Chris Ertel

Chris Ertel is a director with Deloitte Consulting LLP and the Deloitte Client Experience and Deloitte Consulting Innovation teams, with lead responsibility for designing and delivering high-stakes strategic conversations for clients and priority firm initiatives. He is based in the San Francisco office.

Chris is an innovation strategist with 17 years' experience advising to successful organizations in more than 20 industries — from high technology to consumer products, from healthcare to financial services, from professional services to education. During this time, he has worked at the forefront of creative strategy, as former co-leader of the scenario planning practice at Global Business Network and as an account leader for Doblin, the pioneering design-based innovation consultancy (both of which were part of Monitor Group).

Chris' specialty is the art and science of strategic conversation — or how to engage diverse teams of talented professionals in creative and collaborative problem-solving. His first book, Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations That Accelerate Change (with co-author Lisa Kay Solomon) will be released by Simon and Schuster in February 2014. Based on interviews with more than 100 executives, managers, practitioners, and thought leaders, Moments of Impact lays out a practical process for designing effective strategic conversations in any context.

Chris is a social scientist by training and inclination. He holds an M.A. in anthropology and a Ph.D. in demography from UC-Berkeley, where he has also taught the graduate seminar in applied demography as an adjunct faculty member. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and daughter, and is an avid reader, traveler and tennis player.