Material Growth Leadership

Leveraging Experts on LinkedIn

Written by Kendall Justiniano | 23 April

20 Experts You Can Learn From -

 

In a LinkedIn post this week I articulated why social networks can be a powerful tool to supercharge your learning.

One of the ways this happens is through your ability to connect and watch experts in certain fields. For executives this is a crucial hack, because one can find specific experts and executives need to be laser precise in their learning.

 

Here are some of the folks I follow on certain topics. The key characteristics is that these folks are actively sharing their insights via LinkedIn for their topic of expertise.

Follow these people and your feed will increase in insightfulness overnight!

Social Selling and use of Social Networks

If you think that materials sales can’t leverage LinkedIn for selling tractions, you’re living in a dream. Figuring out how though is not straightforward. Here are a few “starter” voices.

B2B Sales

The harsh truth is that the center of expertise in B2B sales is no longer in industrial sales, but now resides in tech. And since tech went to the SAAS model, it is more similar to materials selling than most people realize. If you’re not learning what tech is learning, then you’re falling behind.

  • Josh Braun, former head of Sales at BaseCamp

  • Elena Verna, former Head of Growth at SurveyMonkey

  • Amy Volas, formerly Sales at ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Yahoo!, and Gild

Innovation

 Bob Eckert, leading expert on creativity deployment in organizations (and a Growth Arc collaborator)

  • Nathan Furr, INSEAD professor on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, one of the leading voices on integrating new science of decision making in uncertainty into viable business practices.

  • Amy Edmondson, Harvard profession on innovation, developed the concept of psychological safety.

Startups I follow

  • UBQ Materials - plastic from landfills. Not mechanical recovery, not chemical recycling. Literally plastics from raw cellulosics and plstics in landfill trash. The product is viable, and the carbon footprint beats every other circularity model out there.
  • Lanzatech - carbon capture and reprocessing technology. Carbon capture has a long way to go to reach economic viability, but Lanza and the next one have interesting business models.
  • Global Thermostat - good technology. Management improving. Get your popcorn and lets see how they do.
  • Boom Supersonic - Forget SpaceX, think economical rebirth of the Concorde, but with lightweight composites and ultra-efficient engine technology.

Energy Policy

I prefer contrarian positions because the best ones have to be data-driven and rational, in a way that is more thoughtful than the conventional wisdom. Want to really sharpen your razor on sustainability? Look at where the best contrarians find problems.

Global Markets and Geopolitics

  •  John Richardson, analyst at ICIS and great global perspective and insight on all things chemical.
  • Peter Zeihan, geopolitical strategist and probably the best explainer of the big geopolitical trends today. (Follow him on YouTube too)

ChemCo CEO’s

Are these the best CEO’s out there. Can’t say, although I’d venture they’re pretty good.

  • Jim Fitterling, CEO Dow Chemical, reinvigorating a chemical giant after the last CEO’s disastrous reign. I think a model for 21st century leadership.

  • Christophe Beck, CEO EcoLab. One of the few CEO’s that during a recession, doubles down on growth investments. My firm’s mantra on growth is that in a recession, cash may be king, but growth is really your ace. EcoLab’s results prove it.

  • Ilham Kadri, CEO at Syensco (Pronounced “ScienceCo”, formerly Solvay). Also a Dow alum. Fascinated to watch what she does with a formerly commodity company.

Until next week,

Kendall -


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