Alan S. Gregerman is President and Chief Innovation Officer of VENTURE WORKS Inc., a consulting firm based in the Washington, D.C. area that helps leading corporations and organizations to develop winning strategies and create successful new products, services, ventures and new ways of doing business. His customers are a wide range of Fortune 500 firms, growing companies, entrepreneurial start-ups and nonprofits including Discovery Communications, Marriott, Verizon, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, CitiGroup, CGI, Pearson, GlaxoSmithKline, BNA, Sallie Mae, the Children’s National Medical Center and the National Civil Rights Museum.

Alan is an internationally-known expert on business strategy, innovation and differentiation. In the past fifteen years he has helped over 300 teams and organizations to create important innovations—with a 90% success rate. He is also an award-winning teacher, author and public speaker who has been called “one of the most original thinkers in business today” and "the Robin Williams of business consulting." His first book, Lessons from the Sandbox, provided a powerful formula for business success based on the magic of childhood. His new critically-acclaimed book, Surrounded by Geniuses (Source Books, 2007), shows how companies can win by unlocking compelling ideas in the world around them. Before starting VENTURE WORKS Alan was the Director of Entrepreneurial Services for a national consulting firm, Special Assistant for Operations at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the first Visiting Scholar in Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth at the Library of Congress. He has also work

Alan earned his B.A. in geography, magna cum laude, from Northwestern University, and his M.A. in economic geography and Ph.D. in urban and technological planning, with highest honors, from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In his free time, he is founder and President of Passion for Learning, Inc., where he is involved in efforts to build innovative partnerships between the business community and low-income schools to make curriculum come alive for at-risk children. Alan also serves on the board of the Primary Care Coalition and is math and writing tutor in the public schools. He and his wife Lisa have three children, Sara (15), Carly (10), and Noah (8).