Welcome to our Speaker
David Gram has been an innovation leader in large organizations his entire career with hands-on experience from running multiple radical/digital innovation projects from early research and incubation to full scale launch. As such he was Head of innovation at SAS, Senior Innovation Director in LEGO’s famous Future Lab and recently Head of Venturing, EMEA at LEGO Ventures, where he was instrumental in building and launching LEGO Ventures, the new strategic venture arm at the LEGO Brand Group. David is co-founder of Diplomatic Rebels; a company dedicated to empower companies and intrapreneurs around the world to become stronger innovators.
David has given more than 150 keynotes and masterclasses around the world on topics around innovation, business transformation and future of work. His stories consist of concrete cases and real-life stories from the LEGO Group and other leading brands, mixed with specific insights and best practices from his personal experience on how to structure and lead innovation more effectively. The stories and insights address some of the key challenges with innovation and transformation in larger organizations, incl. how to create more resilient and adaptive business ecosystems, providing both executives and intrapreneurs with concrete tools and methods, as well as inspiration, on how to lead and drive innovation, digital transformation and business ecosystem strategies more successfully. Here a small teaser from when he was warm-up for Bill Clinton at Presidents Summit.
David is passionate about transforming large organizations into lean innovators. Believing that companies not only have an opportunity to better leverage their resources, assets and expertise in creating value, but also a responsibility to lead the global change in a way that has a long-term positive impact on human beings and the planet.
LINKS TO ONLINE CONTENT
Keynotes (video):
- Presidents’ Summit 2018, Copenhagen (was warm-up for Bill Clinton), 2min. (summery): Diplomatic Rebels – Innovation from within
- Disruption Summit 2019, London, 33min: Diplomatic Rebels – Radical Innovation through Intrapreneurship
- Morning TV appearance, New Zealand: Why companies should become more playful
Articles:
- Innov8rs: “How To Be (Or Manage) The Diploamtic Rebels”
- Fast Company: “How LEGO Became the Apple of Toys”
Quote:
“Successful innovators are diplomatic rebels; they have the mindset of a rebel and the skills of a diplomat”
Session Title:
How to challenge the status quo with disruptive and provocative new ideas and projects – without losing the support and respect from colleagues and management? This is a difficult balance and many intrapreneurs either give up and do as they are told, or they burn out and leave. To overcome this, the intrapreneur will need to balance the rebel nature of the innovator with the diplomatic skills of the corporate navigator, and companies will need to build a culture of intrapreneurship. The presentation will include insights on:
- Embracing disruptions without disrupting the healthy existing business
- Building a strategic foundation and structure for radical innovation
- Fast and low-risk learning using design thinking and agile development
- Fostering a culture of Intrapreneurship
- Becoming a Diplomatic Rebel
- Audience takeaways: Understand the 5 habits of highly impactful intrapreneurs and how to become a Diplomatic Rebel. Learn how to foster and train these skills and how to build and lead an organization of diplomatic rebels.
Speaker qualification: David Gram, Co-Founder of Diplomatic Rebels and former Venture Partner at LEGO Ventures, has worked with radical innovation in large organizations his entire career and thus learned the hard way what it takes to become a successful and impactful intrapreneur, or as he calls it, a Diplomatic Rebel. He has co-founded the company Diplomatic Rebels, which helps companies become more intrapreneurial and intrapreneurs become more impactful.