Andrea Kates

Andrea Kates (akates@BusinessGenome.com) is the voice of "Business Beyond the Speed of Change". She is committed to retooling business leaders for the fast-paced world where the next likely competitor might be online, bricks and mortar, a large company, or a nimble entrepreneur. Her signature CoLabs (collaborative laboratories) immerse leaders in cross-sector and cross-silo insights for growth.

“Every great strategic thinker uses the ideas in FIND YOUR NEXT, but it took Andrea Kates to write them down for the rest of us.”—Seth Godin, author, The Icarus Project

Andrea is founder of the Business Genome® project and author of the visionary best-selling business innovation book, Find Your Next (McGraw-Hill). As a business strategist, facilitator, and speaker, Andrea has led more than 250 business innovation initiatives for global corporations, entrepreneurs, and organizations including Royal Dutch Shell (Asia-Pacific), Audi, Allstate, United Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, JP Morgan Chase, KPMG, NASCAR's "Dream Team", the Houston Texans (NFL), SCI, and GM/OnStar. Her original research for Find Your Next included in-depth studies of what it really takes for a company to move to the next level of competitive advantage with original in-depth profiles of 25 companies including GE ecomagination, IndieGoGo, P.F. Chang’s, EMC, Placecast, and the Hyatt Hotels.

Called the next generation’s “brand whisperer”, she created the Business Genome® project to help companies adapt to a rapidly-changing global business environment and gain competitive advantage by discovering cross-industry opportunities for innovation. Andrea is a highly sought after speaker and consultant with recent roles in with sales teams and global leadership forums on behalf of Zurich Insurance, FirstSight (Walmart division), Simon Property Group and Jones Lang LaSalle; CoLabs (collaborative laboratories) for Embrace Global (Bangalore), Citi (SoHo House in LA, CORE: Club in NY) and the Midtjysk Lederforum (regional leadership forum in Scandinavia) and keynote speeches and industry panels (American Marketing Association, SOCAP Social Capital national conference, Edison Awards/Innovators Forum (with Seth Godin, Chris Anderson and Ali Velshi), Activate Networks, CONNECT Global, Association of Management Consulting Firms). Andrea is a member of the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) community and was a presenter on the TED main stage in 2012.