Donald L. Laurie

Challenge:

Many CEOs, senior executives, and managers worry about the gap between the growth their companies have promised Wall Street and what they know they can deliver. Executives are charged with the critical and sometimes contradictory tasks of meeting Wall Street's expectations for continuous, ongoing growth, as well as fostering a steady flow of new technologies, products, and emerging markets that will fuel double-digit growth into the future. How is it possible for today's managers both to prepare for the future and meet current goals?

Identification of innovative corporate strategies that lead to explosive corporate growth is the focal point of Don Laurie's groundbreaking work. As a growth and venture strategist and management consultant, Don presents corporate audiences with proven methods for developing a framework for future growth. A dynamic and innovative speaker, he identifies valuable approaches used by successful future-oriented managers. The author of "Venture Catalyst: The Five Strategies for Explosive Corporate Growth" (Perseus Publishing, October 2001), Don identifies and introduces managers to principles for developing and implementing venture strategies as a source of growth. With arguments that are both commonsense and cutting edge, his perspective is both powerful and persuasive.

A frequent speaker at corporate, industry, and venture capital conferences, Business Week roundtables, and such high-profile venues as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Don addresses such critical corporate concerns as:

Where's the growth? How should leaders challenge their organizations to achieve double-digit growth?

How do ventures fuel corporate growth?

What business models and value-added activities do proven industry leaders use to promote new business creation and venture investing?

How can you develop and implement a strategy for new-business creation and venture investing that is uniquely right for your company?

What is the work of leadership? How can you mobilize people and develop a leadership agenda that results in your venture strategy's being implemented effectively?

Programs/Topics:

Ventures as a Source of Growth- Corporate leaders who have been managing successful, large global enterprises by increasing efficiency and productivity to meet Wall Street expectations are now asking, "Where's the growth?" Tomorrow's enlightened CEOs and corporate managers are seeking to increase top-line growth, earnings per share, and market capitalization, and they will achieve their goals by investing in entrepreneurial ventures. This emerging strategy has implications for corporate structure, organizational capabilities, culture, and management systems. Don answers such questions as:

Where's the growth? How will enlightened CEOs challenge their organizations in the future?

Why is it so difficult for large global companies to venture successfully?

What is a workable framework for crafting a corporate venture strategy, business models, value-added activities, and pre conditions for success? Don shows how it's done using real world examples.

What is the value added of an entrepreneur and a business-building process?

What are the steps for developing my company's leadership agenda?

Do ventures create shareholder wealth?

The Work of Leadership- Today's business leaders face challenges that are more complex and critical than ever before. Corporate management is expected to achieve double-digit growth, capitalize on new technologies, increase productivity, transform their businesses, and attract and retain talented people. And they must do all that while fending off the fiercest competition

Leadership, says Don, is essential at every level of an organization. After all, he points out, every manager is a leader, and the most difficult challenge for corporate leadership is managing adaptive change. Digging beneath the surface, he explores "the act of leadership." Don's presentations are jam-packed with proven and workable suggestions for nurturing leadership skills, and through his answers to the following questions, he explains exactly how to put his recommendations into practice.

What is the work of a leader?

What is the difference between leadership and authority? How can management distinguish the difference between technical and adaptive problems? What is the best way to frame an adaptive challenge?

What are the six principles for leading adaptive change?

What is the collective value added of a leadership team?

What is the best approach for crafting an individual's leadership agenda?

Through provocative, customized workshops and seminars…Don Laurie works with your top management team and organization. His expertise includes developing and implementing strategies for growth, crafting an innovation and venture strategy and developing a business plan for a new venture. He can help you develop a leadership agenda custom-designed for you and your management team. Each workshop provides tools and "how tos" that prepare managers and their teams execute practical action agendas.

Clients Inlcude:

Bio:

DONALD L. LAURIE is founder and managing director of Oyster International Ltd. Oyster International is a management consulting firm that works on strategic management issues. Don's corporate assignments have ranged from advising CEOs and senior managers on strategic growth and new business creation to development of corporate venture strategies and leadership coaching.

In addition, through Oyster International, Don manages technology spinouts that have been developed within large global corporations and guides investments in venture opportunities that serve the strategic, portfolio, and growth ambitions of Oyster International's clientele. Don, himself, is an investor and director of a number of early-stage ventures.

Don is author of Venture Catalyst-The Five Strategies For Explosive Corporate Growth (Perseus Publishing,, October 2001) and The Real Work of Leaders (Perseus Publishing, May 2000), as well as co-author with Ronald A. Heifetz of "The Work of Leadership," Harvard Business Review, January-February 1997.