Robert Rosenfeld - Founder, CEO Robert Rosenfeld, recognized as a world leader in the field of innovation, is driven by his passion and belief that innovation is the very lifeblood of every organization. He is firmly convinced that the most critical success factor to nurturing and sustaining that which is new lies in an organization's ability to release the potential of its people. For over 25 years Bob has dedicated himself to creating environments which foster the creative, innovative spirit and has developed proprietary approaches and tools that unleash an organization's potential to innovate.

Bob's ability to identify and understand the dynamics behind innovation led to the creation of the Eastman Kodak Company's Office of Innovation in 1978. This was the first infrastructure of its kind to be successfully implemented inside an organization. It provided Kodak employees with a systematic way to develop their ideas and obtain funding to convert them into business opportunities. He expanded the initial Office of Innovation into a worldwide corporate network, a network that helped to transform ideas into hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues and cost savings for Kodak.

Since 1980, Bob has had a long and productive association with CCL, the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. Over 25 years ago, he co-founded AMI, the Association for Managers of Innovation, which was begun under the auspices of CCL and continues to this day. He designed and taught two courses at CCL dealing with Innovation and Effecting Change. More recently in May 2006, Bob was named "Innovator in Residence" at CCL because of his innovation experience that spans working with large and small entrepreneurial companies, Government Agencies, and Not-For-Profit companies to build social capital in our communities.

In 1988, Bob founded Idea Connection Systems, a company dedicated to releasing an organization's creative potential. While this applies to products and services, it also affects an organization's people and culture. He noted that while innovation is a critical component to a company's vitality, sustaining innovation was more important. Idea Connections, therefore, focuses on three areas: innovation leadership and culture; innovation inclusion and diversity; and innovation systems. Today his company serves public, private and international clients, including many Fortune 200 companies, such as: BP Amoco, Aventis, Bausch & Lomb, the Eastman Kodak Company, ExxonMobil, Frito-Lay, General Mills, the General Motors Corporation, Hallmark Cards, Praxair Technology, the Quaker Oats Company, Raytheon, and the Xerox Corporation. Idea Connections has also worked extensively with regional and national governmental agencies.

Bob's new book, Making the Invisible Visible: The Human Principles for Sustaining Innovation, integrates his years of learning about the importance of the human element in sustaining innovation. Bob has also presented his concepts to numerous organizations and with his company is actively involved in applied research. His contributions have been documented in many books including Managing Innovation in The New Millennium edited by S. S. George (2002); Positive Turbulence by Dr. Stanley S. Gryskiewicz (1999), Managing with the Wisdom of Love by Dorothy Marcic (1997), Corporate Creativity by Alan G. Robinson and Sam Stern (1997), When Giants Learn to Dance by Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1989), The Pursuit of Innovation by George Freedman (1988) and The Creative Edge by William C. Miller (1987). Many of these books have been translated into multiple languages. He has had many articles published and has also been granted numerous patents and research disclosures.

In 2001, Bob served on Mayor William A. Johnson's Commission on Race and Ethnicity. The Commission was charged by the Mayor to address issues of race in the Rochester, New York community. Teamed with a diverse group of business and community leaders, Bob spearheaded the development of Mosaic Partnerships, an innovative process for breaking down barriers between races. The design and development of the process was led by an Idea Connections team, and was implemented for the City of Rochester as "Biracial Partnerships for Community Progress." This ongoing Rochester program enjoys an overwhelmingly positive response from the community as it continues to work toward bringing about the genesis of a prejudice-free community by 2010. It has received wide attention, attracting the interest of other municipalities, like Greensboro, North Carolina, corporations, and educational institutions across the country.

Bob currently serves on the boards of many local and national organizations, including the Green Acre Advisory Council, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Odyssey of Humanity, and Diversified Technologies Resources, Inc. He is also a founding member of the Association for Managers of Innovation and has served on the Creativity International Advisory Board.

Bob and his wife Debbie have seven children and live in Rochester, New York.

Pepita is an Organizational Psychologist and Corporate Trainer, specializing in Creativity at the Masters level at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain and Creative Problem Solving Institute at Buffalo, University of Chicago, and Atlanta. She is also certified instructor in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Franklin Covey), Experiential Business Games (Center Business Games - Brazil) and Biodance (International Biocentric Foundation).

Pepita has an extensive organizational background facilitating programs such as leadership trainings, creativity processes, motivational systems, enchanting clients, building high performance teams, performance feedback, coaching, emotional intelligence, and many others.

Pepita has also worked as training and development manager at International Airline Companies, covering the development programs for the South American Region: Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In this realm she specialized in quality programs, communication skills, sales, negotiation, marketing and business plans. She has also worked as manager for training departments at national and multinational companies based in Brazil.

Pepita acts as consultant in change management, leadership coaching and diversity enhancement at corporate accounts in Brazil. She acts as trainer, consultant and speaker in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

Founder and President of Pepita Consultoria, Treinamento e Eventos Ltda., a consultancy based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, since 1994.

Pepita is peruvian, daughter of a United Nations diplomat who taught her to have an "anthropologist spirit", being always open to new cultures, diversity of people and new experiences. She is mother of twin boys and lives in the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro.

Gary Wilhelmi - Vice President, Dallas Branch

For over 30 years, Gary Wilhelmi has been directly involved with the development of successful new innovations as both an engineer and as a manager. During this time he has consistently created environments within his teams that leveraged individual differences and fostered high levels of individual interaction, trust and support. Through these experiences, he has developed a number of successful approaches and unique tools to allow organizations and individuals to understand those invisible attributes within an organization that ultimately become either key drivers or inhibitors of successful innovation.

Early in his career as an electrical engineer at the McDonnell Air Craft Company, Gary recognized the importance of pattern recognition in the discovery process. Whether associated with developing laser target identification systems or understanding the dynamics behind personal behavior, Gary has always believed that being able to identify the underlying patterns is the crucial first step towards discovering and, eventually, to leveraging new knowledge. Through this identification and understanding the visible and invisible patterns within organizations, the interactions between business, technology and people can be characterized and leveraged to allow new ideas to become successful innovations.

When presented with the opportunity to be part of a small start-up organization during the early years of fiber optic communications, Gary immediately joined the team at ITT Electro-Optics Products Division. His technical and organizational understanding helped him successfully direct the development and installation of the first operational fiber optic system installed at the National Security Agency’s Headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland and subsequent systems around the world. His understanding of fiber optics and systems integration led to the development of several other unique systems for the different branches of the Armed Services. One such design resulted in ITT receiving a sole-source systems integration contract for a fiber guided missile system designed by Gary. During this period, Gary had numerous publications and developed and taught a specialized fiber optics system design course. The experiences at ITT further refined Gary’s understanding of the dynamics within and between organizations.

Andrew Harrison - Communications Director and Consultant

As Communications Director and Consultant, Andrew Harrison is responsible for sharing Idea Connections Systems' programs on how to utilize the human element in Organizational Innovation and Community Transformation. He oversees all aspects of ICS' relationship management, marketing, media, and community activities.

Andrew comes to Idea Connection Systems with a unique background as a social innovator. In 2004, he turned in his graduate degree and high paying sales job to travel the country interviewing people about how they came to find passion for their work and life. His study of the human element now spans over 150 interviews with a diverse group of achievers and leaders (http://www.iamontheroad.com/).

His interview experiences have been featured in the Miami Herald, Charlotte Observer, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, as well as on local ABC, CBS, Fox, and Time Warner TV news, NPR radio, and in SmartDriver Magazine. He has also written articles for Worthwhile/Motto magazine and Next Step Magazine.

As an author, Andrew has penned a soon to be published book about his interview experiences focused on how people found the career they love titled, "84,000 Hours: On the road lessons from people working with purpose and passion," (http://www.84000hours.com/).

Andrew and Bob Rosenfeld first connected during interviews for Andrew's second book, "The Road to a Passionate Workforce: How to harness the power of your people," (http://www.passionateworkforce.com/), which details companies that people enjoy working for and why that leads to increased performance and profitability. The two met for an interview, clicked, found their values systems aligned, and have since focused on expanding the principles of the human element.

Part of that expansion comes from Andrew's teaming with Bob Rosenfeld and Gary Wilhelmi to write the upcoming book, "Making the Invisible Visible, Part Two: A practical guide for sustaining human innovation," which will be available in the fourth quarter of 2008. As an understudy to Bob Rosenfeld, Andrew also delivers keynote presentations and leads workshops on the principles of the human element.

Andrew is based in Rochester, NY and is passionate about writing, traveling, meeting new people, speaking to groups, eating, playing golf and watching sports.