STRATEGY | LEADERSHIP | INNOVATION |TECHNOLOGY
Thought Leadership
Jennifer believes we can apply design thinking to the design and development of products AND to the design and development of the human interactions needed to design great products.
Design thinking applies both to the design of things, and to the design of work. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another is a powerful way to begin any design project, process and relationship.
How do leaders navigate transformation and the need for innovation?
Jennifer Kenny shares knowledge, experience, and frameworks to help innovation leaders not only survive but thrive by changing the way people think and act.
Focusing on today’s biggest levers of innovation – technology, gender balance, and ecosystem management – Kenny’s thought-provoking book chapters, articles, keynote speeches, presentations and blog help individuals and companies gain perspective on how to innovate, lead, and succeed in complex technical environments.
What the Hell Do We Do Now?
In Chapter 3, Jennifer Kenny describes the challenges to developing policy on the fly, getting things wrong, making mistakes, creating waste and leaving people behind as we innovate and respond to the challenges presented by the worldwide pandemic.
Buy the Book on Kindle or Paperback
Published Articles
Forbes: Five Ways Listening Tours Make You a More Innovative Leader
In a moment when “innovation” and “disruption” are decidedly buzzwords, counter-cultural approaches are only natural. If we look beyond some of the dominant old-school attitudes in corporate culture, actively engaging empathy and sensitivity inside the workplace can offer new, dynamic leadership approaches.
Is Your Company Culture Toxic? Look for These Seven Red Flags
If your culture is toxic you’ll likely spot some key warning signs that indicate you have internal problems to solve. According to a panel of Forbes Coaches Council members, here are some big red flags that signal your culture is doing more harm than good—and how to approach solving them.
Blog
Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
Next time you find yourself being uncomfortable with being uncomfortable remind yourself of the toddler learning to walk or the scientist doing an experiment for the 1,000th time. The key is wonder: the self-talk that says: “I’m not sure what is going on here, but there may be new opportunities for me, and I like that.” Wonder coupled with ambition says, “I believe that there are opportunities for me in this situation and I am committed to working hard to make them happen.” This leads to the fastest learning.
Human Blindness – How to Get a Lot Smarter, Quickly
If you’re committed to mastery, excellence, or continuous learning, then a deep understanding of the concept of Human Blindness will help you in your quest. This isn’t about the physical inability to use one’s eyes to perceive and decode light, but instead our struggle to understand and embrace the massive complexity that is our world. It’s the mental model that gets in our way when we want to learn from others.
Increase Innovation: Leverage the 7 Levels of Human Innovation Capacity
As emerging technology moves from extensions of our physical selves to amplifiers of our creative, thinking, deciding, and learning selves, comes ever increasing complexity and the need for a new paradigm of innovation: Human Innovation.
Keynote Address
Innovate Better Together
In this address, master of innovation practices Jennifer Kenny, builds on Design Thinking, System Thinking and Universal Pragmatics to share innovation frameworks that have repeatedly resulted in the elimination of silos and the creation of game changing innovation ecosystems.
Acknowledging the issues that inhibit innovation, including translating strategy into executable programs, cascading frustration, and the inability to get new products to market – Kenny inspires attendees to turn typical technology innovation problems into a new sense of control, ownership, and the amplification of the innovative capabilities of all team members. The result is energized teams who evolve from waiting to be told what to do to being agents of their own future.
Women Catalyzing Innovation
As our technology becomes more complex and interconnected, so to too does our need to fundamentally rethink our understanding of innovation leadership. In this presentation, Jennifer provides a framework for understanding why gender-diverse teams are better at complex innovation and how that can be leveraged.
Speeches and Presentations
An inspiring and exciting speaker, Jennifer Kenny may be booked for meetings, conventions and offsites. The following are examples of some of her most popular presentations.
The Building Blocks of an Innovation Mindset
For teams wishing to coalesce around advanced innovation
In this talk Jennifer Kenny introduces the concept of innovation as the adoption of “new practices in community.” She demonstrates how co-ordination, co-invention and knowledge creation increase innovation capacity. Attendees will learn how to facilitate tech transfer and the process of moving knowledge from tacit to explicit to practice and why it’s not enough to just understand technology to innovate, and what it means to build innovation practices as a team.
The Innovators Path to Mastery: How not to be a blind squirrel
For individuals and teams wishing to increase their innovation capacity
We practice technical capabilities, but do you consider innovation an ongoing practice area? In this talk Jennifer will introduce the idea of innovation as a deliberate practice and show teams how not to leave innovation success up to change and ‘blind squirrel’ luck. Jennifer introduces the concept of deliberate practice as popularized recently by Angela Duckworth in the book ‘Grit’ and show how that applies to practicing innovation
Leading Innovation
For leaders and teams seeking innovation in complex organizational environments.
By applying systems and design thinking, leaders and teams can turn organization complexity to their advantage – but they’ll need to learn how to frame their organizations as Complex, Adaptive Systems. Jennifer Kenny demonstrates how to harness complexity to increase the innovation drive of teams, moving them from feeling overwhelmed to Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
How to make your strategy executable. Moving beyond wishful thinking
For leaders and teams seeking to realize strategic goals
Creating a good strategy requires intelligence, but building an Executable Strategy requires intelligence, humility and commitment. In this session, Jennifer Kenny reveals why bridging the gap between strategy formulation and day-to-day implementation is a struggle for 61% of leaders, and why only 44% of leaders believe their companies are good at implementation.
Notable Speaking Engagements
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Women Catalyzing Innovation, The Hivery Mill Valley, 2020
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Irish Herstory Heroines – Celebrating the Women of Ireland, St. Brigid’s Day: Consulate General of Ireland, 2020
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How to be an Entrepreneur and a Leader, QB3, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Life Science, University of California
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Seen Heard & Valued: A Conversation with Jennifer Kenny on Transformation Strategies for Diversity and Inclusion, Buzzsprout
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The Future of Work: How Women Lead, 2019
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Women in Leadership, Toyota Research Institute, 2019
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Women and Innovation, Impact Hub Belgrade International Conference, 2019
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Irish Women Leaders Panel with Dr. Anita Sands, Chief Joanne Hayes-White, Naomi M. Kelly, Dr. Moira Gunn
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Impact Hub Belgrade International Conference–Impact Angel Network, 2018
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Technology and Leadership in Silicon Valley, A conversation with Consul General Robert O’Driscoll and Jennifer Kenny, First Fridays with the Irish Consulate, 2018
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Women Leaders for the World, How Women Lead 2018
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The Way We Work: Innovating Better Together, Women Transforming Technology Conference, 2018.
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ASEAN Women in Tech: Conversation with Leaders in Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines and Brunei. March, 2015
Clients
Trusted By
Bring your innovation strategy to life.
Before engaging with most clients, Jennifer offers a complementary 55-minute session to understand your challenges so she can discuss an executable strategy on the call.
Click here to learn more, or click below to schedule your session.