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Steve Wunker

Stephen Wunker, Managing Director


Stephen Wunker combines world-class strategy consulting and entrepreneurial skills. He is the author of Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't, named one of the five Best Business Books of 2011, as well as co-author of Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation, which was one of four finalists for Best General Business Book of 2016. Steve has a long track record of creating successful ventures for his own companies and on behalf of clients, and his third book Costovation: Innovation That Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want--And Nothing More was recently published by HarperCollins and selected as one of the top business books of 2018 by The Globe and Mail.

As a consultant, Steve was a long-term colleague of Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in building up his innovation consulting practice, Innosight. He has co-written two articles with Professor Christensen and helped to put together his book on healthcare The Innovator’s Prescription. He also spent several years consulting at Bain & Company in their Boston and London offices. He has led New Markets Advisors since 2009. In that capacity, he publishes frequently in outlets such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and The Financial Times. He has also appeared over the years on Bloomberg and BBC television, and he has been a guest lecturer at institutions such as Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

As an entrepreneur and corporate venturer, Steve co-founded Yowzit, one of Africa's leading sites for ratings and reviews. Previously, he was Managing Director of Celpay, a mobile commerce start-up created by the pan-African cellular network Celtel. It was sold to the South African financial services group First Rand. He also served as Celtel’s Business Development Director prior to the company being sold to Zain of Kuwait. Additionally, he was CEO of Brainstorm, a developer of mobile software that acquired a start-up he founded, Saverfone. In that capacity he co-founded what is now the global Mobile Marketing Association, which has been a key institution in preventing the spread of SMS-based spam. He also led the team at Britain's Psion PLC which, in conjunction with Motorola and Ericsson, developed one of the world's first smartphones.  
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Steve has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Master’s of Public Administration from Columbia University, and a BA cum laude from Princeton University. He has lived in the US, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Ecuador, and Zambia.

Speaking engagements

Steve is a highly-experienced speaker who is comfortable in settings ranging from major keynote addresses to small meetings in conference rooms.
More about speaking engagements

Publications

  • Books
  • Articles
  • New Markets Publications
  • Media Appearances
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  • Stephen Wunker and Jennifer Luo Law, Costovation: Innovation that Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want -- and Nothing More, HarperCollins Leadership, August 2018
  • Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman, and David Farber, Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation, Amacom, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker, Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't, ​McGraw-Hill, 2011
Capturing New Markets
Capturing New Markets: How Smart Companies Create Opportunities Others Don't, McGraw-Hill, 2011
"Capturing New Markets offers a new and rigorous toolkit that charts a clear path to this business imperative. This is a major new contribution to the field with practical takeaways just when we need them most." 

-- Vijay Govindarajan, Professor at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth Collegeand First Professor in Residence and Chief Innovation Consultant at GE
Capturing New Markets Website
  • Stephen Wunker, "A Coronavirus Strategic Plan - 5 Ways To Make It Happen In A Business," Forbes, March 16, 2020
  • Stephen Wunker and Jennifer Law, "Measuring Emotional Jobs to Be Done," Branding Strategy Insider, February 11, 2020
  • Stephen Wunker and Jennifer Law, "Don't Stress: When Doing and Spending Less Can Help Your Business Get Ahead," ChangeThis, October 10, 2018
  • Stephen Wunker, "Three Innovation Commandments for Building Sleek, Low-Cost Businesses," Forbes, October 8, 2018
  • Stephen Wunker, "Why Apple Needs Less iPhone X And More Costovation," Forbes, September 5, 2018
  • Stephen Wunker and Jennifer Luo Law, "20 Strategies for Innovating Lower Cost Business," Branding Strategy Insider, August 28, 2018
  • Stephen Wunker and Jennifer Luo Law, "Doing Less For Your Customers Can Make Them Love You More," LinkedIn Weekend Essay, August 10, 2018
  • Stephen Wunker, "Three Steps To Comparing Growth Opportunities Using Jobs To Be Done," Forbes, May 18, 2018
  • Stephen Wunker and David Farber, “A Winning Formula: Disruptive Innovation + Jobs to be Done,” Rotman Management, Winter 2018
  • ​​Steve Wunker and David Farber, "Bridging the gap: Learn to sell what your customers are trying to buy," Canvas, December 23, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker, "How Companies Should Invest in Highly Uncertain Times," Forbes, November 10, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker, "Four Lessons For Marketers From The Massive Election Misforecast," Forbes, November 9, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker and David Farber, "Dispelling Three Common Myths About 'Jobs to be Done'," Forbes, October 31, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker, Jessica Wattman, and David Farber, "What Ten Promising Startups Taught Us About Marketing New Products," ​Young Upstarts, ​October 19, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker and David Farber, "Why Companies Need Corporate Futurists But Will Fire Them Anyway," Forbes, April 12, 2016
  • Stephen Wunker and David Farber, “How T-Mobile Binge On Fits the Company’s Three Part Strategy,” Forbes, November 11, 2015
  • Stephen Wunker and David Farber, "Five Strategies Big Businesses Use to Build A Culture of Innovation," Forbes, July 2015
  • Stephen Wunker, "How the Swasthya Slate is Revolutionizing Healthcare, and Why it Steers Clear of the US," Forbes, November 22, 2014
  • Geoff Tuff and Stephen Wunker, "Beacons for Business Model Innovation," Deloitte Doblin Working Paper, April 2014
  • Stephen Wunker, "Five Approaches When You Need Costovation, Not Innovation," Forbes, December 2013
  • Stephen Wunker, "Health Insurance Exchanges And The Innovator's Dilemma--Is The Future Costovation?" Forbes, ​December 2013
  • Stephen Wunker, "Sizing New Markets -- Five Solutions and Four Traps," Forbes, November 2013
  • Stephen Wunker, "A New Age for Healthcare Kiosks: Five Ways Next Generation Kiosks Disrupt Medicine and Healthcare Marketing," Forbes, July 2013
  • Stephen Wunker, "Innovation Zombies, and Other Hazards For Great Ideas," Forbes, June 2013
  • Stephen Wunker, "Five Lessons From Better Place's Collapse," Forbes, May 2013
  • Stephen Wunker, "Seven Signs of a Successful Incubator," Forbes, December 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Asking the Right Question," Forbes, December 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Making Revolutionary Ideas Simple," Forbes, July 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Four Lessons for Wal-Mart on Corruption in Emerging Markets," Forbes, April 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Apple's Business Model Vulnerability, Exposed by a French Upstart," Forbes, April 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Titanic's Seven Lessons for Fast-Moving Firms," Forbes, April 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Healthcare's Elusive 'Economic Customers'," Forbes, March 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Better Growth Decisions: Early Mover, Early Follower, or Late Follower?" Strategy & Leadership, No. 4, Iss. 2
  • Stephen Wunker, "$13.9 Billion Gone, and the Wireless Disruption Has Just Begun," Forbes, February 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Growing Big by Targeting Small," Ivey Business Journal, January / February 2012 
  • Stephen Wunker, "Six Steps to Put Christensen's Jobs-to-be-Done Theory into Practice," Forbes, February 2012 
  • Stephen Wunker, "Fiat's Smart U.S. Launch Strategy--Really," Harvard Business Review, February 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Six Strategy Insights RIM's New CEO Can Use," Harvard Business Review, January 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Why Samsung is Betting $41 Billion in Turbulent Times," Forbes, January 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "A Foothold Market--In Rickshaws," Forbes, January 2012
  • Stephen Wunker, "Achieving Growth by Setting New Strategies for New Markets," Ivey Business Journal, November / December 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Genetic Testing, Electric Cars, and Powerful Intermediaries," Forbes, November 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "How the Vespa Became Vietnamese," Forbes, November 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Why Peter Drucker Distrusted Facts," Harvard Business Review, November 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Herman Cain's Map for Upstarts Everywh​ere," Forbes, October 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Why Apple, Not Private Equity, Could Be Best For Yahoo," Forbes, October 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "RIM's Innovator's Dilemma, and Two Routes Out," Forbes, October 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "How to Keep Big Ideas Big," Forbes, October 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Why Apple's Amazing Siri May Herald the End of the iPhone," Forbes, October 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "The Jeff Bezos Formula for Asymmetric Competition," Forbes, September 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "R.E.M.'s Six Lasting Lessons for New Markets," Forbes, September 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Fundamental Changes in How Emerging Markets Innovate," Forbes, September 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Case Study: Walgreens," Financial Times, August 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Five Rules for Innovating in a Shaky Economy," Harvard Business Review, August 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Does Your Company Have Motorola Disease?" Forbes, August 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "The iPhone's Struggle in Emerging Markets," Forbes, August 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "After the Budget Deal, How Government Can Support Market Creation, Cheaply," Forbes, August 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Is Google Too Rushed to Pioneer?" Forbes, August 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "The New War on Science," The New Republic, July 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "In Praise of Going It Alone," Harvard Business Review, July 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "6 Lessons from the New Tech Titans," Forbes, July 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Four Morals From MySpace's Fall," Forbes, July 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "What The Special Forces Can Teach Us About New Markets," Business Insider, June 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "Barnes & Nobles' Smart Strategy," Harvard Business Review, June 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "The First Customers," The Conference Board Review, Summer 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, "What ZipCar Can Teach the S&P 500," Harvard Business Review, May 2011
  • Stephen Wunker, David Farber, and Jessica Wattman, "Combatting Institutional Blindness: How Companies Can Illuminate The Future," New Markets Working Paper, November 2015
  • Stephen Wunker, "Strategic Planning in Times of Uncertainty," New Markets Working Paper, November 2014
  • Stephen Wunker, "Capability Case Study," New Markets Working Paper, July 2014
  • "Costovation: When Less is More in Innovation," The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, November 2018
  • "Costovation: Innovation That Gives Your Customers Exactly What They Want--And Nothing More," The Innovation Engine, October 10, 2018
  • "Costovation author Stephen Wunker on how to innovate in business AND cut costs," WFN1's CEOMoney, August 13, 2018
  • Interview about Costovation on Yahoo! Final Round, August 14, 2018
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  • About
    • Our Distinct Model
    • Team
    • Join Us
  • Services
    • Develop Growth Strategies
    • Uncover Jobs to be Done
    • Build Innovation Capabilities
  • Industries
    • Arts and Culture
    • Consumer Goods
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Social Innovation
    • Technology
  • Past Work
    • Success Stories
    • Recent Clients
    • Testimonials
  • Our Thinking
    • Leading through the Coronavirus Crisis
    • Books
    • Working Papers
    • Articles
    • Blog
    • Speaking Engagements
  • Contact