Christopher Meyer

Innovator, Business Builder, and Author on the Future of the Global Economy

BIG IDEAS

• Standing on the Sun: The Evolving Nature of Capitalism
  Capitalism changes as new players enter—that much is clear. But that one, seemingly simple insight has the potential to transform the way we understand the global economy.
  
  While we’ve all been standing on the earth (like medieval astronomers), Chris Meyer suggests that we take a step back, find the center of the system, and learn what’s really going on.
  
  This enlightening presentation, based on research from his forthcoming book, Standing on the Sun, explores our evolving system—from what it means for competition, to how we should really understand the shift toward stakeholder value, to how the social sector will serve as the new R&D lab. Along the way, Chris takes the audience to the far reaches of capitalism, from the sausage vendors in Southeast Asia, to strange hybrid companies in India, to the head of global multinationals in the United States.
  
  Capitalists thrive by adapting their beliefs, assumptions, and practices when their environment changes. Chris will talk about what the next challenges are and the responses that are already visible in the world’s emerging economies. Insightful and thought-provoking, this presentation will inform anyone seeking to understand the emerging shape of global capitalism and what that shape means for businesses around the world.
• The Adaptive Enterprise
  Ninety-nine percent of all species ever to have lived on earth are now extinct, and 99 percent of all companies that ever existed are now gone. Chris lays out how, in a world of increasing economic and structural volatility, organizations must become truly adaptive to survive, much less thrive. Taking lessons from the biological world, adaptive enterprises have the capacity to sense, respond to, and adapt to changes in their environment. The conundrum is that most organizations were designed to preserve and reinforce stability, which puts them at risk for financial or strategic obsolescence. Chris shows how a new group of companies are putting this adaptive capability into their genes, by examining Capital One, the U.S. Marine Corps, BP, and Maxygen. He proposes six practical business principles that can be implemented today.
• Network-based Business Innovation
  If most of the great ideas for innovation reside outside the four walls of your organization, how can your company best access and exploit them? Chris makes a strong case for network-based business innovation. The key is in using networks of individuals—both within and outside of your institution—to garner different perspectives on a problem, recombine these perspectives to generate new approaches, and then apply selective pressure to squeeze out the most inventive and useful ideas. Chris introduces his audience to “WorkNets,” a method of linking these diverse sources of innovation and ensuring they have traction in the enterprise.

SNAPSHOT BIO

Christopher Meyer is a Founder of Monitor Talent. Chris's mission is to anticipate and shape the future of business. He has pursued this goal as entrepreneur, executive, consultant, author, and as leader of a think tank.

Chris' fourth book, Standing on the Sun, will be published by Harvard Business School Press and will be available in early 2012. His previous books include the BusinessWeek Best Seller Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy and Future Wealth— the book on which Monitor Talent is based. He blogs on the Harvard Business Review site, and has contributed to publications including Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, Fast Company, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek.

From 2004 to 2009 he was the Chief Executive of Monitor Networks, a Monitor Group company. Prior to joining Monitor Group, Chris was the Director of the Center for Business Innovation at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, from 1995 until its closing in December 2002. The Center fostered the conversation of leading issues among the business community, developed public conferences, established new services and businesses, and shared what it learned with business practitioners. At the CBI, he founded and served on the Board of the Bios Group, a venture that invested in applications of complexity theory to business.

Earlier, he was a Vice President and Group Head at Mercer Management Consulting, where from 1984 to 1995 he founded and built the firm’s practice in the information industries, comprising telecommunications, hardware, software, and information services and media.

Chris holds BAs in both Mathematics and Economics from Brandeis University and a M.B.A. (with Distinction) from The Harvard Business School. In addition, he held a University Predoctoral Fellowship in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania.

He serves on the Boards of Icosystem, the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation, the Business Innovation Factory, and the New Rep Theater, and the Advisory Boards of Innocentive and LaunchCyte.

ENGAGEMENTS
How have other organizations utilized Chris's expertise, and what's ahead on his schedule?

Chris is best known for pioneering new services. Consider:

• At DRI (Data Resources Inc, pioneering econometrics-based consulting firm founded by Otto Eckstien of the Council of Economic Advisors), he helped build service architecture for financial institutions that endures 30 years later.
• At TBS/Mercer, he founded (in 1984) one of the first consulting groups counselling IT companies (e.g. Microsoft, Texas Instruments, AT&T, Digital Equipment, NYNEX) about industry development and marketing issues—the group was perhaps the first to predict cellular telephone costs would fall below wireline.
• At E&Y/CGEY, he directed the Center for Business Innovation and transformed it from an insular university model to a networked research capability, correctly anticipating issues from the "global, mobile, always-on" network to the rising importance of intangible assets.
• Currently, at Monitor, he developed the strategy for and is building the Monitor Networks business, combining his understanding of network science, network technology, and network behavior to help clients and Monitor profit from network-based business innovation.

RECOMMENDED READING
What's on Chris's must-read list?

Chris’s must-read list includes The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and Biomimicry by Janine Benyus.

Currently on his bedside table:

Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb

The Conversations, Walter Murch

Radiant Cool, Dan Lloyd

Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology, Ricard Sole and Brian Goodwin

Multiple issues of The New Yorker and Wired

MIND FUEL
Which blogs, web sites, and industry events does Chris tap into to feed his mind and fuel his creativity?

PC Forum (www.release1-0.com/pcforum/)

EG (new Richard Saul Wurman conference,
http://www.eg2006.com/)

World Economic Forum (http://www.weforum.org/)

O'Reilly Open Source Convention (http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2007/)

Institute for Systems Biology (http://www.systemsbiology.org/)

LiveJournal (LiveJournal.com)

Blogs:

Tech Review (http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/)

This Web Day (http://www.thiswebday.com/)

Mindbullets (http://www.mindbullets.net/Subscription/MindBulletsIntro.aspx)

OUTREACH
What are Chris's pressing questions, and on which topics does he seek your feedback?

• What is at the leading edge of network science? Network technology? Network behavior? How will developments in these three areas lead to network-based business innovation?
• How can self-organization and leadership be most effectively combined?
• What will replace democratic capitalism as the dominant model of national development?