Serial Entrepreneur, Bestselling Author, and CEO of 10X Innovation Lab
Klaus Wehage: Biography at a Glance
- Klaus Wehagel is the co-author of The Wall Street Journal & National Bestseller, Global Class, a playbook for building a global company.
- Through his work at Silicon Valley Forum and at 10X Innovation Lab, Klaus has educated, advised, and presented to more than 3,000 executives from more than 50 countries.
- He is commonly referred to as the “Silicon Valley Ambassador” after he turned a struggling nonprofit, Silicon Valley Forum, into a thriving global business, where he generated over 90% of the company’s revenue.
- Klaus has lived and worked on four continents and led the product launch strategy at Carlsberg, learning firsthand how even incumbents are struggling to drive growth and innovation.
Videos
Biography
Klaus Wehage is a serial entrepreneur, startup advisor, professional speaker and Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Publisher Weekly bestselling author. In addition to authoring a bestselling book, Klaus’ publication, Global Class, has been nominated to the Next Big Idea Club and has been endorsed by world renowned thought leaders like Eric Ries, Steve Blank and more than 40+ executives from the fastest growing companies in the world including Google, Salesforce, Zoom, Canva and more.
To learn more about Klaus, visit www.klauswehage.com
Klaus’ personal mission is to connect the world through education to accelerate growth, innovation and ecosystem development, the crux of his new book and also symbolized in his signature. Klaus is commonly referred to as the “Silicon Valley Ambassador,” coaching corporate executives, entrepreneurs and government leaders. Currently, he holds advisory positions with 3 reputable Asian ministries. Through his former role as the Head of International Relations at Silicon Valley Forum and now, as the co-founder and CEO of 10X Innovation Lab, Klaus has trained over 2,000 business leaders from more than 50 countries.
A sought-after speaker, Klaus’ expertise lies in topics of international business and scaling, corporate innovation, and developing the global mindset, ie the interpreneurial mindset™ as coined in his book. His work has been featured in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and LA Times. He has also been featured on podcasts like Sapphire Ventures, 500 Global (formerly 500 Startups), Scaleup Valley, and many others.
A nod to his earlier biography, Klaus earned an MBA from Hult International Business School and a Bachelors in Business and Culture from Copenhagen Business School, the nation’s most prestigious program of its type. Originally from Denmark, Klaus has lived and worked in 4 continents and has called Silicon Valley home for the past 9 years.
Topics
The Global Class Mindset
The Global Class Mindset keynote aims to show attendees how the world’s fastest-growing companies have succeeded in scaling globally. The keynote draws upon key learnings and frameworks from Global Class, synthesizing key insights from 400+ executives from the most innovative companies around the world. These tools have been endorsed by Eric Ries and other top executives who led expansion efforts for leading companies like Google, Apple, Slack, Zoom, Airbnb, Canva, and many more.
What You’ll Get
- MINDSET - Transform the thinking of your employees and develop an emerging talent called "Interpreneurial Mindset"
- TEAM CULTURE - Develop habits within your team that foster growth, collaboration, and intelligent risk-taking to support organizational growth efforts
- APPROACH - Learn how to effectively localize your business in new markets while also balancing it with organizational complexity
- MANAGEMENT - Establish effective lines of communication and internal structures throughout your organization to create frictionless collaboration across the entire company footprint
Fostering An Innovative Culture That Scales Beyond Your Initial Market
It’s common for companies to “hardcode” their business early on, based on their initial market, making it harder to scale that same culture across other markets later. Rather, develop a leadership mindset that influences how the company will be built and promote core values that can transcend across markets, increasing the likelihood of the organization’s success in scaling globally and staying ahead of the curve when it comes to innovation.
What You’ll Get
- Learn how to “think global on day 1” by building a Global Class Mindset coined in Klaus’ newly released book.
- Develop a pipeline of Interpreneurial leaders that can scale the company strategy and globally.
- Find ways to universalize your company values.
- Build a management model that empowers local teams to uncover insights and localizations needed to scale while staying aligned with company values and strategies.
- Balance company culture with the local market and business culture to prevent conflicts in instances when they may be contradicting.
Leveraging The Global Agile Methodology To Scale
The Global Agile keynote aims to provide frameworks that help reduce organizational complexity by uncovering key local insights and aligning those cultural needs and regulatory requirements, to the overall business strategy.
In doing research for his book, Global Class, Klaus discovered that applying the traditional agile methodology to scaling to new markets, would not help companies succeed in the long term. Rather, it would create disparate working models across the organization that would only add complexity to the business. In order to get agility right, it’s about finding the balance between localization efforts and organizational complexity which was the impetus to creating the Business Model Localization framework and the Localization Premium Analysis framework.
What You’ll Get
- Don’t skip on localization discovery. It’s a pivotal part of your business model and when done effectively, will clearly outline the changes you need to make.
- Craft key questions to identify what business model changes are needed to be successful
- Gain organizational alignment to decide when to lean more towards localization strategies vs global strategies
- Adopt Business Model Localization Canvas and Localization Premium Analysis for implementation and tracking
- Tap into local market needs and insights, as it may influence future market scaling initiatives or global product innovations.
Nurturing An Interpreneurial Mindset In Your Org
The Interpreneurial Mindset keynote focuses on helping organizations find, acquire and nurture their workforce into “Interpreneurs” who often serve as catalysts for successful global organizations. They are not always recognized for the value they bring in successfully scaling globally.
Interpreneurs are culturally curious, globally-minded, and navigate complex environments while also being iterative and agile. They’re experts at innovation and embrace agility within existing systems, while also exploring ideas for new growth opportunities.
What You’ll Get
- Identify, recruit, and attract Interpreneurial talent
- Nurture and transform existing employees to take a more interpreneurial approach.
- Foster a culture that encourages risk-taking, cross-cultural collaboration, and a culturally curious mindset
- Create and deploy programs, communications, and value systems that facilitate cross-cultural learning and communications (ie global training initiatives, rotations, etc)
