Dr. Simone Ahuja
Dr. Simone Ahuja is the founder of Blood
Orange, a marketing and strategy consultancy with special expertise in emerging markets and
innovation, and content production capabilities. Headquartered in Minneapolis, with teams in
Mumbai, Blood Orange uses an agile, cost efficient content production process built on
principles learned through extensive work in India, including jugaad.
Simone recently developed, produced, and directed the television series Indique—Big Ideas from Emerging India, for which she explored how innovation in India drives socioeconomic development. Coupled with her own experience in leveraging the complementary skill sets of transnational teams, these meetings with CEOs of multinational corporations as well as grassroots entrepreneurs, heralding bottom-up, small-scale innovation, gave her a holistic, on-the-ground look at the unique methods and mindset of innovation employed in India.
Ahuja has served as an advisor to the Centre for India & Global Business at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and as an associate fellow for the Asia Society in New York City. She provides advisory services and keynote presentations to trade delegations, academic institutions, and Fortune 100 companies including PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Honeywell, General Mills, ECOLAB, Colgate-Palmolive, and Best Buy. Ahuja regularly contributes to a Harvard Business Review blog on HBR.org.
JUGAAD INNOVATION Western
corporations can no longer just rely on the old formula that sustained innovation
and growth for decades: a mix of top-down strategies, expensive R&D; projects and
rigid, highly structured innovation processes. Jugaad Innovation argues that the
West must look to places like India, China, and Africa for a new, bottom-up approach
to frugal and flexible innovation.
For speaking engagements, workshops or executive education, please directly contact the coauthors:
