Navi Radjou

Navi is an innovation and leadership thinker based in Silicon Valley. Drawing on his Indian upbringing, he was the first (with his co-authors) to capture the phenomenon of jugaad—a Hindi word for improvised solutions born out of ingenuity in resource-constrained settings. Drawing on hisbook Frugal Innovation published by The Economist he shows that “money doesn’t buy innovation.” Rather than pump more money into R&D and expensive innovation projects, companies can “do better with less”, i.e., they can create and launch high-quality products faster, better, and cheaper using low-cost techniques and agility-boosting processes. He also talks on leaders must go beyond optimizing “intelligence.” They need to evolve from “smart leaders” into “wise leaders”, by cultivating greater self-awareness, broadening one’s perspective, integrating logic and emotions in decision-making, and acting with ethical clarity, discernment, flexibility, and authenticity rather than trying to outsmart AI