Member since September 2025
Internationally acclaimed innovation and growth expert Val Wright was named as one of the top 50 resources for Chief Operating Officers by ClickSoftware. She is one of only 64 experts
inducted into the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame.
The global clients who have requested her help include Starbucks, LinkedIn, Amazon, Lenovo,
Ingram Micro, Arrow, francesca’s, Microsoft, Avnet, Financial Times, Seagate, Gartner, Datto,
and the LA Lakers. Val’s corporate experience includes tenures during dramatic growth
periods at Amazon, BMW, Microsoft, Harrods, and Xbox.
Val participated on the small team that created the fastest-selling device of all time, Kinect for
Xbox, which won a Guinness Book of World Record, selling over 20 million devices. This
contributed to the turnaround of Microsoft’s Entertainment business from a billion-dollar loss to a multimillion-dollar profit machine.
Her unique approach, which she has trademarked as Thoughtfully Ruthless®, has produced typical client results of market domination in extraordinarily short time frames along with compassionate truth telling, fearlessness, and extensive creative, technical, and leadership gains.
Val’s books include: Thoughtfully Ruthless: The Key to Exponential Growth Wiley, 2016 named UK
Amazon Best Selling Time Management Skills book, best business book by Independent Press
Awards and NYC Big Book Awards, and best career book by the Book Excellence Awards,
and Rapid Growth, Done Right Lead, Influence and Innovate for Success Kogan Page, 2020 which was named best business book by NYC Big Book Awards and Words That Work: Communicate your Purpose, Performance, and Profit, Kogan Page 2022, named best business book by NYC Big Book Awards, best management book by the Book Excellence Awards and Amazon Best Selling Business Communications book in multiple countries. She is a regular contributor on CNBC, WSJ, BBC News, Fox Business News, Inc. Magazine, Business Insider, Fast Company,
Bloomberg, Reuters, LA Times, and Today.
Val was presented with the Entrepreneurial Award by the University of Wolverhampton in recognition of her entrepreneurial spirit and
willingness to set a positive example for fellow business owners.
Originally from England, Val now lives in California with her three daughters and husband.
When CEOs report their stock valuation increase.
When executives tell me they have magically created an extra 20 hours in their week, every week!
When leadership teams show me how they have recovered nine hours a week back for every executive team member, every week!
When I hear stories how executives have moved from 10% low battery mode to 100% fully charged with their own energy levels.
When companies show the innovative solutions, products, and services they have created after we have worked together.
When audiences tell me "I can use that straight away Val, already, you have saved me precious hours."
When associations and event organizers tell me "You are very different from any speaker we have had before, the audience were still talking about you on day three and month three after your talk"
When I first started working with a newly appointed CEO, she was apprehensive to take on the biggest job of her life. I'll let her tell the story of the results we achieved together:
As an executive leading significant change and transformation, it requires backbone, confidence and laser focus on where you spend your own time and that of your team. When transitioned from my big company corporate life at Microsoft and Direct TV to be the CEO of Wanted Analytics I knew I had to call Val as the only leadership expert I wanted to work with in Los Angeles.
What I find most valuable about Val is her honesty - that she doesn't mince words or tells you what you want to hear. Val is a role model to other executives because she manifested a concept into a thesis into a business. Through her own work and will, she has truly carved a unique worldview for leaders that everyone in business can benefit from.
I was so confident walking in as CEO on day one, and I couldn’t have done that without Val. The stock price rose 37% in my first three months; we didn’t report earnings during that time, so the growth was all from the investors’ confidence in me. That is huge. I gained the confidence to conquer my fears in communicating a difficult and unexpected leadership change to the team. By being Thoughtfully Ruthless, I didn't lose a single person in ten months, which was just the stability the business needed.
Meredith Amdur, CEO Wanted Analytics.
Since then I have written two more.
My clients now include Starbucks, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Financial Times, DreamWorks Animation, and PopCap Games and I have spoken at conferences and executive retreats around the world.
What is the greatest lesson Val Wright has learned from her research, writing, and speaking on the subject of innovation while working with executives from Starbucks, LinkedIn, Financial Times, and Google? Her experiences have shown time and time again that it’s not the economy, market conditions, or competition that’s holding your business back; the secret is locked inside how leaders ruthlessly, (in a thoughtful way,) manage their time, energy, and resources, in parallel.
Join Val for an interactive session where you will:
• Become Thoughtfully Ruthless(R) by focusing your time and energy on products, profits, and customers not internal energy black holes.
• Create your leapfrog organization to catapult your long-term growth.
• Increase the probability that you will get promoted, create dramatic results, and have magnetic followership appear all around you with your Influence Bullseye.
• Demonstrate why it is not enough to be brilliant, you have to be brilliant at demonstrating your brilliance.
Join global leadership and innovation expert Val Wright for an interactive session where you will learn a practical approach you can immediately use that will:
• Increase the probability that you will get promoted, create dramatic results, and have magnetic followership appear all around you with your Influence Bullseye.
• Demonstrate why it is not enough to be brilliant, you have to be brilliant at demonstrating your brilliance.
• Become Thoughtfully RuthlessSM by focusing your time and energy on products, profits, and customers not internal energy black holes.
When you have a crowd of executive supporters cheering you on from the sideline your confidence increases and you take bolder risks that grows your business, yet it is easy to get distracted and not nurture and maintain those relationships. It only takes two of your strongest executive champions saying “I quit!” in quick succession and you can find yourself without your steadfast supporters. Before you know it, you are drifting out to sea alone in your boat without the necessary executive lifeguards keeping an eye out for your successful voyage and safe return. Join Val’s session and leave with the approach she uses with her executive clients at global companies including Starbucks, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Financial Times.
What makes one company more innovative than another? What made Blackberry fall from market leader to insignificance? How did Xbox reposition itself as an entertainment hub of the living room? How did Amazon carve out phenomenal success in the fashion business?
It is more than just size, leadership or technology; the culture you create and reinforce will drive innovative behavior that delivers results.
You will learn:
• How to use the power of critical innovation inflection points to transform how you are growing your business
• How the Innovation TrifectaSM will create a symbiotic relationship between creative, technical, and business minds
• The three common myths of innovation and how to overcome them.
• How every leader can create a leapfrog organization to catapult growth.
• How to benchmark your company using the Innovation Inventory Measurement© assessment
You will hear innovation lessons from Jeff Bezos to Steve Ballmer; examples from Xbox and Zappos, along with practical tools and techniques you can immediately apply in your business to accelerate innovation.
After designing an innovation program where Kinect for Xbox was born resulting in 20M devices sold worldwide. The lessons in this seminar go beyond the theory; they transform how you lead, grow and innovate.
When I first started working with a newly appointed CEO, she was apprehensive to take on the biggest job of her life. I'll let her tell the story of the results we achieved together:
As an executive leading significant change and transformation, it requires backbone, confidence and laser focus on where you spend your own time and that of your team. When transitioned from my big company corporate life at Microsoft and Direct TV to be the CEO of Wanted Analytics I knew I had to call Val as the only leadership expert I wanted to work with in Los Angeles.
What I find most valuable about Val is her honesty - that she doesn't mince words or tells you what you want to hear. Val is a role model to other executives because she manifested a concept into a thesis into a business. Through her own work and will, she has truly carved a unique worldview for leaders that everyone in business can benefit from.
I was so confident walking in as CEO on day one, and I couldn’t have done that without Val. The stock price rose 37% in my first three months; we didn’t report earnings during that time, so the growth was all from the investors’ confidence in me. That is huge. I gained the confidence to conquer my fears in communicating a difficult and unexpected leadership change to the team. By being Thoughtfully Ruthless, I didn't lose a single person in ten months, which was just the stability the business needed.
Meredith Amdur, CEO Wanted Analytics.
Since then I have written two more.
My clients now include Starbucks, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Financial Times, DreamWorks Animation, and PopCap Games and I have spoken at conferences and executive retreats around the world.
What is the greatest lesson Val Wright has learned from her research, writing, and speaking on the subject of innovation while working with executives from Starbucks, LinkedIn, Financial Times, and Google? Her experiences have shown time and time again that it’s not the economy, market conditions, or competition that’s holding your business back; the secret is locked inside how leaders ruthlessly, (in a thoughtful way,) manage their time, energy, and resources, in parallel.
Join Val for an interactive session where you will:
• Become Thoughtfully Ruthless(R) by focusing your time and energy on products, profits, and customers not internal energy black holes.
• Create your leapfrog organization to catapult your long-term growth.
• Increase the probability that you will get promoted, create dramatic results, and have magnetic followership appear all around you with your Influence Bullseye.
• Demonstrate why it is not enough to be brilliant, you have to be brilliant at demonstrating your brilliance.
Join global leadership and innovation expert Val Wright for an interactive session where you will learn a practical approach you can immediately use that will:
• Increase the probability that you will get promoted, create dramatic results, and have magnetic followership appear all around you with your Influence Bullseye.
• Demonstrate why it is not enough to be brilliant, you have to be brilliant at demonstrating your brilliance.
• Become Thoughtfully RuthlessSM by focusing your time and energy on products, profits, and customers not internal energy black holes.
When you have a crowd of executive supporters cheering you on from the sideline your confidence increases and you take bolder risks that grows your business, yet it is easy to get distracted and not nurture and maintain those relationships. It only takes two of your strongest executive champions saying “I quit!” in quick succession and you can find yourself without your steadfast supporters. Before you know it, you are drifting out to sea alone in your boat without the necessary executive lifeguards keeping an eye out for your successful voyage and safe return. Join Val’s session and leave with the approach she uses with her executive clients at global companies including Starbucks, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Financial Times.
What makes one company more innovative than another? What made Blackberry fall from market leader to insignificance? How did Xbox reposition itself as an entertainment hub of the living room? How did Amazon carve out phenomenal success in the fashion business?
It is more than just size, leadership or technology; the culture you create and reinforce will drive innovative behavior that delivers results.
You will learn:
• How to use the power of critical innovation inflection points to transform how you are growing your business
• How the Innovation TrifectaSM will create a symbiotic relationship between creative, technical, and business minds
• The three common myths of innovation and how to overcome them.
• How every leader can create a leapfrog organization to catapult growth.
• How to benchmark your company using the Innovation Inventory Measurement© assessment
You will hear innovation lessons from Jeff Bezos to Steve Ballmer; examples from Xbox and Zappos, along with practical tools and techniques you can immediately apply in your business to accelerate innovation.
After designing an innovation program where Kinect for Xbox was born resulting in 20M devices sold worldwide. The lessons in this seminar go beyond the theory; they transform how you lead, grow and innovate.
