“We Have to Be More Poets and Thinkers”

How can you reinvent a company over the years? Michael Conrad, co-founder of the Berlin School of Creative Leadership asks three very different but energetic women to talk about their businesses over periods of change. It’s about leading brand innovation through digital, design and communication.

“We have to be more poets and thinkers instead of just acting as business advisers,” says STURM und DRANG agency’s Inga Nandzik. You have to look out for trends, leave the numbers behind and focus on the consumer. “We’re a special task force,” she says. “We stand for ‘soulful’ science and enlightenment beyond pure rationalism.” It’s about drawing the companies closer to the real dynamics of life and consumption. A paradigm shift from possessing (HAVE) over wellbeing (BE) to self-actualization (BECOME) means we have to create relationships with impact. “Look around, not ahead,” she says. As an agency you have to be super agile.

That’s also true for Karen Spiegel. “We experience a nine-year-cycle” of company innovation, she says. A veteran in the digital space, with over 15 years experience, Spiegel directs the global communications strategy for R/GA. Between 1977 and 1985 they pioneered computer-assisted filmmaking, she lists. The next period until 1994 they pioneered an integrated digital studio. The years 1995 until 2003 were all about a new model for an interactive agency, and then pioneering a new agency model until 2012. Right now, we talk about the year 2013, R/GA is searching for new ways to engage with the customer. This future seems to be all about meaningful ways of communication.

A reverse innovation is happening at the same time, in which mature countries learn from powerful rising countries such as China. Kitty Lun, the CEO and Chairwoman of Lowe China, shares an insight into the Chinese soul of ‘Superwomen’ and ‘Leftover Women’  (those unmarried) - who are dominating the online shopping world. The phones of those luxury goods consuming women are already a popular payment method.