from which I’d just graduated, and Bell Labs were pioneers in the academic study of optimization algorithms. “Optimization” gets used in many contexts. I define it as, “a decision-...

By launching the 2022-2027 Québec Research and Innovation Investment Strategy (QRIIS2) and creating the role of chief innovator, our government has committed to putting innovation front and centre in Québec’s economic development in the coming years. More than ever, we want to support all those who have the desire to...

When I founded Marimo, I wasn’t just building a fashion brand—I was creating a different kind of experience for women. One that respects their time, individuality, and values. To me, true luxury is about knowing who you are and choosing pieces that reflect that. What I’m most proud of is...

Bioproduction has taken a remarkable journey over the last several decades. In recent years, the demand for specific and powerful biologic therapies has continued to increase, underpinned by the ongoing development of monoclonal antibodies therapies (mAbs) and augmented by new platforms such as Cell and Gene Therapy and also nucleic...

Hon. Professor Allan Pease, acclaimed as ‘Mr. Body Language,’ is an international best-selling author and body language expert. His expertise, spanning advising executives to authoring bestsellers, provides valuable insights into human interactions. He is a distinguished speaker, coach, entrepreneur, and one of the world’s leading authors with 18 Top 10...

As parents, we want what is best for our children. Or, at least, what we think is best for them. And what we almost always want for them is success. But wanting success for our children, even when our desire for their success comes from love and our concern for...

Over two and half decades ago, I remember first picking up a mouse and keyboard to play Quake on a University lab computer for over eight hours straight. Fast forward to today, and that 3dfx Voodoo graphics card has been replaced with racks of memory laden GPU cards chained to...

“Our dream as institutions of higher learning in Africa is to facilitate the growth and capacity of our national economies; anchored on locally designed infrastructure in many and different spheres…” What is your vision for your specific industry? The transitioning from a resourced-based to a knowledge-based economy is not a...

Cette reconnaissance du caractère distinctif du Québec dans différents domaines est le fruit d’un intense labeur qui réunit notamment la recherche universitaire et l’innovation. Fers de lance de l’innovation, les universités ont apporté « une action d’innover » à travers leurs structures de recherche d’envergure. L’innovation est un processus, une...

Innovation is best achieved when you align it with your competitive advantage—what you do that nobody else could do better. When you focus on your competitive advantage and open yourself to think creatively about trying to best yourself. If copying others is best practice, then besting yourself is next practice—creating...

Most entrepreneurs we work with, including ourselves, have been building businesses for over a decade. Most are not working on the first business they started either. Even if the concept you’re currently working on doesn’t shake out, the lessons, the networks, and how you respond to success and failure will...

Have you ever experienced the sinking feeling of discovering that your identity or credit card information has been stolen? I have. As a technologist, this experience led me on a personal journey to create new standards of trust, security, accountability, and privacy for every individual, every business, every transaction. While...

When people hear the word “quality,” they often picture someone in a lab coat with a clipboard inspecting products on a production line. But quality isn’t a department—it’s a mindset. It’s a culture. It’s an expectation. And it should be embedded into everything we do. Quality is about doing it...

PUTTING SOUTH AUSTRALIA IN THE SPOTLIGHTI’ve never watched the world go by without wanting to stick my hand up and disrupt proceedings. At school I was the one with the locker full of PlayStation memory cards, running my own business and disrupting. School students are supposed to sit and learn,...

What has made Miami such a great environment for growing a startup culture is its strong entrepreneurial ethos and the lack of restrictions. It’s the kind of place where if you have an idea, no one is going to tell you it can’t be done. Over the last 20 years,...