ROBERT C. WOLCOTT
Author of PROXIMITY: How Coming Breakthroughs in Just-in-Time Transform Business, Society, and Daily Life (2024)
A venture investor in more than 30 companies, many of which are leading the Proximity revolution, & Co-founder and chair of The World Innovation Network (TWIN)
Adjunct Professor of Innovation at the Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and Adjunct Professor of Executive Education at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
Rob provides a playbook for business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs to win this rapidly emerging game—and for each of us to consider the implications for our careers, families, communities, and lives.
Robert C. Wolcott
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Robert C. Wolcott is an Adjunct Professor of Innovation, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago, and the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. 2007 – 2019, served as Clinical Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Kellogg. Teacher of the Year from Kellogg’s EMBA program in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017.
Co-founder and chair of TWIN Global (www.twinglobal.org), a community of over 3,000 innovation leaders from across countries and sectors. Active venture investor in over 30 companies and venture funds, many of whom are leading the Proximity Revolution.
Author of numerous books and articles, most recently PROXIMITY, from Columbia University Press (May, 2024). Wolcott’s work has appeared in publications such as MIT Sloan Management Review, The Harvard Business Review (online), The Wall Street Journal. Contributor for Forbes on the impact of technology on business, society and humanity.
Board member of Clareo; Abroad.io; Open Innovation Lab of Norway; and global non-profit HCP Cure Blindness.
BA, European & Chinese History; MS and Ph.D., Industrial Engineering & Management Science, Northwestern University.
Speech topics
AI, Proximity & the Future of Healthcare
Over the next 10 years, we'll witness the transformation of healthcare because of a wide range of digital technologies. Not just better, but fundamentally different. Health technologies, enabled by AI, sensors, portable diagnostics and more, will seamlessly be part of our daily lives - discovering problems before they're problems.
As a result, digital technologies compel the focus of healthcare from curing to preventing, because doing so is far cheaper, more effective and leads to longer, healthier lives. Rob Wolcott will explore these technologies (he’s an active investor in several relevant start-ups) and the implications for this audience.
AI & the New World of Work: Anything, Anywhere, Anytime
Work is in the middle of a revolution. In this provocative and actionable session, Rob Wolcott reframes work as "applying the best people and systems to the right objectives, wherever, whenever," as explored in his bestselling book Proximity.
Technology allows us to do things we could never have done before. Virtual, distributed teams, AI agents for an ever-wider range of roles, real-time monitoring across entire value chains. Everyone, from C-suite leaders to every individual across enterprises, needs to explore and grow. For three decades, Wolcott has researched, invested, and experimented at the leading edge of the world of work alongside pioneers from industry and academia, including teaching some of the earliest hybrid courses at Northwestern University back in the 2000s.
Visionary Leadership: Winning the Future
Most people think of a Steve Jobs or Elon Musk when they think of visionary leadership, but all companies can - and must - leverage vision for success in a rapidly changing, volatile world.
Rob Wolcott has spent decades understanding how vision relates to leading through change and has shared these insights, advising, coaching and consulting to senior executives of almost every industry worldwide.
His keynote talks and intensive workshops explore the three essential roles of vision in any organization--Sensing, Foresight, Projection - and how to enhance and leverage these capabilities to win the future.
Books
Proximity: How Coming Breakthroughs in Just-in-Time Transform Business, Society, and Daily Life
Robert C. Wolcott and Kaihan Krippendorff provide an indispensable guide to the Proximity revolution, showing how it’s transforming every industry—and our lives.
Grow From Within: Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Grow from Within provides the knowledge you need to conceive and design valuable new businesses that breathe life into ideas and dramatically improve your top and bottomlines.