Jeb Brugmann is a leading practitioner and thinker on strategy and the process of innovation. For 25 years he has been devising solutions to help local communities access the benefits of globalization, and to help global organizations engage in local communities and markets. His work focuses particularly on the critical contribution of innovation at the micro-level of the locality, business model, or consumer cluster to achieve macro-level strategy objectives. As the founder and chief executive of major international organizations and programs, as a social entrepreneur and for-profit private sector entrepreneur, and as a corporate and urban strategy consultant, he has worked on the ground in scores of cities and rural regions in 28 countries.
As an economist and market analyst, in 2004 Jeb co-founded The Next Practice Ltd. business innovation consultancy with Prof. C.K. Prahalad, focused on developing product and business solutions to address poverty conditions among low-income populations. Jeb led ‘base of the pyramid’ product design and business planning projects for corporate clients in the banking, energy, and property sectors. In this work he also focused on providing community-based organizations and NGOs in India and North American with the local market and business analyses they needed to advance their development strategies. Jeb holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a BA in Economics summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts. His awards include the Millennium Award for Best Sustainability Initiative (2000) from the European Environmental Agency/Princes’ Foundation, and the 2007 McKinsey Award for best article of the year from Harvard Business Review.