Technology, Passion, and Performance

Silicon Valley has long been known as a global gathering spot for technologists with passion. The technology we are now developing, though, has the potential to generate and nurture passion among workers of all kinds. This will help all of us to cope with growing global economic pressures by accelerating performance improvement, but it will put great strain on our existing institutions. The results will be disruptive and could be explosive.

Presenter(s)

John Hagel III currently serves as co-chairman of the Silicon Valley-based Deloitte LLP Center for the Edge, which conducts original research on emerging business opportunities that are not yet on CEOs' management agendas... but should be. He has nearly 30 years’ experience as a management consultant, author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He has helped companies around the world to improve their performance by crafting creative business strategies that more effectively harness new generations of information technology and shape broader markets and industries. He also designs and implements change management strategies to help companies develop capabilities to drive more rapid performance improvement.

Before joining Deloitte, John was an independent consultant and writer. Prior to that, he held significant positions at leading consulting firms and companies. He was a principal at McKinsey & Co., where he was a leader of the Strategy Practice, and where he also founded and led McKinsey’s Electronic Commerce Practice. He has also served as senior vice president of strategy at Atari, Inc., and earlier in his career, worked at Boston Consulting Group. He is the founder of two Silicon Valley startups.

John is the author of The Power of Pull, which makes the case that we are struggling to adapt to a long-term shift in our business environment that changes the nature of competition. He is also the author of a series of earlier best-selling business books, beginning with Net Gain and including Net Worth, Out of the Box, and The Only Sustainable Edge. He is widely published and quoted in publications such as The Economist, Fortune, Forbes, Business Week, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NBC, and BBC. He has won two awards from Harvard Business Review for best articles and has been recognized as an industry thought leader by a variety of publications and institutions, including the World Economic Forum and Business Week.

John holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University, a B.Phil. from Oxford University, and a J.D. and M.B.A. from Harvard University.