Oren Harari

Biography

An incredibly popular speaker and author, Dr. Oren Harari’s energetic, dynamic presentations excite and challenge audiences around the world with insight, humor and knowledge. Dr. Harari brings provocative, new perspectives on competitive advantage, organizational change, and transformational leadership. As a leading management consultant and bestselling author, he brings over 20 years of seasoned professional experience to the public speaking forum.

The Financial Times has cited Dr. Harari as one of the “Top 40 Business and Management Minds in the World,” and featured him in the fall 2001 book Business Minds. Harari believes that in the chaotic competitiveness of today’s markets, bold and often- radical management approaches are the key to top performance. He has also found that long-term financial success depends primarily on leaders’ abilities to capitalize on globalization and technological advance, and to launch dramatic breakthroughs in innovation, customer care, collaboration, mobility and speed.

Dr. Harari’s most recent—and eighth-- book is Break From the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Economy. Filled with hard data, exciting examples, and Harari’s irreverent humor, Break From the Pack shows leaders how to propel their organizations to a position of uniqueness and competitive advantage in a tough marketplace where, increasingly, vendors see that their products and services are becoming imitated and commoditized at an accelerating pace. Throughout the book, Harari highlights innovative and profitable paths that leaders can take to build new markets, products, customers, talented people, dynamic partnerships, and vibrant growth. He also tells leaders how to execute innovation and change throughout the book, and he caps it off with his compelling “12 Step Recovery Program” for leaders.

Dr. Harari’s 2002 book The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, reached the bestseller lists of The New York Times, BusinessWeek, and The Wall St. Journal. In this book, Harari applies 16 elegant principles of leadership to corporate and government arenas and demonstrates what transformational leaders do to take their organizations to new heights. In 2003, Harari wrote the follow-up corporate handbook The Powell Principles.

In 2000, Dr. Harari co-authored a revolutionary book, Beep Beep! Competing in the Age of the Road Runner. The book received rave reviews by Michael Dell, U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Thomas Donahue, and Fast Company founding editor, Alan Webber, among others. The book focuses on creating fast, agile, innovative organizations that will thrive in today’s globally networked, real-time “Road Runner” marketplace.

Dr. Harari also penned the 1999 bestseller Leapfrogging the Competition: Five Giant Steps to Becoming A Market Leader. The first edition was rated by Management General as one of the ten best business books of 1997 and was featured in a two-hour PBS special. Both editions received accolades from Colin Powell, Tom Peters, Michael Dell, Bill Marriott, and Target CEO Bob Ulrich, to name a few. Harari also co-authored the bestselling book Jumping the Curve: Innovation and Strategic Choice in an Age of Transition, which was rated by the prestigious Library Journal as one of the top 40 business books in 1994. Said Charles Schwab on the book jacket: “If I were to recommend that my managers read just one business book this year, Jumping the Curve would be it.”

As a senior consultant with the Tom Peters Group from 1984-1996, Harari was one of its most requested speakers. From 1997-1999, he was the first designated “management expert” for Time Vista, Time magazine’s direct resources interactive website for businesses around the world. Dr. Harari was a senior columnist for Management Review from 1991-2000, and for the following two years he was the lead columnist for the online magazine Mworld.org, the American Management Association’s informational web site for the management community. He has also written articles for publications as diverse as Harvard Business Review, Business Strategy Review, Executive Excellence and many others.

Harari currently sits on the board of directors of two startup companies and is also on the board of The Integrity Institute, which is dedicated to elevating the integrity of corporations and capital markets. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee on Management and Leadership for the U.S. State Department.

Dr. Harari has spoken to premiere organizations worldwide such as Microsoft, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Morgan Stanley, 3M, IBM, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Toyota, Target, and General Mills. Harari consistently receives the highest ratings from clients and is considered one of the best business speakers in the industry.

Harari received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently teaches in the MBA and executive MBA programs at the University of San Francisco.

Dr. Harari is available for speaking engagements worldwide.

Publications

BREAK FROM THE PACK: HOW TO COMPETE IN A COPYCAT ECONOMY Oren Harari tells leaders how to achieve sustained competitive advantage and create the strategic audacity, organizational lunacy, and disciplined leadership vital to success in today’s Copycat Economy. It shows readers at all ranks and positions how to win higher profit margins, revenues, stock value, customer loyalty, market buzz, employee excitement, investor confidence, and real --(i.e. no ethical shenanigans)-- growth.
According to Harari, “Now more than ever, the “Perfect Storm” of globalization, deregulation, and technological advance is ripping up the status quo in every business. Leaders know that relying on conventional, “me-too” and “we’ve always done it this way” approaches is deadly. They know they must do something very different and compelling if their organizations are to prosper in the face of relentless imitation and commoditization—the twin scourges of the Copycat Economy.”

His examples, illustrations, case studies, and anecdotes include:
Rarely cited tales from behind the curtain at high-profile companies like Google, GE, Starbucks, Boeing, Apple, Dell, Proctor and Gamble, Samsung, Wal-Mart and Toyota—along with discussions of the people who lead those companies.

Revealing stories of surprisingly cutting-edge companies and organizations, from Cirque du Soleil to Jamba Juice, Sirius Satellite Radio, Bronco Wine, NASCAR, the Virgin empire, Whole Foods, Pixar, Ikea, Netflix, Jet Blue, Skype, Zara, Genentech, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the U.S. State Department.

Readers will be intrigued by lessons from unorthodox types like Willie Nelson, Madonna, Howard Stern, Michael Bloomberg, Colin Powell, University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer, former Washington Post CEO Katharine Graham, Prussian general Claus von Clausewitz, and Bob the cabbie, who has built an empire that pays him a comfortable six-figure annual salary.

Finally, the reader will enjoy the last comprehensive chapter, which describes a personal 12-Step “recovery” program for leaders who want to take action on the book’s recommendations right away. This chapter will also show leaders how they personally can break from the pack of other managers—and create great opportunity and value for their careers as well as for their organizations.
“You either get eaten by the Copycat Economy or you break from it and thrive. Every manager instantly recognizes what I’m talking about. Remember the thrill we got when we first went from 56K modem to high speed Internet? Now, this once totally cool product has become much more of a commodity: we expect it at work, in our hotel room, at home, at a steadily lower price, and we have lots of choices from competing vendors as to how we get it,” adds Harari.

Makers of every product and service face that challenge. Everything from credit cards to designer coffee to cable news to dishwashers to telecom services faces the same challenges—more “me-too” products, more imitators, more choices for customers, and it’s harder than ever for vendors to differentiate themselves and charge the prices they want while growing their customer base. Breaking from the pack and differentiating your organization from competitors is the most important strategic and leadership challenge for leaders of today’s organizations, and BREAK FROM THE PACK will show the reader how to make it happen.

Titles

How to Break From the Pack--and Stay Ahead Of It
In today’s Copycat Economy, products and being commoditized, services are being imitated, and traditional barriers to market entry are collapsing. Markets are becoming more crowded with “me-too” players and products. In this environment, it’s harder to differentiate yourself from competitors, it’s harder to keep profit margins and customer loyalty up, and it’s harder to grow market share and stock value. To sustain healthy growth and competitive advantage in today’s Copycat Economy, your organization must break from the pack.

The New Leadership Paradigm: What it Takes to Transform Companies and People
From his books and his other research, Oren selectively draw from nearly 30 elegant, rigorous, “battle-tested”, leadership principles that will help you lead your organizations to new heights of competitive advantage and employee commitment.

How to Create Fast, Agile, Innovative, “Road Runner” Organizations
Oren explains how to create fast, agile, innovative organizations that will thrive in today’s globally networked, nanosecond marketplace.

Jumping the Curve: A New Business Paradigm for a New Marketplace
Oren describes why organizations and markets are now in a historically significant “age of transition”, and why leaders must help their organizations “jump the curve”, that is, make significant, discontinuous leaps in their products and business models.