Chris Lawer
Managing Director, Strategyn UK
Locale: England
Biography: Chris is a pioneer in the field of customer-based innovation and business transformation. He brings to the Strategyn team more than 20 years of experience helping organizations identify and implement high-impact projects in areas of strategy, product and service innovation, capability development and marketing.
Since leading Strategyn UK, Chris has worked with several major companies in a variety of industry sectors delivering outcome-driven innovation growth strategy and insights. These sectors include healthcare, medical devices, brewing, broadband, electrical component manufacturing, financial services, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, precision engineering, enterprise IT applications and central and local government.
Previously, Chris was a partner with Primecom, a one-to-one marketing services company, as well as an account director with Dunnhumby (where he proved the business opportunity for Tesco home shopping) and a marketing manager with Royal & SunAlliance.
Chris holds a bachelor's degree in geography from Liverpool University and a master's in economic development and planning from Coventry University. He earned a distinction and award when completing the direct marketing diploma at Bristol Business School. He is currently conducting doctoral research at Cranfield School of Management on how firms can develop processes to absorb new customer knowledge.
He has written several white papers and is a frequent speaker and regular contributor to books and journals.
Personal: My interests are cricket, Plymouth Argyle, mountain biking, landscape / nature photography, the guitar, music festivals, watching live Spanish football and rioja.
Surprise, Surprise: I scored a goal in a proper football match at Wembley Stadium (in the interest of full disclosure, it was a charity game). And I used to play the Euphonium – a medium-sized tuba!
Greatest Frustration: Sticky, traditional paradigm thinkers.
Last Great Books: The Element by Sir Ken Robinson, and Hoggy by Matthew Hoggard
Quote: Wanted. Men for hazardous journey. Low wages. Bitter cold. Long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success. – Ernest Shackleton.