Olaf J Groth, PhD
Dr. Olaf Groth is a seasoned executive, adviser, capacity-builder and thought-leader with 22 years of experience in developing and orchestrating innovation ventures and initiatives internationally, designing actionable strategies and advising on organizational transformations. He is currently focused on AI, automation, IOT, and the 4th industrial revolution. Olaf is co-author of the forthcoming book “Ride the Machine: How To Survive and Thrive in the AI Revolution That’s Changing Our World” with Mark Nitzberg PhD. Concurrently, they are developing a AI insights and co-innovation platform for scientists, entrepreneurs, executives and policy makers.
Dr. Groth trains leaders as a Professor for global strategy, innovation and economics, and as Program Director for Digital Futures at Hult International Business School. His capacity-building style seeks to blend insights on global trends and uncertainties with practical relevance for executives and board directors who seek to re-perceive uncertainty as opportunity for new value creation and to build new organizations, networks and ecosystems to execute on it.
As founder and CEO of Emergent Frontiers Group and Cambrian.AI Institute, Dr. Groth counsels senior executives and policy makers on global trends and the strategies, ecosystems, deals and commercial diplomacy needed to navigate them. Current focal topics include Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Transportation, Robotics, Internet-of-Things and 4th Industrial Revolution, as well as related social, economic, political, environmental and energy trends. His clients and employers have included Bechtel, Boeing, Chevron, Ferrari, Monitor, NASA, Qualcomm, Q-Cells, Siemens, VW, VCs, thinktanks and startups.
Dr. Groth serves on Advisory Boards of Fortune 100 energy company Phillips 66 and automotive AI startup Caruma Technologies. He is a member of the Global Expert Network at the World Economic Forum, a judge for GE’s ecomagination challenge, a Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley’s Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), and a Fellow at the Lab-Center for Competitiveness at Grenoble Business School.
Dr. Groth has published in HBR, HBR France, Financial Times and Huffington Post blogs, Harvard Business Manager Deutschland, HBR Italia, Today’s CFO and Thunderbird International Business Review, World Financial Review and European Business Review journals, and Hult Business School Publishing. Currently, he is co-authoring the forthcoming book “Ride the Machine: How To Survive and Thrive in the AI Revolution That’s Changing Our World” with Mark Nitzberg, PhD.
Dr. Groth holds PhD, MALD degrees in international affairs with concentrations in business, economics, technology and negotiation from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and MAIPS and BA degrees in international affairs with economics focus from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He also studied negotiation at Harvard, economics at Georgetown and finance at UC Berkeley.