Babs Ryan’s energetic, data- and behavior-based calls to action get your audience pumped to change the world, now.
Babs Ryan from Boston has been in 94 countries. The most lucrative of her many patents, while chief innovation officer of GE Capital’s largest division ($24 billion receivables), generated $800 million incremental retail sales. As board director and audit committee member for a $2.65 billion federal financial institution, she spent the past three years replacing a decade-long CEO and refreshing multiple board members, overseeing core tech conversion, and negotiating two M&As.
Babs was industry board member for the Motor Cycle Association of Great Britain Limited (now MCIA). As chief marketing officer at Kawasaki UK, she was the only major manufacturer increasing sales during a 15% market decline, achieving 65% market share 500cc+.
Babs is the author of hardcover "America's Corporate Brain Drain" about why top talent abandons big corporations and how to bring the spirit of innovation back.
She is GHIN golfer, PSIA ski instructor, tae kwon do black belt, and mentor to women entrepreneurs in the Middle East.
She's been a lead analyst at two research firms, including Forrester, serving Fortune 500 C-suites, private equity firms, startups, providers, and fintechs with strategies to create and sustain world-beating products and services, identify market gaps, and drive customers, growth and EBITDA.
Her current operational role is at an international product design firm creating world firsts in A.I., 5G communications, private networks, U.S. Department of Defense solutions, satellite systems, robotics, medical devices, aerospace, and consumer goods.
She has been ad agency CEO, director at a big-4 management consulting firm, division head at Forrester Research, and principal at a global agile software development pioneer.
Passionate about:
1. Everything new.
2. Let’s golf, ski, travel. I can weave a golf, ski, or travel story into just about any topic! 93 countries and counting. PSIA certified ski instructor. Golf GHIN 23.
3. Differentiation, not Just Innovation. The best product wins. Elon Musk is right. As Ruth said in the Barbie movie “Humans have only one ending. Ideas live forever.” Babs’ hardcover America’s Corporate Brain Drain covers why entrepreneurship and startups flourish while corporate America often struggles. From annoying phone menus to nickel-and-diming airlines, many big companies are disconnected copycats. A John Hopkins University study that found 90 percent of bypass patients didn't alter their lifestyle habits even when faced with the choice of "change or die." So why would your tenured employees embrace change when there’s little incentive? Create one. As chief innovation officer at GE Capital’s largest division, her new all-employee New Product Introduction process resulted in 30 launched products and processes in one year.
4. Consumer debt, the big denial, and Generations Y & Z. Déjà vu all over again. Credit card balances bloated by European vacations, iPhonitis, plastic surgery, and designer handbags, while weeping over student loan debt and hidden buy-now-pay-later loans. Who’s to blame? Who’s going to change? My hardcover book America’s Corporate Brain Drain published in 2008 predicted the economic collapse later that year. Watch the television interview on WPWR My50 TV Perspective show at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-cIrCWSvk And 2023 looks eerily similar to 2008. As lead analyst at Javelin Strategy and Research, my published trends forecast provided the supporting data, and what to do about it.
5. Motorcycle safety. As former chief marketing officer at Kawasaki UK, I instituted a “Free Motorcycle Training” course with every new motorcycle policy to save lives. The stats on motorcycle accidents and fatalities will surprise you. Take the quiz and get the facts on speed, location, age, alcohol, and the biggest danger – car drivers. A sports motorcyclist for 20 years and recently doing strategy work for the U.S. Motorcycle Industry Council to get “more riders, riding more,” I’m passionate about safe and fun motorcycling, and where the motorcycle industry is headed.
6. Women in the seats that matter. Women on the board of directors. Women in the C-suite.
More than 100 miles
Everything is negotiable
1. Know why 55% of Gen Z and 45% of millennials have "secret accounts"? Get some of the fact here http://tinyurl.com/3w98cfwt from this report I published as lead analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research.
2. In this podcast with Rapport International (a translation service) https://www.rapporttranslations.com/the-global-marketing-show/46-88-countries-counting, you’ll hear Babs Ryan talk about how messages can get mixed while standing in line to buy bread in a burka in Esfahan Iran, and why, when someone offers to send you to the front of the queue, you really ought to do so! You’ll also learn about the La La La (or No No No in Arabic) campaign in the Middle East; the “matching leathers” campaign for Kawasaki; and how the best marketers (Nike, Orvis, REI, Airbnb) are connecting people.
3. Or hear why loyalty doesn’t always pay in this story “Psssst: Your Loyalty Program Customers Aren’t More Loyal?” at Retail Touchpoints, https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/features/executive-viewpoints/psssst-your-loyalty-program-customers-aren-t-more-loyal-does-it-matter
Sixty-seven percent of American workers dream of starting their own companies. I wasn’t one of them. Early in my career in the corporate world, I tasted success. I was a chief marketing officer at a leading motorcycle company by age 26, living in London, driving a company BMW, and merrily globetrotting.
Identified by my company’s executive board as a high-potential business leader, I was one of the few chosen for its career development program, or programming, depending on your point of view. In my first programming session, the trainer asked: “What do you want to be doing in five years?”
Without hesitation, I replied, “Global division leader in a huge company.” Five years later, I was self-employed.
I boomeranged several times between corporate America and the American dream, entrepreneurship. While it looks like my career was all over the place, from motorcycle CMO, ad agency CEO, big-4 management consultant, Fortune 10 chief innovation officer, lead analyst – it led to living the dream. Serving shareholders as a board director and creating best-in-the-world products and services at a global product design firm. And motivating others to have it all.
Presented by Babs Ryan and a Generative AI companion (TBD when I generate her and have her select her own fitting name).
"International Holding Company, the Abu Dhabi-owned industrial conglomerate, announced that it has created a new post on its Board of Directors for an Artificial Intelligence Observer.”
AI (or the agent we'll call “She”) always reads the board packet, remembers verbatim from previous board meetings, and prepares agendas and documents promptly for committee meetings. She instantly identifies and can forecast most relevant trends or risks. She's 100% independent. She’s not influenced by having a title, director’s compensation, or the dinner last night. She asks great questions, by determining which are the most important questions that should be asked.
Best of all, She can predict what’s likely to happen to the stock price or EBITDA if the board votes yea or nea, and votes accordingly. She uses past successes to determine the likelihood of success, and even considers what competitors and customers are likely to do.
Just one little problem. Sometimes She hallucinates (i.e., creating outputs that are nonsensical or altogether inaccurate), but then, so do other board members.
Who will be first to appoint Her as their next board director? Will She be the next diverse board member?
Key Takeaways
• What will the boardroom look like in 2040? Will Generative AI be outnumbering human directors? Or driving the biggest decisions?
• The most diverse board: The benefits of being a first-follower to add an “AI-type” seat at the table.
• The advantages and dangers of giving Generative AI a vote – are they any greater than the last board member you added?
What People are Saying About Babs Ryan, board director of a $2.6 billion financial institution and product developer who generated $800 million incremental revenue with a single insight:
“Babs found the spark of inspiration in developing business strategies for top corporations ranging from cars to telecommunications, from diamonds to toys. She also shepherded a range of innovations to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.”
Working Woman magazine
“Leaders and Achievers Who Make a Difference”
Today, retailers’ battle cry includes “customer-focused” and “omni-channel,” but their hyphenated focus is primarily on operations, channels, delivery, discounts and (sometimes unique) products, rarely people.
Retailers who make it in 2024 will be those who innovate and differentiate. You’ve seen the shift of Airbnb, Uber, and Orvis from things to local experiences that are Instagram worthy. Soon we’ll be buying experiences and things that live in our imagination. The best of the best manufacturers and retailers will make it a point to entertain their customers together – after all, share of time equals share of wallet.
Takeaways:
• What virtual experiences are consumers willing to pay for?
• How to augment your current product or service to a virtual one and increase revenue –lessons from a convenience store?
• How will virtual shopping change the definition of instant gratification?
• What can you do NOW with AI that’s a game changer?
What people are saying about Babs Ryan:
“I really enjoyed watching you stir up the group’s passion with your provocative and fantastically real stimulus— people catching each others’ eyes and nodding, writing notes, and really getting excited and challenged.”
Liz Evenden
?What If! The Innovation Company, UK
“Babs Ryan is a rattle-your-cage, thought-provoking author, outstanding presenter, insightful businesswomen, and brilliant marketer.”
Angela DiBartolo
LLKFB Direct Communications, President
“Babs is dynamite!”
Wendy Pease, President, Rapport International
Many studies state that 90% of new products fail. The Product Development Institute, Inc. blames “decisions are not based on facts and objective criteria, but rather, on politics, opinion & emotions (i.e. manager's pet projects)”. It is the same reason why the greatest ideas never make it to market, and copycatting is all the rage at big companies. It's why products and services often launched have little differentiation, poor go-to-market strategies, and few buyers.
You can change that. As Chief Innovation Officer at GE Capital’s largest division, Babs Ryan launched an all-employee program that resulted in 30 new products and process launched in one year. At a product design company, she launched a program to turn every employee into a chief commercial officer. You can do it too!
Key takeaways
• Find out why brainstorming and sticky note vote design-thinking is the death of profitable ideas
• How to structure your program so blockers become advocates
• Learn why all-employee programs work better than incubators
• Hear what’s the greatest motivator to employees helping you make tons of money (it has to do with whom you fire, not whom you hire)
What people are saying about Babs Ryan, former chief innovation officer of GE Capital’s largest division and board chair of the Six Sigma NPI process; current SVP Innovation for Cambridge Consultants, a global product design firm:
“Babs produced one of the very few success stories in a tough economic environment.”
Jeff Goodwin,
Citibank UK Ltd., Head of Financial Services Division
“The idea guru. She’s got a unique and engaging way of telling a story to analyze and present the facts—she makes ideas come alive. Babs understands business and businesspeople.”
Gail Galuppo, CMO, Western Union