Consulting and Executive Education Services

Dr. Owens manages an active consulting practice and also offers executive education in Strategic Innovation through workshops and seminars.  His approach is grounded in his academic research and graduate-level teaching at top universities as well as in his extensive experience working with successful innovators.  The customized hands-on workshops are designed to expose participants to recent research and best practices in the fields of business strategy, technology management, organizational design, and leadership, and to provide a set of practical tools, skills, and insights that will allow them to recognize and bypass barriers to effective innovation in their firms.  By bringing strategic business issues into the idea generation, assessment, and implementation processes, aspiring innovators can better pursue those innovations with the highest potential for business success that are most fully aligned with a firm’s strategic core. 

Executive Education

In addition to conducting an annual open enrollment program (offered through the Executive Development Institute at Vanderbilt), Owens has conducted custom seminars and workshops in business strategy and strategic innovation.  The topics are fully customized in terms of length, industry focus, and topic areas based on the needs of the client organization.  Topics areas have included:  organizing for innovation; aligning business- and product strategy; innovating through product design and entrepreneurship; assessing and fostering an innovation culture; managing intellectual property and knowledge; managing the innovation network; and competitive strategy through disruptive technologies. 

• Bridgestone Firestone
• Gibson Music
• Bristol-Meyers Squibb
• LEGO Systems Inc. (DK) 
• LEGO Direct (USA)
• Orange (UK)
• Alcatel (France)
• Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
• U.S. Naval Supply Corps School
• Danish Institute for Executive Development (Brussels)
• Sygen International (UK, USA)
• Imagination Lab Foundation (CH)
• BizTech Business Incubator (Huntsville, AL)
• Performance Food Group
• Nashville Metropolitan Airport Authority
• Baptist Hospital (Nashville, TN)

Consulting Clients

Dr. Owens has worked with and advised a number of successful innovators of all types in a variety of industries.  The primary areas of research and intervention have included:  innovation strategy development; business strategy development (at all stages of firm maturity); R&D management, product planning, and new product design; structural and cultural organizational transformation, and leadership coaching.

• McKesson Corp.
• Kimberly-Clark Corp.
• NASA Space Transportation Directorate (Marshall Space Flight Center)
• Wallace Foundation
• Tetra Pak (US)
• Daimler Benz TEG
• LEGOSystems, LEGODirect (Denmark, U.S.A.)
• Executive Discovery - LEGO Serious Play
• World Kitchen (formerly Corning Consumer Products)
• United States Air Force Materiel Command
• Interval Research Corporation
• RaySono MediaAktiv (Germany)
•  Imagination Lab Foundation (Switzerland)
• Micro Nova Technologies
• Vanderbilt Technology Corporation Incubator
• University School of Nashville
• Cheekwood Botanic Garden and Museum of Art