David Duncan

Even the best-performing companies and senior leaders are challenged to innovate – repeatedly and strategically. David Duncan, who has consulted with top leaders at many of the world’s most iconic companies, is helping them navigate disruptive change, create sustainable growth and transform their organizations to thrive for the long-term.

Duncan is a senior partner at the global strategy and innovation consulting firm Innosight, where he leads the financial services and innovation capabilities practices. He has developed many innovative approaches to driving transformative growth in large organizations that are in widespread use today. Importantly, these approaches are not just theoretical, but are derived from over a decade working directly with companies to solve some of their hardest innovation and growth challenges.

A trusted and visionary advisor, Duncan is also co-author of two books and a number of influential articles, including the forthcoming “Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice” (HarperCollins, October 2016), co-authored with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. A groundbreaking book with the potential to reframe industries, “Competing Against Luck” is based on a simple yet profound idea: customers don’t buy products and services; they hire them to do a job. And understanding which jobs your customers need done is key to innovation success. Duncan is also co-author of the e-book, “Building a Growth Factory” (Harvard Business Press, November 2012) and several Harvard Business Review articles, including “Knowing When to Reinvent” (December 2015), coauthored with CEO of Aetna Mark Bertolini, and “Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days” (December 2014).

Duncan has extensive experience designing and delivering customized workshops and development programs for leaders, and often gives speeches on topics related to innovation, growth and transformation. He has worked with Fortune 50 companies across the full spectrum of financial services industries, including banking, insurance, capital markets and transaction banking. He has also worked extensively across the healthcare sector, including with payers, providers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies. His focus is helping senior executives develop long-term growth strategies, often with an emphasis on transformation and renewal in the face of industry disruption. Duncan is equally involved in helping leaders to execute on strategy, and in helping companies to institutionalize new growth innovation capabilities through the design and deployment of a broad range of enablers.

A former McKinsey & Company consultant, Duncan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Duke University and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.