Client Perspectives

"As a leading authority on the subject, Bruce has assisted our group in broadening and accelerating our knowledge and adoption of best practices in Breakthrough Innovation. His people and relationship-building skills earned the trust and respect of our team in short order and helped us develop and validate learning and development objectives. We are delighted to have Bruce on our team.”

– John Veleris

Chairman and Partner at JVA Partners

“I personally experienced how Bruce’s research and insights on Breakthrough Innovation influenced R&D at P&G in multiple ways, including: Inspired the creation of a year-long class taught by VMS “professors” to hand-selected young innovators, taught across US/Europe/Asia. The backbone of the course is material delineated in their book; Bruce was often a featured presenter as he is knowledgeable and articulate about the content, examples, and application to P&G. During the time Bruce was involved with the class, it was consistently highly rated and had a strong track record of promoted Technologist-track individuals as graduates.”

– Nancy Dawes

Research Fellow and Victor Mills Society, at Procter & Gamble

“Bruce helped us to institutionalize our cultural commitment to innovation as our mission and to recognize that encouragement of risk taking and willingness to allow failure encourages curiosity and creativity that have become the hallmarks of our company. During his time on our board, Bruce was highly engaged and committed to the success of our company, and we were proud to have him as a colleague. His fellow board members as well as our executive team valued his knowledge of how engineering leadership can help solve challenges in the world of battery management, as the importance of energy storage increases with the world’s extensive reliance vehicle electrification. I highly recommend Bruce Vojak.“

– Steve McShane

Founder and CEO at Midtronics

“Bruce has served The Conference Board for nearly a decade, first as an Advisory Board member and, more recently, as a Senior Fellow. Bruce’s contributions are greatly valued in each forum in which he participates. I am particularly taken by his deep insight into the role of Serial Innovators in mature enterprises, something I personally observed to be powerful throughout my long career in industry. Bruce’s proven track record of bringing impactful, actionable insight to every conversation makes it a pleasure to recommend him.”

– John Metselaar

Leader of the Global Innovate & Transform Institute and the Innovation Leadership Councils of Europe and Asia at The Conference Board

“I brought Bruce in across several innovation engagements over time, each building on the last. He began by introducing key innovation concepts, then worked with my team to assess and strengthen our innovation capabilities. Later, he met individually with high-potential team members to help them better understand their role in driving innovation within the organization. What stood out across all of this was his ability to strengthen both the system and the people within it. That made the work especially valuable for our team. The team really enjoyed working with Bruce, and his insight and guidance helped to strengthen our innovation culture.“

– Nat Sattler

Division President Dexter/MCE at Permag

“I have engaged Bruce on multiple occasions, beginning as a participant in a series of workshops for rising executives. What stood out immediately was his ability to translate deep expertise into clear, actionable insights grounded in practical application. Based on that experience, I brought him back to lead additional workshops for our team. Each engagement provided a fresh perspective that was directly relevant to our work.”

– Christian Eitel

Head of Global Product Management at Bucher Hydraulics

“Bruce served as a fiduciary board member at Micron during my time as Director of Design Engineering. Beyond formal board interactions, he took the initiative to connect with me 1-on-1 periodically, outside of board meetings, to share perspective and better understand the organization from my point of view. Those conversations were both professionally valuable and personally meaningful. Our work together has had a lasting impact on how I think about driving innovation.”

– Renjie Fu

Director of Design Engineering at Micron Industries Corporation

“We engaged Bruce as an advisor to help us develop a true strategic plan, not just undertake a planning exercise. He guided our process with clear context and guardrails, helping us develop our own strategic insight rather than simply providing answers. In particular, he challenged our thinking on the difference between strategy and goal setting, which fundamentally changed how we approached the work. The result was a plan tailored to our business, along with a practical path to implementation. Our board has approved the strategy, and we are now actively executing against it. We are pleased to recommend Bruce as a strategic advisor.”

– John Pruban

President and CEO at Level 10

– Courtney Stone

COO at Level 10

“I engaged Bruce as an innovation advisor to help our leadership team develop a stage-gate process for new product and process development initiatives. He guided the team through the work, providing the right level of context and structure while ensuring the process fit our culture and needs. Rather than delivering a prepackaged solution, he helped us develop a system we could own and sustain. That work continued to shape how we approached product and process development well beyond the engagement.“

– Andrew Blake

CEO at Exacto

“I invited Bruce to serve as a plenary speaker at our American Supply Association Innovation Summit, where we brought together industry leaders and forward-thinking executives. Bruce defined and made a compelling case for innovation. He underscored the necessary balancing act between current operations and the hunt for renewal, as well as the commitments required from senior leadership as a practical investment in a company’s long-term health and performance. His message connected with our audience because it was both considered and grounded in real business relevance.”

– Beth Ladd

Vice President of Innovation at American Supply Association

"In my role at Penn State University, I work on strategic foresight and analysis of engineering systems—technology, management, and policy related to security and resilience to support our national defense. Bruce Vojak has made valuable contributions through participation in workshops that bring together an interdisciplinary and international group of students and academics with industry, government, and NGO professionals and senior leaders (see link). Bruce’s perspective on how small and medium-sized mature enterprises can innovate while managing strategic and enterprise risk opens a new direction when the conversations tend to focus on the large defense contractors and start-up companies. But innovation ecosystems are larger and more complex, which we have learned through Bruce’s extensive knowledge and experience. We have deepened and broaden our understanding of innovation and risk management through Bruce’s theoretical and practical insights.”

– Darryl Farber

College of Engineering and School of International Affairs at The Pennsylvania State University

“I’ve engaged Bruce on multiple occasions to speak on innovation as part of our economic development efforts. What I appreciate most is his ability to tailor the message to, and connect with, the audience in front of him, whether business owners or high school students.”

– Gary Camarano

Economic Development Director, Whiteside County Economic Development; Board Member at Illinois Chamber of Commerce

“We invited Bruce to meet with several of our constituent groups across Central Pennsylvania over the course of a full day of sessions. His impact was felt at every level. Students and faculty were highly engaged, corporate leaders participated in what they saw as meaningful discussions, and his large-group presentation brought everything together in a way that resonated broadly. We appreciate the depth of insight and energy he brought to each session.”

– Dennis Gilbert

President at Innovative Manufacturers Center

“Bruce Vojak’s keynote at our annual Tech Symposium hit on all the right themes and generated many follow-up conversations for some time afterward. And I loved the carrot peeling demo! The visual of carrot peelings falling on the floor, only to be usurped by an illustration of Breakthrough Innovation, was truly great. When you invite someone to speak at an event, you are not always quite sure exactly what you will get. Plus, there are always variables around the event itself that are hard to control or predict. For our Tech Symposium, all the planets aligned. Bruce was great. Our CEO and the rest of the leadership team were there. And the venue worked. A hit on all counts.”

– Robert Graf

Corporate Vice President, Research & Development at Lubrizol

“Based on feedback gathered from participants in our triennial company-wide technical symposium, Bruce’s presentation ranked among the top two in both scores and comments. It was a bit of a risk to include his topic, as past symposia had focused entirely on technical issues. However, this human side of innovation hit a chord with the attendees. In fact, one of our technical managers actually thanked me for inviting him to present. Personally, I, too, very much enjoyed his presentation and add that he did a great job of tying together comments from prior presenters to further strengthen his message to the audience.”

– Deb Polcyn

R&D Director at Newly Weds Foods

“Bruce delivered a plenary presentation at our annual User Conference, attended by HR professionals from more than 120 top employers, helping to frame the importance of Breakthrough Innovators in successful organizations. It was great! Following his presentation, we received many positive comments from the attendees and requests for access to his book. It was obvious they appreciated the research-based content and the application to both entry-level and professional staffing. Not only did they value his message, but his presentation also inspired group discussion and exceeded all our expectations.”

– Jeff Beavers

Chief Operating Officer at RECSOLU LLC

“We received overwhelming positive feedback on Bruce’s keynote presentation at our annual technical retreat. It was widely received as an intriguing topic, and several commented that this was much more engaging than previous years’ retreat presentations. It definitely sparked a conversation within the company.”

– Brody DeYoung, PhD

Scientist at BASF