Andy Cars is the founder of Lean Ventures and a serial entrepreneur with a background in the music industry and venture capital.
By drawing on the experience from working with hundreds of startup teams on lean startup, business modeling, go-to-market strategy, and fundraising, Andy is able to provide unique insights into what it takes to successfully innovate.
Besides being a popular speaker, workshop leader, mentor, and coach, Andy is also a committeé member of the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS), where he is contributing to creating an international standard for Innovation Management.
Companies that Andy has worked include Telia, Tieto, SMHI and BillerudKorsnäs. Andy has also been involved in designing and running startup accelerator programs and advising on how to create ecosystems for innovation both locally and internationally.
Andy has an undergraduate degree in International Business and Change Management from the Open University Business School and a magna cum laude MBA from the European University in Lisbon.
Ryan MacCarrigan is a Lean Startup coach, consultant, and university instructor with leadership experience in product design, marketing, and user experience at technology companies in New York City, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley.
Ryan is a proponent of building balanced, cross-functional teams that apply the core principles of Lean Startup, Lean UX, Agile, and Kanban in an effort to break down silos and improve team effectiveness.
Through his workshops and consulting engagements, Ryan has helped thousands of product managers, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders to validate and launch new products faster. Companies that Ryan has worked with include SanDisk, News Corp, Disney, and Singularity University.
He holds a B.A. from Columbia University, where he also serves as the Global President of the Columbia Venture Community—a private network of 4500+ Columbia alumni who work in entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation related fields.
Alex Cowan has been an entrepreneur (5x) and an intrapreneur (1x) in the enterprise software & communications space. He’s currently teaching product design at DardenMBA and advising corporations on product development and innovation practices at COWAN+.
At UVA’s Darden School of Business, he’s focused on software and digital product design. At COWAN+, Alex helps corporations develop better products and improve the work of innovation teams. Most COWAN+ engagements are a combination of education and advisory focused on applied innovation practices for agile teams and corporate innovation programs.
Prior to Darden, Alex was the founder and CTO of Leonid Systems, which was acquired by BroadSoft (NASDAQ: BSFT).
Jorge Castelotte is a co-founding partner of Innoway, an innovation consultancy based in Dubai. Before that he spent more than seven years at Palladium, a boutique consulting firm specialized in strategy execution.
Jorge is a dynamic and independent business management consultant with more than 16 years of international experience. He has a proven track record of delivering world-class strategy and innovation related solutions in several assignments in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Focus areas have been Government, Financial Services, and Utilities.
His current roles are as Innovation catalyzer at ADNEC and Lean Startup coach for Philip Morris, Middle East, and Africa.
Jorge graduated from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh with a BEng honors degree in Mechanical Engineering. Jorge has also studied Management at Instituto de Empresa (IE), Madrid.
Peter LePiane helps bold leaders future-proof their business. “Innovation”, like other buzzwords, has come to mean nothing and everything at the same time. That is why Peter’s first goal with any organization is to help them explore and define what innovation should mean to them.
Peter is based in Toronto, Canada and has a background as agile coach at Scotiabank and International Financial Data Services (IFDS) where he helped to bring about a more innovative and agile culture.
He has mentored and coached ScrumMasters, Product Owners, team members and executives alike. Peter has also created training material and taught lean innovation at the Queen’s University School of Business and across Canada.
Peter graduated at the Univesity of Waterloo in Canada with a honors Bachelor degree in Mathematics, Computer Science.
Rammohan Reddy is the founder of Innocentrik, an innovation consultancy based in Bangalore, India.
Rammohan has user-centric development and experimentation as his passion. He likes to work alongside product development teams to help them to uncover customer needs, and analyze data to inform next steps.
Rammohan has created the curriculum for the Venture Fastrack Startup Accelerator and has also run several startups accelerators, including TECHNATION in Kazakhstan, SIGMA Social Accelerators, and NEN Venture Fastrack.
Rammohan is often engaged as a speaker at innovation and startup conferences and has held workshops on innovation for multinational corporations like Amdocs, Philip Morris, Singapore Press Holdings, and DBS Bank. He has also mentored and contributed to international organizations, including the Enterprise Future Network and the National Entrepreneur Network.
Anjali Virmani Paul advises startups and established companies on how to build an innovation framework, identify sustainable business models, define unique value propositions and globalize their innovative offerings. Her current projects involve advising a biometrics firm and coaching ICT & media entrepreneurs at KTH Innovation.
Over the last 20 years, Anjali worked at Enkay (BT), Siemens, Ericsson and Crowding. Anjali has mainly worked with strategy and innovation to help design, build & commercialize six offerings. For example, she advised Crowding who provided an open innovation platform for clients like MTGx, Hutchinson 3G, Husqvarna and Eniro. At Ericsson, Anjali managed the global innovation competition, generating 3000+ ideas per year using a newly designed innovation platform called IdeaBox and coaching 40 people review teams to analyze projects worth €550M annually.
Anjali has a Bachelor of Technology, Electronics and Telecommunications from N.E.R.I.S.T in India. Anjali also attended the Executive Management Program (&UGL) from MGruppen, with a specialization in strategy and innovation from the IESE, IMD & MIT Sloan.
Elia has a background as Course Director for Digital Communication at Berghs School of Communication and as a founder of Tribaling, a consultancy focused on providing actionable advice on tribal marketing, growth hacking, and digital communication. Elia is also the resident Skills Trainer of Growth Hacking at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship.
As a mentor of the startup accelerator Fast Track Malmö, Elia helps entrepreneurs and startups to grow their business. As co-founder of Edumanity, Elia provides crowd-learning and innovation to help organizations to learn and innovate faster. So far they have engaged over 50 000 people in crowd-learning and innovation in 110 countries. He is also the co-founder of three other startups: Univrses (VR/AR), ReVault (smartwatch) and Relive (event photos).
Elia has a Bachelor's degree in Behavioural Science from the Stockholm University.
Gabriele is currently Head of Innovation Management at Purple+, which is the newly established Innovation hub for the TeliaSonera Group aimed at driving innovation and building the future of telecommunication.
Prior to Purple+, Gabriele was the CEO of eCommerce startup Catchingo and the Managing Director of Greenlight Project Management. Gabriele has also spent over 10 years at Ericsson in different roles, most recently as Operational Consultant and Program Manager.
Garbriele has a Ph.D. in Physics from Stockholm University where he spent four years understanding the fate of the universe using astronomical objects known as Supernovae.
With over 20 years at Ericsson in different roles spanning from Software Engineer to Expert Technical Product Manager and IPTV Solution System Manager, Jan has developed a deep technical experience coupled with exceptional negotiation skills and hands-on skills of how to drive innovation projects in a large and complex organization. Currently, Jan is on assignment with VisualOn working as Senior System Manager applying Lean Startup methods.
Jan is also closely involved in voluntary work and has been privileged to serve as president of the Stockholm International Rotary Club. As a Rotarian, Jan, of course, follows the Rotary core values of service beyond self and supporting the less fortunate or in need.
Jan has a Bachelor of Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
After one year at Ericsson, Joakim decided to move to sunny Santa Clara in California to join Zeevo as Systems Architect. Joakim ended up staying in Silicon Valley for more than 10 years working as Director of Software at NVIDIA, Director of Engineering at Atheros Communications, and as Manager, Wireless Connectivity Architecture Group at Apple. Joakim is also a board member of Bluetooth SIG.
Joakim has a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Lund University.
Besides his role as Innovation Consultant at Lean Ventures, Julien is also the Course Director of Design Thinking at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship and Co-Founder of Schlitter Bikes, a company that designs and markets recumbent bicycles.
Julien has a Bachelors in Industrial Design from CEGEP du Vieux Montréal and a Masters in Industrial Design from Strate École de Design in Paris. Julien also spent a year at Stanford University studying Design Innovation (ME310).
Pelle began his career as assistant to Jan Stenbeck, the Chairman of the investment company Kinnevik. Upon leaving Kinnevik, Pelle spent a couple of years as Investment Manager at Proventus before co-founding Levande Böcker AB in 1994. Already five years later the company had grown from idea to a stock market IPO under the new name of Enlight Interactive. Their inspiring story is told in the book Affärsplanering - En handbok för nya tillväxtföretag by McKinsey & Company.
During the period of 2002 to 2007, Pelle was active as venture capitalist, CEO and owner of various growth companies, and in 2011 Pelle published his first book Bestäm Dig, a handbook in effective decision making.
Pelle has a Master of Science in Business and Economics (Civilekonom) from Uppsala University and an MBA from Insead in France.
