Innovation Profiteer

Joel Kurtzman is a noted author and advisor to leading organizations around the world in the areas of social capital, governance, and assessing and managing global risk. His expertise is highlighted by his long, successful career forecasting global events, from oil-price shocks to the dollar’s ups and downs. Joel is Chairman of the consulting and advisory firm the Kurtzman Group, also advises private equity firms and is co-chairman, with Harvey Pitt, of Corporate Governance Summits, a meeting limited exclusively to directors of boards.

Joel is Senior Advisor to the leadership of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest professional services equity firm, where he was previously their Lead Partner for Thought Leadership and Innovation. In that capacity, he was responsible for developing new ideas in such areas as strategy, technology, the capital markets, the new economy, and metrics and business policy. He also advises a number of private equity firms.

Prior to joining PWC, Mr. Kurtzman was Editor of the Harvard Business Review, a member of the editorial board of Harvard Business School Publishing, and business editor and columnist for The New York Times. He also served as an international economist at the United Nations and World Bank where he was deputy director of the UN's Project on the Future.

Joel is the author or editor of 20 books and hundreds of articles. He is working on a new book entitled Memo to the CEO: The New Corporate Finance to be published by Harvard Business School Press. His other books include:

• Global Edge: Managing the Hidden Risks of Cross-Border Business (Harvard Business School Press, 2007)
• Startups That Work (Portfolio/Putnam Business, 2005)
• MBA in a Box: Practical Ideas from
  the Best Brains in the Business (Crown Publishing, 2004)
• How the Markets Really Work (Random House, 2002)
• Radical “E” - From Big Biz to E-Biz (John Wiley & Sons, 2001)

He is also a member of the editorial board of MIT's Sloan Management Review and is the on-air business book reviewer on CNN.

Joel has lectured around the world and served as chairman of numerous conferences. He has been a speaker/moderator at Microsoft’s CEO Summit, its Government Leaders Summit, and its CFO Summit. He has also spoken and moderated panels at Davos as well as at many European forums. Joel is known for presentations that strike the perfect balance between strategy and tactics. An adroit and compelling speaker, his recent areas of interest include: The Economy’s New Normalcy within Current Constraints, Sustainability, and Innovative Ways to Increase Growth and Shareholder Value.