Navi Radjou

Activist, Business adviser, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Connector, Explorer, Idea generator, Single, World traveler, Writer/Editor

I am an innovation and leadership strategist based in Silicon Valley. I am a Fellow at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and has served as World Economic Forum member and Harvard Business Review columnist. I spoke at TED Global 2014 on frugal innovation (http://ow.ly/JN7dm) I am the coauthor of "FRUGAL INNOVATION: How To Do More With Less" published by The Economist worldwide in 2015 with a foreword by Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever. I also co-authored the global bestsellers Jugaad Innovation (jugaadinnovation.com) and From Smart To Wise (fromsmarttowise.com). I am currently working on my fourth book "The Rise of the Frugal Society: Reinventing How We Consume, Work, and Live", which explores how we can all co-build a better society where each of us is empowered to maximize his/her wellbeing and potential while preserving resources for future generations. I won the 2013 Thinkers50 Innovation Award for "reshaping the way we think about and practice innovation" (http://bit.ly/1aBh94v). I curated a major exhibition WAVE: How Collective Ingenuity Is Changing The World -- produced by BNP Paribas and traveling to major cities around the world in 2015 and beyond (wave-innovation.com) In past, I served as Exec Director of the Centre for India & Global Business at Cambridge Judge Business School. Prior to that, I was VP at Forrester Research in Boston/San Francisco. Over 20 years, I have consulted with top international firms and been featured in NPR, BBC, NYT, WSJ, Economist, FT. I have published articles in MIT SMR & Strategy+Business.

(collective) ingenuity, bottom-up innovation, wisdom & leadership, globalization, emerging markets

JUGAAD INNOVATION: Western corporations can no longer just rely on the old formula that sustained innovation and growth for decades: a mix of top-down strategies, expensive R&D projects, and rigid, highly structured innovation processes. Instead Western firms must look to places like India, China, and Africa for a new, bottom-up approach to frugal and flexible innovation. In these high-growth markets, thousands of entrepreneurs rely on jugaad (Hindi word meaning an improvised solution born from ingenuity and cleverness) to develop rapidly affordable and sustainable solutions in healthcare, energy, education, etc. using minimum resources. In doing so, they are able to create more economic value and social impact using fewer resources. In today's complex and resource-constrained world, Western firms should adopt the jugaad approach to innovate faster, better, and more sustainably. For more info on jugaad, visit: jugaadinnovation.com

Frugal Innovations, jugaad, Wisdom in Professional Practice

Born and raised in India, I hold dual French-American citizenship. As a global citizen, my life purpose is to create new practical business and social frameworks that integrate Western and Eastern perspectives on innovation and leadership. I want to help people across regions/industries ignite their ingenuity and wisdom so we can transcend and include our differences to co-build an all-inclusive and sustainable global community.