Mike Grandinetti
Disruptive Business Models Innovation
Disruptive Innovation Podcast
Disruptive Innovation Talks
Serious Innovation Games
Global Venture Catalyst Program
Design Sprints
Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation
#AI4 Good Hackathons
#Covent19 Global Ventilator Design Sprint
Hult Prize
Published Business & Innovation Articles
Forbes Column
Money Inc Blog
Boston Innovation
Medium Blog Posts
WordPress Blog Posts
Beyondtheblocks Blog Posts
Tweetups on Innovation
Hult Blog
Published Academic Articles
Wharton Business School
Print Media Interviews
Broadcast News TV Interviews
University Programs Taught
ESADE
China Innovation
COVID 19 Innovation podcast
Mike has been continuously active in the fields of innovation, entrepreneurship, human-centric design and digital marketing since earning his Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree. He went on to earn his MBA degree with distinction at Yale. He began his career in Silicon Valley, and has spent his entire career in the world's leading innovation clusters of Silicon Valley / San Francisco, Boston / Cambridge, Austin, TX and Tel Aviv, Israel. He's a successful serial tech entrepreneur, multi-award winning professor, innovation consultant, angel investor, board member, hackathon & design sprint leader, popular keynote speaker, podcast author, and in-demand startup mentor.
VC -BACKED TECH ENTREPRENEUR
He was an early team member and CXO of 8 prior VC-backed tech startups. Two went public on the NASDAQ and all 7 were subsequently acquired by large strategics including ATT, IBM, Iron Mountain, Oracle, Symantec and Synopsys. He co-led an IPO roadshow and a subsequent secondary roadshow with institutional investors on Wall Street in NYC, the City in London, and in the financial capitals of Switzerland, Luxembourg, France, Milan, Sweden, Denmark, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco, LA and Minneapolis.
In his 8th, and most recent VC -backed enterprise tech startup, his company won the Frost & Sullivan annual global innovation award, was covered very favorably by both Gartner and Forrester in their published research and was named Startup of the Year in the data storage, management and protection space by in Network World, and startup of the Year for Cybersecurity by Fortress. Mike's marketing team won the first ever Marketing Technology global "Stackie" award for its use of its Hubspot – centric marketing technology stack and its innovative organizational design. He's been a part of management teams that have cumulatively raised over $1B USD in venture and public equity capital.
PROFESSOR & EDUCATOR
MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MGMT & MIT EF FOUNDERS PROGRAM
Mike spent 10 plus years as a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He taught MBAs and in the Executive Education program. He continues to serve as a faculty member for the MIT Smart Start Founders Program and for the MIT Enterprise Forum. He's also lectured in the award winning MIT Desphpande Center i -Teams program, which became the US standard for IP commercialization from university R&D labs. He spent over a decade as a judge in the MIT $100K global entrepreneurship competition. He's been an organizer and facilitator of the first two MIT Media Lab Virtual and Augmented Reality Hackathons. He serves on the MIT CIO Symposium Organizing Team, where his focus on recruiting world class CIOs as speakers and panelists. This year's theme is the "Smart Enterprise" where Mike focused on recruiting CIOs and CDOs speakers for the event. He's on the organizing team of the MIT Sloan Virtual Learning Series, where he also serves as event modrator. He is also on the Organizing team for the MIT #Connected20 event, which brings together industry thought leaders in the fields of AI, machine Learning and IOT.
Mike served as Faculty Chairman and Lead Professor in the Rutgers "Leading Disruptive Innovation" Executive Certificate Program in the Division of Continuing Studies. Executive client-students hail from blue chip companies including FISERVE, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, NBA, Novartis, Salesforce.com. Tiffany, etc. In addition, Mike teaches product design, development and innovation in the Rutgers Masters in Science and Business degree program. All students have earned their bachelors in engineering and / or science degrees.
Mike is on the faculty of the Engineering Leadership Professional Program. In addition, he serves as a mentor and instructor in the both the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, and the Berkeley SkyDeck startup accelerator and the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator. He's also a member of the Berkeley X Innovation Network at the Berkeley Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
Mike teaches "Transformative Leadership in Disruptive Times at the Executive Education level.
Mike teaches core courses in the Harvard Extension School, one of 12 degree granting colleges within Harvard University.
BABSON COLLGE
Babson has perennially been ranked the premiere US institute of Higher Learning for the study of Entrepreneurship. Mike is a member of the Board of Directors of the Babson College eTower, and an advisor to the Babson CODE Club The eTower was founded in 2001 with the goal of bringing together the highest levels of entrepreneurs within the Babson community. Mike also organizes and leads coding hackathons using the latest methodologies on behalf of the Babson Coding Club. He has also organized and led cross- campus collaborative hackathons between Hult, Northeastern, Babson, Olin and Wellesley students. Mike has also previously been a guest lecturer in Executive Education classes at Babson. He has served as a judged in Babson "Rocket Pitch" competitions and served as a Judge in the semi-finals of Babson "ePitch Second Century" pitch competition, celebrating the School's Centennial.
OLIN COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Olin is consistently ranked amongst the top 5 engineering colleges in the US. They have won numerous US and international awards for their innovative, hands-on curriculum. Mike serves as a mentor to students in their entrepreneurship courses," Iterate" &" Launch" and has had top Olin students take his Masters level innovation and new product design courses.
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF DENMARK (DTU)
Mike helped design and establish the unique 9 month DTU Executive Education certificate program, "Corporate Entrepreneurial Leadership" and was a charter member of the international faculty team, where he was consistently highly rated. Clients included many of the largest companies in Scandinavia and North – Central Europe including Novo Nordisk and Maersk.
As Global Professor of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Marketing at Hult, Mike was named Financial Times Global Professor of the Week, Hult Professor of the Year, and was the recipient of four Global Teaching Excellence awards, as well as the Professor Most Engaged with Students award. He worked closely with President Steve Hodges and a small team to create Hult's new MBA curriculum, which won the global AACSB award for the word's most innovative MBA degree program curriculum. He is one of the faculty leaders of the Masters in Disruptive Innovation degree program, and teaches & mentors in the MBA, Dual Degree and single degree Masters in Marketing programs. He teaches courses including Design Thinking, Entrepreneurship: New Product Innovation, Financing Innovation, Disruptive Business Model Innovation, the Future of Advertising & Marketing, Leadership &Global Management.
Mike serves as a mentor & instructor in the Creating Multi-Dimensional Experiences Entrepreneurship course.
Mike has mentored several student teams in the Berklee Institute of Creative Entrepreneurship program. All of these teams also chose to participate in the Startup Next Boston accelerator, where Mike served as Managing Director prior to the organization being acquired by Techstars. Mike's Masters in Marketing students provided pro bono digital and social marketing services to these teams as they launched. Most of the Berklee ICE teams then hired these students as interns to build on their pro bono consulting work.
Mike has taught Executive Education courses and EMBA courses at a wide range of top ranked global graduate management schools, including Aalto University, Ashridge (UK), ESADE (Barcelona), Boston College, Berkley Haas School, and Harvard Business School (guest lecturer during a case study about one of his startups.)
INNOVATION & STRATEGY CONSULTANT
Early in his career Mike worked for McKinsey out of their NYC office and was a member of their innovation practice. During the period from 2010-2015, Mike had an independent consulting practice, with a focus on corporate strategy, innovation and design thinking. Corporate clients have included Arla Foods, Accenture, Ambu, Bemis, the Canadian Federal Government, Capital One, Dell EMC, Danske Post, Dong Energy, EF Corporate Language Learning, Ferrari, Fl. Smidth, Intuit, Maersk, Nestle, Novo Nordisk, Omada, Pirelli, Prodago, AB InBev SAB Miller, State Street Bank, TetraPak, and Worthern Industries. Previous government clients include the Federal Government of Canada, The Province of Quebec CN, the Province of Nova Scotia CN and the Province of New Brunswick CN, as well as the governments of Denmark and Scotland.
THOUGHT LEADER
Mike actively shares his insights weekly on his Disruptive Innovation podcast series, which streams on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Radio.com, SoundCloud, Anvhor, Stitcher and Simplecast. He also posts his views daily on major innovation-related news and trends on his blog and on LinkedIn. Mike has collaborated with Mark Bayer, former Chief of Staff of US Senator Ed Markey, on a special podcast series focused on rapid innovation in response to the critical PPE, ventilator and other medical device shortages.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP MENTOR / STARTUP BOARD MEMBER
Mike has served on the Board of Directors of startups in fields as diverse as Cyber security, hybrid cloud data storage, medical devices and equipment, big data, enterprise software, financial technology and music festival management software. He's been an active and top-rated mentor in top rated accelerator programs such as TechStars (ranked #2 in the US), BetaSpring (ranked #11 in the US), the Founders Institute and the MassChallenge as well as IBM SmartCamp and startupbootcamp internationally.
Mike 's been very engaged in the field of Social Entrepreneurship. He mentored the winning team in the 2013 Hult Prize SF Regional Competition as they won against Stanford, U Cal Berkeley, and MIT and helped lead them to the Finals at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting where they presented to luminaries including Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus. He has served as an advisor to Engineers Without Borders as well as numerous social startup ventures. He was one of the lead faculty member in the Hult Masters in Social Entrepreneurship degree program prior to its being closed down, teaching courses on Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship. He's led many hackathons focused on social impact.
HACKATHON LEADER (highlights)
MIT Media Lab Virtual / Augmented Reality hackathon. Cambridge MA (largest in world) (multiple)
Data Governance & Management Hackathon, focus on enterprise AI & anti-money laundering. SF
Accenture "AI for Good" Hackathon. SF
IBM AI and Cloud Datatbase Hackathon, Boston, MA
Capital One / Critical Stack "Code-a-thon", Cambridge, MA
Babson College, Wellesley Collge, Olin College of Engineering, Northeastern U, Hult International Business School "AI for Good" Code-athon. Babson Park, MA
Nestle Global Skin Health and Wellness. NYC
naviHealth "Innovation in Healthcare"
Open IDEO Hacking Higher Education. Cambridge, MA
Hult Prize $1M Social Entrepreneurship Competition Hackathon. SF
Startup Weekend COVID19 US Wide. (Virtual)
New Product Coding Hackathon. Tel Aviv
Go-to-Market Challenge Hackathon. (numerous) Boston
European Union Digital Transformation Hackathon. Lisbon, Portugal
Hacking Health Care Hackathon. Montreal
General Assembly Social Impact Hackathon. Boston
Hacking for Humanity Hackathon. Boston
Design for America MIT Chapter Hackathon. Cambridge MA
Designing Your Life Hackathon at Harvard. Cambridge MA
ENTREPRENERUSHIP COMPETITION JUDGE (highlights)
MIT $100K Prize Global Entrepreneurship Competition. Cambridge MA (10 yrs.)
Open Data Science Global Startup Cup $1M prize
Massachusetts Global Startup Challenge $1M in prize money. Boston
Babson Rocket Pitch
Babson $100K Prize "ePitch Second Century" pitch competition", celebrating the School's Centennial.
Startup Weekend COVID19 USA -wide
Startup Weekend (numerous)
Startup Grind (numerous)
Canadian Dept. of Foreign Affairs Canadian US go-to-market Boot camp
New England Clean Energy Commission US startup competition
Hult Prize $1M Prize Social Entrepreneurship Regional Competition Hackathons. SF & Boston (multiple)
Hult Prize $1M Prize Social Entrepreneurship Regional Competition; Rutgers Chapter
Canadian National Research Foundation (numerous)
Canadian Department Foreign Affairs & Investment (numerous)
SOCIAL IMPACT ACTIVITIES & AWARDS
Rosoff Award
Mike was presented with the prestigious 2018 Rosoff Award, as voted on by his peers, for his leadership on driving diversity and inclusion in the tech and startup communities.
OpenIDEO
Mike has served as Boston Chapter leader, Co-Leader and Community Impact Fellow at various times. OpenIDEO uses IDEO's design thinking methodology to drive actionable solutions for significant social challenges, from homelessness to affordable education to environmental protection.
COVID19 Global Ventilator Challenge ( Mass General Hospital)
Board of Directors of this global, rapid response 8 week global design sprint. The goal- to design a world class, medically effective, affordable & easily manufacturable FDA approved ventilator. Goal- from launch to manufacturing in 8 weeks. Team includes 8 medical doctors from Mass General Hospital, biomedical engineers, mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers, industrial designers, etc. 213 ventilator design submissions from teams in 43 countries participated.
Africa O2 COVIDE19 Challenge
Board of Directors of this global, rapid response 8 week global design sprint. The goal- to design a world class, medically effective, affordable & easily manufacturable FDA approved oxygen support devices. Goal-from launch to manufacturing in 8 weeks. Team includes 8 medical doctors from Mass General Hospital, biomedical engineers, mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers, industrial designers, etc. Partnered with Africa Federation of Emergency Medicine.
Facilitator- Startup Weekend COVID19 Hackathon USA Edition
This hackathon was designed to address the many consequences of the effects of COVID19 on society. Over 1000 hacker – participants and 220 mentors from the entire USA, with 20 winning teams selected to move on with strong financial and mentorship to rapid implementation.
WGBH Public TV & Radio / US Public Broadcasting System
Mike has served as Co- Chairman of both the Business Development and the Nominating Committees of WGBH Public TV & Radio, the flagship operation within the US Public Broadcasting System while serving on the corporate executive board for the past 14 years.
Mike keynotes, lectures, moderates panels and facilitates workshops at many startup, entrepreneurship, innovation, venture capital and social impact events and is active on the TEDx circuit. He has keynoted a wide range of events, including the Global Startup Festival, the Nestle SKIN Shield Hackathon, the Hacking Health global conference on Hacking Health IT, the Beyond Corporate Purpose Global Summit, and many others.
AUTHOR / COLUMNIST
Mike writes regular columns on the themes of innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership in Forbes online and Money Inc. He's published in the Harvard Business Review Italy, Wharton at Work, Knowledge at Wharton, and 20 other publications.
PUBLIC SPOKESPERSON
Mike's often quoted in business pubs including WSJ, Financial Times, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, Fortune, Entrepreneur, San Jose Mercury News, SF Business Times, Boston Globe, Boston Business Journal & Boston Innovation; global broadcast TV & Radio news networks WCBS TV & National Public Radio, & tech trade pubs CIO Magazine, CIO Dive, Tech Target, Baseline, The Register, Storage Newsletter, Database & Security Week.
EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIALS & ACADEMIC HONORS
Mike earned his MBA with high distinction at Yale, and was the recipient of the annual Jess Morrow Johns Memorial Scholar Award, the Procter & Gamble Marketing leadership award and a Yale Teaching Fellowship.
RUTGERS COLLGE OF ENGINEERING
Mike graduated magna cum laude (with highest honors) from Rutgers with a BS in Engineering. He was named to the National Engineering Honor Society and the National Mechanical Engineering Honor Fraternity. He was presented with the Rutgers Engineering Medal of Excellence Award for Career Achievement, as well being named Rutgers Alumni of the Year.
Episode 23: MIT Solve Interview On The Gaps Between Ingenuity & Opportunity Worldwide March 22, 2020
Episode 22: Why The FinTech Sandbox Is A Critical Piece of The FinTech Startup Playbook, Part 2 of 2 March 16, 2020
Episode 21: We Ask Some FinTech Thought Leaders, What's Happening in FinTech Today? - Part 1 of 2 March 6, 2020
Hope in Hack-for-Humanity
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Disruptive Innovation is Required to Transform Healthcare
Does an MBA Really Make Sense for an Aspiring Entrepreneur
Experiential Learning in Entrepreneurship Education
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