praise for George Westerman
“George has an EXCELLENT teaching style! Really appreciate the way he facilitated the session to make it interesting, informative, non-threatening and non-intimidating. He spoke like a “real person” versus an “academic.”
“What a great listener he George is and he really knows and ‘lives’ what he is talking about and we got hands-on advise straight from MIT injected in our company.”
“It is as if Mr. Westerman took everything we have been ranting about for years, removed all profanities, made it more eloquent, articulated the point better, and rubbed some funk on it. Read “Your Company Doesn’t Need a Digital Strategy”.
“Thank you for a great session! The feedback on your session was incredible. You opened everyone’s perspectives on the digital world evolving around us, roadmap to get to mastery, and an honest assessment on our current foundation.”
“Great at presenting lots of very relevant material. . . engaging and lots of fun to learn from.”
“Generous with his know-how, practical yet pragmatic with his advice, and the well placed cheeky comments and smile that accompanied them were a winner with the audience.”
“…don’t know how much he cost, but he was worth it…”
“Very entertaining and informative.”
“Spot on & timely.”
“Worth the trip!”
“Hit it out of the ballpark”
“Excellent mixture of humor, great material, great presentation style and very relevant.”
“George’s enthusiasm, real-world examples, and presentation style is fantastic. His jokes aren’t bad either.”
“The session was excellent and I would have happily have heard / learnt more.”
“I found the speaker gave deep insights about what works globally and despite knowing US public services rather than UK, he understood the constraints. He allowed me to gain perspective on leading a different way and not to be afraid of what I don’t know in the digital space.”
“I told my team that this was one of the best training courses I’ve ever been on. We have an away-day planned where we will use the activities provided and my proposed outcome will be more staff who will lead in digital transformation.”
Dr. George Westerman works at the dynamic intersection of executive leadership and technology strategy. During more than 17 years with MIT Sloan School of Management, he has written three award-winning books, including Leading Digital: Turning Technology Into Business Transformation. As a pioneering researcher on digital transformation, George has published papers in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and other top journals. He is now focused on helping employers, educators, and other groups to rethink the process of workforce learning around the world.
George is co-chair of the MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Awards, a member of the Digital Strategy Roundtable for the US Library of Congress, and faculty director for two executive courses at MIT Sloan. He works frequently with senior management teams and industry groups around the world. Prior to earning a Doctorate from Harvard Business School, he gained more than 13 years of experience in product development and technology leadership roles.
Westerman has a Bachelor’s in Engineering from Catholic University, an MBA from the University of Maryland, and a DBA from Harvard Business School.
Leading Digital: Transforming Your Organization with New Technologies
Key Audiences: Senior executives — in business or IT — interested in digital transformation.
Fueled by mobility, analytics, social media, cloud computing, and embedded devices, companies in every industry are mapping their way through the digital universe. Yet some firms are far outpacing others in their ability to drive new value from digital technology. Drawing from his new book, Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation, George shows how effective leaders can transform their businesses – customer engagement, operations, and business models — to continuously create new value from technology. This session will help leaders at all levels develop the skills needed to drive digital transformation in their organizations.
Driving Digital Transformation: How to Turn Your Company into a Digital Master
Key Audiences: Senior leaders at all levels of the organization interested in being part of the digital conversation
What do companies as diverse as Burberry, Caesar’s, Nike, Codelco, and Asian Paints have in common? They are all Digital Masters: they use social, mobile, analytics and other technologies to transform the way they do business. Regardless of their industry, Digital Masters are 26% more profitable than the competition, giving them a huge digital advantage. As part of their DNA, Digital Masters invest in digital innovations and build the leadership skills to turn technology into transformation. This session will help leaders at all levels to play their parts in the strategic digital conversation.
Taking Charge of the IT Value Conversation: Earning Your Seat at the Table
Key Audiences: IT leaders who wish to play a more strategic role in their organizations.
In the new era of IT, executives are valued not for their ability to run a technology organization, but for their ability to help their companies drive competitive advantage. Yet too many CIOs remain stuck in an order-taker role, unable to influence the strategic conversation. This talk draws on award-winning research with IT and non-IT executives to demonstrate the critical path to moving from an order-taker to a strategic partner. IT leaders who take charge of the value conversation are able to deliver tangible strategic value. In this session, George discusses how you can change the conversation to become a strategic partner to the business.
IT Is from Venus, Non-IT Is from Mars
Key Audiences: People on either side of the IT/Business relationship and professionals who want to improve the way they work with their counterparts.
In many companies, the relationship between business leaders and IT departments is like a troubled marriage. They share commitment but lack good communication. Unable to find common ground – and a common vocabulary – they find that their relationship is tense and unproductive. Decision-making is slower and more difficult than it should be. IT solutions seem more expensive and complex than necessary. It doesn’t have to be this way! Like any strong relationship, the key is transparent communication about what really matters. This session focuses on four common areas of miscommunication in the IT/Business relationship: establishing trust; making better investment decisions; creating value; and exploiting the power of technology – and provides tools to improve them.
Making Business Sense of IT Risk: Finding Value in Risk Management
Key Audiences: Business leaders who want to improve their IT oversight, conversations, and relationships.
Many business executives find conversations about IT risk challenging. Unsure of what questions or ask or what answers to accept, discussions too often focus on what’s not possible, rather than what is achievable. Focusing on the wrong risks can get in the way of achieving great things. It doesn’t have to be this way. Companies that drive the greatest value from IT focus as much on agility as they do on preventing failure. They talk more often – and more comfortably – about the risk implications of key decisions. As a result, these companies have fewer incidents, more efficiency and a greater ability to change. This session will present a framework for dealing with IT risks that changes the nature of risk-related conversations – and leads to both better communication and better decisions. Through examples and insights, you’ll learn how to transform IT risk management from a cost of doing business into an enabler of strategic value.
How to Have the IT Risk Conversation: Delivering New Value from IT Risk Management
Key Audiences: IT Leaders seeking to drive new value from IT risk management and to improve the IT/business relationship overall.
Understanding IT risk is fundamental to driving advantage from IT. But few people outside of IT enjoy talking about it – or even know how to. Too often, silos of risk intended to prevent incidents actually prevent organizations from capturing valuable opportunities. Research shows that companies with fewer incidents, more efficiency, and stronger IT/Business relationships manage IT risk differently. They start by defining a common language for talking about key IT risks and the value of risk management activities. Using insights from his award-winning book, IT Risk: Turning Business Threats into Competitive Advantage, George discusses how to take charge of the IT risk conversation, transforming risk management from a necessary cost into a new source of business value.
