Rob Bell is a partner at Innosight, and a leader in the Industry and Technology practice. He focuses on helping leadership teams navigate disruptive change and develop future strategies for transformational growth. Rob brings over 20 years of experience serving senior executives on their most significant strategy and innovation challenges in a broad array of industries including industrial equipment, agriculture, mining, construction, steel, energy, chemicals, water, telecommunications, insurance, software and healthcare.
Rob has pioneered cutting-edge approaches to help companies drive sustained profitable growth through more effective management of the growth process – including more effectively identifying growth opportunities, focusing innovation on the highest value customer needs, accelerating learning, mitigating risk, and establishing accountability for results. He has also done substantial work on broadening clients’ innovation capabilities to encompass not only products and technology, but also services, customer experience, go-to-market strategies, and new business models. Rob has particularly deep experience in overcoming the unique challenges of developing sustainably profitable solutions business models within traditionally product, technology or operations-oriented businesses. This includes groundbreaking solutions business model work in precision agriculture, mining, oil & gas exploration, and process automation among others.
In addition, he is the co-author of the new HBR article “The Transformation 20: The Top Global Companies Leading Strategic Transformations.”
Rob also has substantial experience working on entrepreneurial ventures inside and outside of large corporations. He has been responsible for generating and evaluating new venture concepts working with both start-up management teams and venture capital/private equity investors. His venture-related work has involved zero-stage business concept development, designing new business models, developing go-to-market strategies, using iterative test-and-learn approaches, and helping to secure financing. Rob has also designed and helped to optimize incubator models for corporations.
Rob received his B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College. He earned an M.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Foreign Service with honors in International Business from Georgetown University. Rob also holds an M.B.A in Finance from George Washington University. He resides in Dover, Massachusetts, with his wife, Lisa, and three daughters, Olivia, Emily and Carly.
PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS
“How to Unlock Digital Success in the Industrial Sector”
Innosight, November 2022
“Reinventing How Industrial Organizations Address Disruptive Change”
Innosight, December 2021
“Growth Strategy Resilience: Five Questions to Ask to Avoid Overcorrecting in a Crisis “
Innosight, 2020