Alexander Manu Senior Partner and Chief Imaginator InnoSpa International Partners Toronto, Ontario

Alexander Manu is a strategic innovation practitioner, lecturer, and author. He is a Senior Partner and Chief Imaginator at InnoSpa International Partners , a worldwide consulting firm reshaping business thinking by helping large corporations explore and define new competitive spaces. He is also a Professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design and teaches “Strategic Foresight for Pre-Competitive Innovation” at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. Alexander was the Founder and Executive Director of Research of the Beal Institute for Strategic Creativity, involved in the development of new learning ecologies, new strategic business competencies and pre-competitive innovation methods that integrate a broad range of skills in the area of Intellectual Property, User Experience and Ideal Experience Mapping. Before Beal, as principal of a development and applied research consultancy he established in 1980 in Toronto, he has been committed to enabling global companies develop policies and strategies that addressed emerging issues through the development of strategic intellectual property and pre-competitive business models for companies as diverse as Motorola, LEGO, Whirlpool, McGrawHill Ryerson, NOKIA  and Aim Funds. Alexander has a unique ability as a conceptual creator; his imaginative frameworks lead to the discovery of new and innovative paths, and the creation of experiences that evoke emotion, insight and understanding. He believes that the exploration of possibility requires imagination as a prerequisite for strategic change and innovation. Alexander has been involved in an exceptional and sustained activity as an international lecturer, being invited to give over 150 keynote lectures in 23 countries, a unique effort amongst his peers and the result of a focused and recognized passion towards discovering and sharing new methods. He is the author of the books: “The Imagination Challenge: Points of Departure for Strategic Creativity and Innovation” , 2006, "ToolToys: Tools with an Element of Play", 1995, and "The Big Idea of Design", 1999, as well as of over 25 articles published in national and international periodicals A past president of the Association of Chartered Industrial Designers of Ontario, he was elected twice on the board of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). Alexander Manu is a present and past member of various advisory boards active at government levels in Canada and the Far East and has consulted on design strategy for the Department of Canadian Heritage, the China External Trade Development Council, Taiwan Design Centre, Korea Institute of Design Promotion and a founding member of Design for the World (Barcelona), an international NGO that provides and promotes humanitarian design solutions. His new book “The Economy of Desire: The Ethos of innovation and the monetization of behaviour” will be published in 2008 by Pearson Education.

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