Over 15 years ago I asked a public relations acquaintance to critique a short marketing brochure I had drafted to get more consulting clients. It was called Elegant Solutions: Rules to Innovate By, capturing lessons learned from spending over eight years working with Toyota.

Little did I know that the request would change my life. She shared it with a friend, who happened to be a literary agent. The next thing I knew that little brochure had morphed into a book proposal. A year later, Simon & Schuster published The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation.  Before I knew it, I was telling my stories all over the world…speaking, writing articles, and giving interviews. 

None of it was planned. 

Six very successful books later, the happy accident continues, the latest — What A Unicorn Knows — with a long-time colleague at my current home, NYC private equity/vc firm Insight Partners.