Diana Kander
Serial Entrepreneur, New York Times Best Selling Author and Forbes Contributor
SPEAKER FEE RANGE: Please Inquire
TRAVELS FROM: Missouri
Diana Kander and her family escaped from the Soviet Union when she was 8-years-old. By the time she was an American citizen, she had perfected her skills as a capitalist – selling flea market goods to grade school classmates at a markup. Today, Diana draws on her experience as an entrepreneur and educator to serve as an innovation coach. In this role, she trains executives and Fortune 1000 companies to be more innovative and to inspire employees to think like entrepreneurs. Diana is also the author of the New York Times Bestseller All In Startup Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line, a novel outlining lessons for launching successful products through the story of a struggling entrepreneur making his way through the World Series of Poker. The book has been used in over 70 colleges to teach innovation and entrepreneurship.
Diana Kander and her family escaped from the Soviet Union when she was 8-years-old. By the time she was an American citizen, she had perfected her skills as a capitalist – selling flea market goods to grade school classmates at a markup.
Today, Diana draws on her experience as an entrepreneur and educator to serve as an innovation coach. In this role, she trains executives and Fortune 1000 companies to be more innovative and to inspire employees to think like entrepreneurs.
How did she get here? Diana was a Georgetown educated attorney who left her successful law practice to start and sell a number of ventures. The businesses spanned a number of industries: software, real estate, hospitality, construction, staffing and consulting. After the sale of her last company, Diana spent three years as a Senior Fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the largest non-profit in the world dedicated to entrepreneurship and education, and two years as a professor of entrepreneurship in the MBA program at the University of Missouri.
Diana is also the author of the New York Times Bestseller All In Startup Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line, a novel outlining lessons for launching successful products through the story of a struggling entrepreneur making his way through the World Series of Poker. The book has been used in over 70 colleges to teach innovation and entrepreneurship.
Diana lives in Columbia, Missouri with her high school sweetheart/best friend/husband, Jason, and their awesome son, True.
Today, Diana draws on her experience as an entrepreneur and educator to serve as an innovation coach. In this role, she trains executives and Fortune 1000 companies to be more innovative and to inspire employees to think like entrepreneurs.
How did she get here? Diana was a Georgetown educated attorney who left her successful law practice to start and sell a number of ventures. The businesses spanned a number of industries: software, real estate, hospitality, construction, staffing and consulting. After the sale of her last company, Diana spent three years as a Senior Fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the largest non-profit in the world dedicated to entrepreneurship and education, and two years as a professor of entrepreneurship in the MBA program at the University of Missouri.
Diana is also the author of the New York Times Bestseller All In Startup Launching a New Idea When Everything is on the Line, a novel outlining lessons for launching successful products through the story of a struggling entrepreneur making his way through the World Series of Poker. The book has been used in over 70 colleges to teach innovation and entrepreneurship.
Diana lives in Columbia, Missouri with her high school sweetheart/best friend/husband, Jason, and their awesome son, True.
- Why Curiosity Is the Ultimate Competitive Advantage
This keynote explains exactly why most companies reaching the peak of their potential lose their curiosity and crash into irrelevance. From how we develop blind spots about our business, to the pitfalls of feeling like an expert, this thought-provoking, engaging program reveals the smokescreens obscuring imminent threats to long-term viability and walks you through specific ways to boost innovation, uncover customer needs, solve problems, create new value for customers, and increase employee engagement.
Most importantly, Diana demonstrates why curiosity is your greatest asset to drive constant innovation and help your company thrive and compete on more than price alone — ultimately, future-proofing your business. - How to Significantly Increase User Adoption of New Initiatives Inside Your Organization
Have you had trouble getting everyone in the organization on board with new programs and initiatives? Maybe it’s time to try the methodology entrepreneurs use to virally spread new ideas and achieve exponential adoption. You see, everyone in your organization is not created equal; there are four distinct types of users and each group needs to be communicated with in a unique way. This session will give you both the methodology and tools to increase adoption of every new program you roll out as well as underperforming existing programs. - Increasing the Speed of Innovation
The pace of change in today’s economy requires innovative, value-adding ideas to come from all parts of your organization – whether they are internal improvements or new sources of revenue. The way managers were traditionally trained stifles innovation and forces out-of-the-box thinkers out of the company. This interactive presentation outlines the must-have skill sets to effectively lead your employees. Diana will provide the framework for how your organization – and the people within it – can flourish in this hyper-competitive world. - How to Compete on Value instead of Price in a Commodity Business
Are you competing on price or value with your customers? If your focus is on value (which it should be), are you missing some key blindspots in your product or service? Are you measuring true data about the health of your project or just relying on vanity metrics that are concealing what’s really going on? This presentation teaches a methodology used by both entrepreneurs and established organizations to continuously create new value for their customers. You will learn the key questions you must ask in order to uncover value-creating opportunities, as well as precisely how to ask them to effectively yield useful insights.
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