Simone Ahuja
GRANTEE
Simone Ahuja is the founder of Blood Orange, a marketing and strategy advisory boutique with a focus on innovation and emerging markets. Headquartered in Minneapolis, with partners around the globe, Blood Orange shares and practices innovation principles learned through extensive work in India, including jugaad--a frugal, flexible and inclusive approach to innovation inspired by emerging markets.
She is the producer and director of Indique | Big Ideas from Emerging India, which broadcasts on PBS stations across the country. For the series, she conducted extensive ethnographic, background, and academic research on innovation occurring at the grassroots level in emerging markets with social entrepreneurs and US-based multinationals. Coupled with her own experience working with transnational teams, this experience has given her a holistic lens through which to view the mindset and principles of emerging markets-inspired innovation--and its relevance in a global context.
Simone is the co-author of "Jugaad Innovation:Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth" (Jossey-Bass, 2012). The book has been published in the US, Brazil, Holland, France and India, where it is now a #1 business bestseller, and has been called "the most comprehensive book yet on the subject" of frugal innovation by The Economist.
She has served as a consultant to the Centre for India & Global Business at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and as an associate Fellow for the Asia Society in New York City. She provides advisory services, keynotes and interactive frugal innovation labs to entrepreneurs, academic institutions, and corporations including PepsiCo, Best Buy, Procter & Gamble, 3M, Medtronic, the World Economic Forum, MIT, and Harvard University. She is a regular columnist for the Harvard Business Review online.
Most recently, Simone served as a judge for the Ashoka Changemakers League of Intrapreneurs competition which recognizes and supports global intrapreneurs driving social innovation within large organizations.
