Testimonials

Bruce has been there. The insight he brings to clients is built on years of practical application as an innovator and innovation executive in industry. Not merely academic, but actionable insight tested in the marketplace. Further, his experience as an innovation advisor and board member spans a broad range of mature companies and industries. From small- and medium-sized companies to the largest corporate entities, he has proven himself a contributor who understands what it takes for organizations to both survive and thrive.

What our clients are saying

John Veleris (Chairman and Partner, JVA Partners)

Bruce Vojak has been a member of our strategic advisory board and a trusted advisor of our advanced technology and product innovation leadership team since 2014. Bruce’s knowledge and experience have been strategic assets to our group’s various investment initiatives.

Specifically, as a leading authority on the subject, he 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.

Bruce’s experience, professional network, and relationships with business and university alliances, partnerships, and experts have helped us leverage internal and external resources more effectively. His assessments across various fronts have helped us increase our self-awareness, identify gaps and inconsistencies more quickly, and drive results more effectively.

As a strategic coach, Bruce challenges our thinking and assumptions and provides us with effective guidance in developing and evaluating strategic risk/reward alternatives. His coaching skills help us clarify milestones and measures of success, thereby improving team focus and accountability.

His group facilitation skills are consistent with his personal, transparent, and relational working style. We have found him to be a passionate and genuine communicator, particularly on topics related to innovation.

We are delighted to have Bruce on our team.

Nancy Dawes (Research Fellow and Victor Mills Society, Procter & Gamble)

Bruce Vojak worked extensively with Procter & Gamble (P&G) during my time with the company, translating his Breakthrough Innovation insights into actionable training and thought leadership beginning in 2007.

One of the roles of members of P&G Victor Mills Society (P&G’s formal recognition of Serial Innovators) is to identify and develop future innovators, as true Breakthrough Innovators are few and far between. As one of ~15 members of the Victor Mills Society, 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. This class is consistently highly rated and has a strong track record of promoted Technologist-track individuals as graduates.
Through ongoing consultation on innovation, Bruce’s research articulated the importance of “innovators recognizing innovators,” which directly led to increased involvement of technologists in interviewing/recruiting and modification of P&G’s interview process/questions to emphasize innovator skills.
Bruce’s Epistemology of Innovation essays were circulated and read throughout our R&D organization and provided many useful references and sound-bites to reinforce key points; and our connections with Bruce (and Ray Price, his co-author) led to further studies internal to P&G on other topics.

Having worked collaboratively with Bruce Vojak for many years, including after my retirement from P&G, I can attest to his collaborative work style, his curiosity, his ability to link subject matter across disciplines, and his ability to construct useful visual models that help explain complex material.

Steve McShane (Founder and CEO, Midtronics)

I first met Bruce Vojak at a 2006 meeting where Bruce was making a presentation to the group of CEOs on the subject of Breakthrough Innovation based on research he was doing in preparation for the publication of his Serial Innovators book. I was intrigued by his insight on the subject since my company has grown over the last thirty years based on continuous development of new product categories. After that meeting my CTO and I got to know him better, we invited Bruce to address our leadership team, and in 2008, Bruce accepted my invitation to take a position on our board of directors, a role he served in for sixteen years.

Our board has been made up of CEOs and industry leaders with backgrounds in marketing, manufacturing, finance, and engineering, and I felt that Bruce could enhance our board and give us the opportunity to tune in to his insight on innovation, a subject very dear to our mission as a company. Bruce provided a voice for research and development, engineering, and design excellence. He also served as a resource that comprehends major global changes that are taking place in the industries we serve. As he learned our business, he became more insightful, persuasive, and supportive of our efforts to provide creative new solutions to customer needs. He has added value to our board discussions as a result of his knowledge of industry trends and his inquisitive style. He gained the respect of his colleagues on the board and was able to get the best of our executive staff by asking questions that lead to fruitful discussions of issues related to our technology advances and continuous improvement of our product designs.

Over the years, we also called on Bruce to make presentations to groups of managers of engineering, marketing, and sales, reinforcing our commitment to innovation, helping us to recognize how we can encourage curiosity and creativity, and how we can avoid the disincentives recognized in his books that are pervasive, especially in many large company cultures. His skilled facilitation and thorough mastery of the subject matter have had a lasting effect on our team’s commitment to growth through continuous improvement.

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.

Robert Graf (Corporate Vice President, Research & Development, Lubrizol)

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.

Deb Polcyn (R&D Director, Newly Weds Foods)

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.

Jeff Beavers (Chief Operating Officer, RECSOLU LLC)

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.

Brody DeYoung, PhD (BASF)

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.

Reviews of our books

Vojak & Herbst, No-Excuses Innovation: Strategies for Small- and Medium-Sized Mature Enterprises (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2022)

“As a retailer, it was always evident that those who don’t constantly innovate with new product, new merchandising, and store design eventually failed. This book shows how change and innovation are crucial for any success in business.”

—Gordon Segal, Founder, Crate & Barrel

“With over 3 decades of buying and building over 50 companies in consumer and commercial markets, I can attest that this book should be mandatory for anyone wanting success in growing their business.”

—Keith Jaffee, Chairman of Middleton Partners, CEO of Banyan Acquisition Corp (NYSE)

“It is a real treat that the authors provide valuable insight not only into their own creative genius, but that of others as well. No-Excuses Innovation illustrates that innovation is the most important factor underlying economic growth and prosperity.”

—Morton Schapiro, Professor and President, Northwestern University

“No-Excuses Innovation shows how consistent innovative development can help business leaders enhance value, set themselves apart in the minds of investors, create better employee engagement, and, as a result, generate higher business valuations. A must-read for business owners considering ownership transition.”

—Kenneth Serwinski, Chairman, Prairie Capital Advisors, Inc.

“Both grandmasters in the field, Vojak and Herbst bring a confluence of wisdom in their understanding of the pathways to innovation and the barriers to renewal for small and medium-sized companies. A brilliant business book that will compel fresh dreams and unpack the secrets towards a company’s sustainable growth.”

—Robert T. Schwartz, FIDSA, DMI, Dean, Schools of Arts, Design and Business, Mount Mary University

“No-Excuses Innovation simply “revs-up” the reminder of our role in innovation. This is a quick “go-to” guide, helping to steer the vital evolutionary process of our company in today’s “disruptive” world. Pick it up and GO!”

—Rick Delawder, President, SWD Inc.; past Chair of the Illinois Manufacturing Association

Griffin, Price & Vojak, Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012)

“Griffin, Price, and Vojak truly have written a love letter to all who pursue breakthrough innovation. By shifting our focus from an impersonal, controlled process to the many personal acts of discovery and relationships characteristic of serial innovators, the authors refreshingly bring us back to the heart of the matter: experts with the passion to overcome technical and organizational hurdles to solve real-life challenges.

―Mary McDowell, Executive Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia

“Wow! A book that explains what I do and how I do it! By ‘making the implicit explicit,’ Serial Innovators not only validates my personal approach, but also gives me new ideas on how to strengthen it, enroll others, and nurture future innovators. Here’s to giving me the courage to deliver once more!”

―Nancy C. Dawes, Serial Innovator and Research Fellow, Victor Mills Society, Procter & Gamble

“Written by three undisputed experts in product innovation and management, this book is extremely well researched and executed. It presents a model that perfectly complements our traditional understanding of product innovation. In Serial Innovators managers will find a refreshing perspective and clear guidance on how to locate, reward, and retain serial innovators within their organization.”

―Anthony Di Benedetto, Temple University

“This book is fascinating. The concept of the serial innovator, distinct from the serial inventor or serial entrepreneur, is important. Serial innovators are a rare breed and we need to learn more about them. This book provides a first look into their nature and how to manage them. It will be extremely useful for readers who think about and work on breakthrough innovation in established companies―and who struggle with how to do it better.”

―Ginna C. O’Connor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and author of Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation