Growth through innovation, now powered by AI
Innovation is connecting dots others miss. Consulting, client, student and now AI teams bring more and better dots. Our judgment turns them into growth. Since 2007: 1,000+ companies grown in 30+ countries.
Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms in the Innovation and Strategic Growth Space
Three stages that turn ideas into lasting growth
Through consulting and programs, we help organizations get started, deliver results and build lasting capability. Growth keeps coming after we leave.
1 · Jump StartGet started
Build excitement, clarity and alignment to start the innovation journey.
2 · Breakthrough ResultsDeliver new growth
Develop bigger, better and bolder concepts, and drive them faster and cheaper to implementation.
3 · Capability BuildingMake it last
Build strong capabilities around Innovation Strategy, Capacity and Discipline.
AI that your teams use every day
From the first AI workshop to AI agents live in 90 days, organized by our three stages.
Find where AI pays off
An AI leadership workshop and readiness assessment end in a plan leaders sign.
Explore →Put AI agents to work
Working AI agents in your workflows in 90 days, on our ConnectLoop platform.
Explore →Keep AI working
An AI Academy, governance and quarterly value tracking your teams run themselves.
Explore →AI-powered innovation, from one company to a whole economy
Reach strategic certainty, faster
Innovation 5.0, built with Monitor Group co-founder Mark Fuller, runs proven strategy methods at AI scale. AI harvests signals, simulates futures and attacks every concept before you invest.
- OCP Nutricrops · strategy built with the Innovation 5.0 approach
- S&P Global Ratings · AI-powered growth concepts using our AKAIO platform
- 1,500+ organizations' innovation systems assessed
Grow whole economies, at scale
We put an innovation system inside every participating company and take ideas through to purchase orders. We also certify the public institutions that support them.
- Colombia · 900+ companies, 2,200+ alliances, US$200M+ in new purchase orders
- 1,000+ small and mid-sized companies accelerated across Latin America and the U.S.
- Dubai RTA · GIMI Level 1 to Level 4 in eight months
Next Innovation 5.0 for national programs. Emerging economies no longer need decades of R&D infrastructure to compete. Their companies can tap global signals, test ideas digitally and assemble world-class partners now.
The right logic, and the buy-in to act on it
Most growth strategies don't fail on the logic. They fail on the buy-in. IXL delivers both.
Strategy you can defend in the boardroom
- We scale proven logic with AI. Innovation 5.0 and AKAIO run the strategy methods of Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and GIMI at AI scale. Other AI tools generate ideas; ours test them and build the portfolio.
- We helped write the standard. We founded GIMI and were on the founding U.S. team behind the ISO 56000 standards.
- We bring senior judgment, start to finish. Leaders from Arthur D. Little and Monitor Group, now joined by Mark Fuller and Bill Achtmeyer.
We build the buy-in most strategies lack
Buy-in is the hardest part of innovation. Every engagement builds it in four steps.
Results across 30+ countries
What our clients achieved
Trusted by Fortune 500 leaders, governments and universities
Dr. Hitendra PatelFounder and CEO, IXL CenterWhat clients say
“IXL Center's motivating and practical speeches along with the actionable diagnostic helped us design a breakthrough innovation program for what's next.”
“IXL Center's simple diverge-converge process, coaching and facilitation has enabled us to drive bigger and faster results across all of our businesses.”
“IXL Center helped us embed innovation practices across the organization with real world skills and capabilities.”
Certified by GIMI, aligned with ISO 56001
IXL Center founded the Global Innovation Management Institute (GIMI) in 2009. In July 2026, GIMI became the first innovation certification body accredited to ISO/IEC 17024, the standard for certifying people. Our programs certify individuals and organizations against the same body of knowledge.
Our heritage, our futureInnovation is connecting the dots. We keep adding more and better ones.
Each generation of IXL teams has gone wider and deeper, and AI is the newest. The craft stays the same: connect, disconnect and reconnect the dots until new growth appears.
Consulting teams
Senior strategists from Arthur D. Little and Monitor Group, and since 2007 IXL Center, finding growth for Fortune 500 leaders.
Fortune 500 growth platforms such as Braskem's US$2B green biopolymers business
Client teams
We teach clients to connect the dots themselves, through the Innovation Academy, IXLerator and GIMI certification.
1,000+ companies with their own innovation systems; 18,000+ GIMI professionals
Student teams
Graduate-student teams from around the world bring fresh eyes to sponsors' growth challenges in the Innovation Olympics.
250+ sponsors, 120+ universities, 100+ ideas per challenge
AI teams
AI scans trends, tests scenarios and pressure-tests concepts around the clock. Our people set direction and judge what matters.
Innovation 5.0 with Mark Fuller; AKAIO in the Innovation Olympics and for S&P Global
Built on a legacy of consulting and education
IXL Center was founded by leaders from Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and Hult International Business School to make innovation a discipline that any organization can learn.
Strategy consulting for growth through innovation
Senior strategists from Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and IXL Center, powered by AI. We help leadership teams decide where to grow, build the new businesses, and set up the innovation system to keep doing it.
Six ways we work with leadership teams
Hire us as consultants, run one of our programs, or combine both. Every engagement leaves your people able to repeat the work.
Set your growth strategy
Decide where to play, which platforms to build and which bets close the gap to your targets.
Example: OCP Nutricrops, the future of farming
Build new businesses
Take concepts from idea to customer: business cases, pilots, partners and launch, with your own teams alongside ours.
Example: Braskem green biopolymers, about US$2B
Enter new markets
Validate opportunities abroad, find partners and build a go-to-market plan, with Boston Innovation Gateway.
50+ companies from Colombia and Brazil
Put AI to workAI
Working AI agents in your workflows in 90 days. We redesign the work first, then build on our ConnectLoop platform with Sedin.
Design your innovation system
Governance, pipeline, metrics and roles, including post-merger integration and readiness for GIMI and ISO 56001 certification.
Example: Dubai RTA, Level 1 to Level 4 in eight months
Innovate in the public sector
Design and evaluation of national innovation programs and institutions, for ministries, development banks and agencies.
Examples: Colombia's MinCiencias, the World Bank in Peru
“Business innovation is the creation and capture of new value. Without capture it is an invention, not an innovation.”IXL point of view
From first conversation to lasting capability
- DiagnoseInnovation audit, interviews and an AI scan of your market, workflows and data.
- DesignStrategy, growth areas and the portfolio of bets, agreed with your leadership team.
- DeliverJoint teams build the business cases and take the first concepts to customers.
- EmbedGovernance, metrics, training and certification so the capability stays.
Results from our consulting engagements
AI-powered growth through innovation
Innovation 5.0 combines a wider, deeper search with AI-scale synthesis. It tests every concept and sizes the portfolio to your growth gap. Senior strategists who have done this for Fortune 500 leaders stay in charge of the judgment.
Choose where to start
Work with us as strategy consultants, run one of our programs, or combine both.
Align leaders on innovation
Keynotes, executive workshops, a company innovation audit and an Innovation Potential Assessment of your people. You leave with a shared language and a roadmap.
Find and build new growth
Innovation Olympics teams, breakthrough growth projects with your own staff, team-based crowdsourcing and process improvement. You leave with funded business cases.
Build a lasting innovation system
Build an Innovation Academy, a Leadership Program, GIMI-certified teams and an ISO 56001 system.
“Most organizations see culture as a barrier to innovation. We believe the opposite.”IXL point of view
Four capabilities that make innovation repeatable
Our capability model, also the basis of GIMI organizational certification, asks four questions: Why, where and when do we innovate? Who and how? With what behaviors and metrics? And what results does it deliver?
Proven strategy logic, scaled by AI
Most AI tools generate ideas. Innovation 5.0 runs the strategy methods our leaders built at Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and its Global Business Network, and GIMI, at a scale no team of people can match. It answers four questions: what future is coming, where to play, with what portfolio and with what capabilities. It runs on AKAIO, the AI platform IXL co-founded.
Harvest signals without limits
AI sweeps the periphery 24/7: academic pre-prints, cross-industry patents, startup funding, policy changes and competitor signals. You see the weak signals rivals ignore.
Saturate the scenarios
Global Business Network scenario logic, run across 1,000+ futures, finds the "persistent winners".
Cluster the Fields of Play
Arthur D. Little and IXL Fields of Play logic clusters unrelated signals into new territories configured for your company. Not a needle in a haystack: a new haystack.
Pressure-test every concept
AI critics play the fickle customer, the ruthless competitor and the skeptical CFO. They attack each concept before a dollar goes to a pilot.
Find the missing dots
Our Mindset, Capacity and Bridge framework finds your capability gaps and the partners who can fill them.
Build a pipeline of certainty
A three-tier portfolio of Radical, Incremental and Just Do It projects, sized to close your growth gap.
Compare each step: before AI and with Innovation 5.0
| Step | Before AI | With Innovation 5.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Foresight | 20 experts in a room debating four static scenarios | Thousands of simulated futures, filtered for moves that win in most of them |
| Ideation | Sticky-note brainstorming | Clustering of cross-industry signals into uncontested territories |
| Testing | Subjective voting and six-month pilots | AI stress-testing of pricing, differentiation and feasibility in minutes |
| Execution | Twelve-month hiring cycles | Global partners matched to the capabilities you are missing |
From judge of ideas to architect of the system
Advantage no longer comes from one brilliant idea. It comes from the system that keeps producing better options. We help leaders design and run that system, not just approve what reaches them.
The future of farming
AI analyzed thousands of agriculture trends, clustered them into concepts and pressure-tested each one. The result: a Radical, Incremental and Just Do It portfolio, plus a shortlist of digital-agronomy partners.
Read the Innovation 5.0 paper →AI speed with senior judgment
- Recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Management Consulting Firms in the Innovation and Strategic Growth Space
- Methods developed at Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and IXL Center
- Organizational buy-in built into every engagement: excite, engage, align and commit
- Work with Fortune 500 leaders including 3M, IBM, Pfizer, P&G, Verizon and Johnson Controls
- A global bench of partners in 30+ countries
- Results measured in concepts, business cases and revenue
- Training certified by GIMI, accredited to ISO/IEC 17024
- One team from strategy to working technology and capital, with our partners Sedin Technologies, ConnectLoop and ROSC Capital
Braskem, Brazil
US$2 billion
We integrated six merged companies' innovation practices and built a green biopolymers platform worth about US$2B.
Work with Fortune 500 and global companies
The same method, from Boston to Dubai to São Paulo.
Growth platforms and innovation systems
Growth programs at national scale
Our model takes hundreds of companies from ideas to purchase orders. It also certifies the institutions behind them. In Colombia: 900+ companies and US$200M+ in new purchase orders.
Six ways we help governments grow
Each one builds national capability, not just a single project.
Grow small and mid-sized companies 10X
A national program that sets up an innovation system in each company and takes ideas through to purchase orders. In Colombia, 900+ companies in 14 departments built innovation systems with the Ministry of Science. They formed 2,200+ alliances and won US$200M+ in new orders.
Certify agencies with GIMI and ISO 56001
Assessments, roadmaps and certification for public agencies. Dubai's Roads & Transport Authority moved from GIMI Level 1 to Level 4 in eight months.
Evaluate and strengthen public institutes
With the World Bank and CONCYTEC, we are building one ISO 56001 standard for 13 Peruvian research institutes.
Design innovation districts and centers
Feasibility, strategy, business model and governance for innovation districts, as in Valle del Cauca and Atlántico in Colombia.
Explore →Redesign public services for breakthrough results
Journey mapping, hackathons and certification for service teams. We helped four Qatar ministries audit about 20 citizen services.
Adopt AI across agencies and programs
AI readiness and adoption for public agencies and national programs, from a signed use-case plan to agents in daily service.
AI at IXL →From first diagnosis to a certified national system
- 1 · StartAssess agencies and institutes →Innovation Audit against GIMI and ISO 56001, with a roadmap.
- 2 · GrowRun a national growth program →IXLerator 10X takes hundreds of companies from ideas to purchase orders.
- 3 · Make it lastCertify the institutions →GIMI and ISO 56001 certification so the system outlives the program.
Innova LatamNational programs on stage
Where we have worked
Real corporate challenges in your classroom
Since 2009, students from more than 120 universities have worked on growth challenges set by global companies. Teams now use AI platforms such as AKAIO to scan trends and test ideas. We also teach in MBA programs, certify faculty and help universities plan their future.
Four ways to work with us
From one classroom challenge to a certified institution.
Run the Innovation Olympics for credit
An 8-week capstone where student teams work on a sponsor's growth question and present business cases to its executives. Teams now also build AI agents for the sponsor's challenge.AI
Teach MBA and executive modules
Our Innovation Professors teach full credit courses or guest lectures, with courseware used on six continents, from Toronto to Seoul.
Plan the university of the future
Vision, strategy and innovation-office projects that help universities plan for the next decade.
Certify faculty and institutions
Train faculty as GIMI trainers and certify the university's innovation management system.
From one challenge to an institution that innovates
- 1 · StartEnter the Innovation Olympics →Students work on a live corporate challenge, for credit.
- 2 · GrowPlan the university of the future →Innovation Strategy for your institution, with a roadmap.
- 3 · Make it lastCertify your faculty →Faculty become GIMI trainers and teach Level 1 on campus.
Selected university work
Students at work
Partners and participating schools
A selection of the universities we have partnered with or whose students have competed in the Innovation Olympics.
Show all partner and participating schools
What students get
- A real challenge from a company like S&P Global, Braskem or Vanguard
- Coaching from IXL consultants and industry mentors
- GIMI certification and cash prizes for winning teams
- A team of peers from business schools around the world
Grow your business with a proven method and expert coaches
The same programs that run at national scale, open to your company. More than 1,000 small and mid-sized companies have grown with us, from Colombia, Brazil and Guatemala to Massachusetts.
Three programs to grow your company
Pick the one that fits your stage and market.
IXLerator 10X
Coaching and workshops that take your growth ideas through Eureka, Pursuit and Realization to signed customers. A new AI agent module helps owners automate sales, service and operations.AI
2X Digital Growth Accelerator
Run with LISC and city partners for small businesses of color. University consulting teams help owners double revenue with digital tools.
Go Global
Validate opportunities in the U.S. market. More than 50 companies from Colombia and Brazil have taken part.
goglobalprogram.net ↗From an idea to 2X–10X growth
- 1 · StartJoin a strategy workshop →Find where to grow and what to test first.
- 2 · GrowJoin IXLerator 10X →Four months of coaching to take ideas to paying customers.
- 3 · Make it lastGo global with BIG →EPIC immersion in Boston and support to enter the U.S. market.
Recent cohorts
Innovation Olympics
Graduate-student teams compete over eight weeks to solve one company's growth challenge. Sponsors get more than 100 ideas and a set of business cases. Students get real experience, coaching and certification.
Five steps in eight weeks
What a sponsor gets. Hundreds of insights, 15–25 developed concepts and 5–10 tested business cases from 3–5 university teams. Winning teams earn US$4,000 and US$2,000.
“Prioritize between robust concepts, not idea fragments.”IXL point of view
What sponsors asked, and what they received
Pfizer, IBM, Hyundai, HSBC and Atlántico brought real growth questions. Top student teams answered.
A selection of more than 70 challenges since 2009, by industry. Those with client quotes come first.
AI that your teams use every day
Most AI pilots never reach daily work. We agree the decisions first, redesign the work with the people who do it, and put AI agents live in 90 days.
From the first AI conversation to AI that lasts
Start where you are. Each stage builds on the one before.
1 · Jump StartGet started
Agree where AI creates value, and what it should not touch.
Outcome A signed AI plan with owners, outcomes and dates.
2 · Breakthrough ResultsDeliver new growth
Put AI to work where it moves the numbers.
Outcome AI agents live in daily work, with value measured.
3 · Capability BuildingMake it last
Build the skills, rules and rhythm to keep AI working.
Outcome AI capability your teams run without us.
“Advantage no longer comes from the brilliance of a single idea, but from the brutality of the system.”Hitendra Patel and Mark Fuller
Our AI strategy platform
AKAIO: the GIMI method, built into AI
Most AI tools generate ideas. AKAIO takes you from trends to a funded portfolio and the partners to build it.
Hitendra Patel co-founded AKAIO in 2023 with Kyra Group in Boston and Madrid. It powers Innovation 5.0 and the Innovation Olympics.
- Proprietary data: IXL's Trendovate database, curated futurist trends and R&D signals from DARPA, NIH and NSF.
- Scenario logic from IXL and the Global Business Network, run across hundreds of futures.
- A competence finder that matches each concept to partners, startups and universities.
- Your companyStrategic context, assets and value chain
- Challenge bullseyeFrame the innovation challenge with AI
- Insight trendsGlobal trends and uncertainties, prioritized
- Future foresightsHundreds of plausible future scenarios
- Innovation opportunitiesThousands of structured concepts
- Matchmaking partnersPartners, startups and capabilities to build them
- Portfolio blueprintScenarios, innovation cards and a portfolio
Our AI agent platform
ConnectLoop: AI agents your teams build themselves
Most AI agents need IT and data scientists. ConnectLoop lets the people who do the work build and run their own.
Treat every agent like a new hire: give it a job description, the knowledge to do the job and the rules it must never break.
Built in Cambridge, ConnectLoop powers our AI implementation and the AI agent modules in IXLerator 10X and our workshops.
- Learns from your own content: brochures, product sheets and sales training documents.
- Works every lead: books meetings, scores leads as cold, warm or hot and routes them to an owner.
- Keeps people in control: conversation summaries, alerts on unanswered questions and one dashboard.
See ConnectLoop in action Try a live agent on the GIMI site ↗
- Define the job to be doneMap the service journey and the customer persona the agent serves
- Describe the job descriptionCore mandate, tasks and performance metrics
- Upload the knowledgeCatalogs, manuals, values and links the agent needs to do the job
- Provide guardrailsWhat it must never do, and how it should answer
- Put the agent to workGo live with real customers, with people in the loop
- Review and fine-tuneTrace each bad answer to its root cause and fix it
- Go to step 1Start the loop again as the job, the customer and the data change
Step 6 in practice: trace each bad answer to its root cause
| What the agent does | Root cause | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Confident but wrong | Knowledge | Fix the memory: the document is missing or unreadable |
| Right but useless | Job description | Say what a good answer looks like |
| Right but far too long | Personality | Say who it is talking to, and how they read |
| Won't commit to an answer | Job description | Say how to reason under uncertainty |
| Cites something that doesn't exist | Guardrails | Make the "never" guardrail hold |
We build buy-in before we build agents
AI fails on adoption, not on technology. So the people who own the results decide first.
Live in 90 days, with dates you can plan
Every AI implementation runs on the same four milestones.
Outcomes, use cases, owners and baseline agreed.
Agents run next to your teams, with no live decisions.
Agents work in daily workflows, with people in control.
Results tracked against the baseline, every quarter.
Three rules for every AI project
Start with outcomes, not technology
We start with the business result, then choose the tools.
Rethink the work before building
Automating a broken process only makes it fail faster.
Measure the baseline before launch
We measure today's performance, so the value is clear later.
Four questions every leader asks, answered
Will it pay off?
Every agent is tied to an outcome leaders sign, and measured against a baseline.
Will people use it?
The people who do the work redesign it with us, so they own the result.
Can it be built and run?
Our ConnectLoop platform runs the agents, and Sedin integrates them into your systems.
Will it last?
The AI Academy, governance and quarterly value tracking keep it working.
One team from AI strategy to AI in daily use
Results our clients can point to
A selection from more than 300 engagements across companies, governments, universities and entrepreneurs.
Making innovation a discipline since 2007
IXL Center, the Center for Innovation, Excellence and Leadership, is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our partners work in 30+ countries.
From Cambridge to more than 30 countries
Dr. Hitendra Patel and Ronald Jonash co-founded IXL Center in 2007 with senior leaders from Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and Innovation Management Inc., and faculty from Hult, Tufts, Rotman and Yonsei. They set out to make innovation a professional discipline, learned and practiced like finance or quality.
In 2009 the team founded GIMI to set global standards for innovation professionals and launched the Innovation Olympics. National SME programs followed in Latin America. So did public-sector certification in the Middle East and small-business accelerators in the U.S.
Make innovation management a core discipline for governments, companies, business schools and professionals worldwide.
Help others build world-class innovation management capability to deliver 10X growth.
- Take on the toughest problems
- Use structured approaches
- Be bold, persistent and have fun
- Value diversity and teamwork
- Act with professionalism and integrity
Five institutions that changed their fields
Helped build the world's largest business school
We designed Hult's capstone and innovation curriculum as it grew to campuses on four continents.
Co-founded the Hult Prize
The world's leading student competition for social enterprise, launched with the Clinton Global Initiative.
Created the largest open-innovation consulting competition
The Innovation Olympics: 250+ sponsors and 120+ universities since 2009.
Helped build Colombia's largest SME accelerator
With MinCiencias, 900+ companies built innovation systems and won US$200M+ in new orders.
Launched the largest SME social-impact accelerator
With LISC, university teams help small businesses in under-resourced U.S. communities grow.
IXL Center, GIMI and BIG
IXL Center
Innovation strategy, Innovation Olympics, accelerators and capability building for companies, governments and universities.
GIMI
The Global Innovation Management Institute certifies people and organizations. It has 18,000+ members in 100+ countries and is accredited to ISO/IEC 17024.
About GIMI →Boston Innovation Gateway
Executive immersions in Boston, Silicon Valley, Barcelona and London, and the Go Global program for entering the U.S. market.
About BIG →Our team
Advisors
Key moments
Nearly two decades of firsts, from the Innovation Olympics to the first accredited innovation certification.
Ideas that shaped IXL
Innovation is not a eureka moment. It is a discipline, and these are the people who built it.
Three leaders, four decades of thinking on innovation, strategy and growth.
“Get more dots, better dots, different dots. Then connect, disconnect and reconnect them until Eureka!”
“We don't guess the future. We find the winners in every future.”
“Innovators know which rules to follow, which to break and which to make.”
“I have found it most helpful to define ‘business innovation’ (as distinct from general innovation) as the ‘creation and capture of new value in new ways.’”
“Don't evaluate ideas too soon or too individually as fragments. Build ideas into more powerful concepts or platforms and evaluate individual ideas in the context of the larger platform or theme.”
“Do the last experiment and often the riskier ones first and de-risk them so that you learn the most but risk the least.”
“We have entered the era of total competition. … There are no safe havens.”
“The rules of engagement have changed. Strategic mind-sets have not.”
“Advantage no longer comes from the ‘brilliance’ of a single idea, but from the brutality of the system.”
Keynotes that start the conversation
Growth is a choice leaders make on stage, in the boardroom and in the field.
Hitendra Patel speaks to leaders across the Americas, the Middle East and Asia on AI-powered growth.
Our people and programs
One team across 30+ countries, on stage, in classrooms and in client workshops.
Where we work
Capabilities we bring through our partners
Specialist partners extend IXL into AI agents, digital platforms and capital. Clients get one team from first idea to funded venture.
One team from strategy to working technology and capital
We work with specialist partners so clients get one team from strategy to working technology and capital. For AI implementation, agents run on our ConnectLoop platform and Sedin integrates them.
ConnectLoop
Our Cambridge-built platform that lets teams build and run their own AI agents. In IXL workshops, participants build working agents on ConnectLoop, turning AI strategy into tools they use the next day.
connectloop.ai ↗Sedin Technologies
A global IT and digital transformation firm with teams in the U.S., Canada, the UAE, Singapore, Australia and India. Sedin builds the platforms, integrations and hosting behind the strategies we design with clients.
sedintechnologies.com ↗ROSC Capital
The venture arm of Rosc Global, chaired by Monitor Group co-founder Mark Fuller, with offices in Cambridge and London. ROSC brings investors and capital to the ventures our clients create, and IXL brings it deal flow.
rosc.com ↗We deliver with leading schools and organizations
Making innovation a discipline
IXL Center was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2007 by consultants and educators from Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and Hult International Business School. Their idea was simple: innovation can be learned, managed and measured, like finance or quality.
Built on a century of consulting and management education
IXL Center's methods were developed inside some of the most influential firms and schools in management. Our founders brought that experience together in one place focused only on innovation.
Technology and innovation consulting, where IXL's founding leaders practiced.
Formerly the Arthur D. Little School of Management.
Co-founded in 2002, later acquired into Monitor's Innovation Practice.
Innovation management capability building.
Global standards and certification for innovation professionals.
Dr. Hitendra Patel and Ronald Jonash
Hitendra Patel started as an engineer. At Motorola he worked on lithium-ion batteries and satellite phones and earned six patents. He moved into consulting at Arthur D. Little, co-founded Innovation Management Inc. in 2002, and then helped lead Monitor Group's Innovation Practice, launching it in Asia and Brazil. He also started Pollux, an industrial robotics company in Brazil later acquired by Accenture.
In 2007, during the economic downturn, he co-founded IXL Center in Cambridge with Ronald Jonash, his longtime mentor and former head of Arthur D. Little's global Technology and Innovation Management practice. They were joined by senior leaders from Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group and Innovation Management Inc., and by faculty from Hult, Tufts, Rotman, Yonsei and other universities. The company was incorporated in Massachusetts in March 2008.
Hitendra also co-founded the Hult Prize, served on its board and chaired Innovation & Growth at Hult. He has taught 5,000+ MBA students and advised 200+ companies and governments.
“Make innovation management a critical business and professional discipline around the world.”
IXL Center vision- 1994–99Builds energy systems and new ventures at Motorola
- 2000–01Joins Arthur D. Little as senior manager
- 2002Co-founds Innovation Management Inc.
- 2003–07Leads Monitor Group's Innovation Practice
- 2007Co-founds IXL Center with Ronald Jonash
- 2009Co-founds GIMI
- 2009Co-founds the Hult Prize
- 2021Sells Pollux, the robotics company he started, to Accenture
- 2023Co-founds AKAIO, an AI innovation platform
Four chapters of growth
Laying the foundations
A small Cambridge team sets out to turn innovation into a teachable, repeatable management practice.
- 2007
IXL Center opens in Cambridge
The Center for Innovation, Excellence and Leadership begins work with Fortune 1000 companies and startups. It is incorporated as IXL Center, Inc. in March 2008.
- 2009
The IXL team founds GIMI
The IXL team founds the Global Innovation Management Institute with innovation officers, academics and consultants. Its aim: common standards and certification for the profession.
- 2009
Hitendra Patel co-founds the Hult Prize
He co-founds the Hult Prize with Hult International Business School. IXL writes its challenge cases from 2010 and, from 2012 to 2015, runs the finalists' accelerator in Cambridge. Each challenge is announced at the Clinton Global Initiative.
- 2009
The Innovation Olympics begins
The program starts as a capstone at Hult International Business School. Graduate teams work on real growth challenges from corporate sponsors.
- 2010
IXL builds an international network
IXL works from seven cities, from Boston to Shanghai. It publishes Greenovate!, the first -ovate book.
Building the discipline
Certification, publishing and new programs give the practice a shared language and body of knowledge.
- 2011
GIMI launches its first credential
GIMI introduces its Level 1 certification, the start of a four-level path from Associate to Leader.
- 2012–2015
IXL publishes Connectivate! and Healthovate!
The second and third books in the -ovate series, each profiling 50+ organizations reshaping an industry.
- 2014
IXLerator launches for small businesses
The 10X growth program for small and mid-sized companies starts with 20 companies in Colombia. More than 1,000 companies have since gone through it.
- 2016
Business schools add the Innovation Olympics for credit
Business schools, starting with Haskayne at the University of Calgary, offer the Innovation Olympics as a for-credit course.
Scaling up
Programs grow across Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, and IXL helps shape international innovation standards.
- 2017
IXL publishes Game Changers and wins global sponsors
Game Changers: 232 Innovations That Have Shaped Our World is published. Innovation Olympics sponsors include Genentech, Pfizer, IBM and Verizon.
- 2019
GIMI launches the Certified Innovation Professional
GIMI launches the CIP credential as ISO publishes 56002. IXL and GIMI leaders serve on the U.S. team developing the ISO 56000 series.
- 2019–2022
Innova Latam triples in size
IXL's Latin American innovation summit grows from 716 attendees to more than 2,100 in 2021.
- 2021
GIMI convenes the Global Council of Innovation Organizations
GIMI convenes its founding members. They include Waterloo, the Dubai Government Excellence Program, Ayala, Hong Kong Science Park and Bogotá.
- 2021
IXL launches the LISC Digital Growth Accelerator
With LISC, IXL launches an accelerator for small businesses of color, starting with 24 businesses in Los Angeles.
Setting a new standard
A merger, AI tools and international accreditation mark the most recent chapter.
- 2023
GIMI and IAOIP merge
GIMI combines with IAOIP, founder of the U.S. committee for ISO TC 279. Together they form the world's largest innovation certification body.
- 2023
Hitendra Patel co-founds AKAIO
Hitendra Patel co-founds AKAIO with Kyra Group in Boston and Madrid. The AI platform turns the GIMI methodology into software.
- 2024
ISO publishes 56001
ISO publishes 56001, the certifiable innovation management system standard, and IXL hosts Innova Latam 2024 in Cartagena.
- 2025
IXL publishes Technovate! and Eduvate!
New books on emerging technology and education. GIMI holds its Innovation Awards with IEL/SENAI in Brazil.
- 2025
AKAIO launches
AKAIO 1.0 launches and the Innovation Olympics adopts it. CIO Review names it a Top AI-Powered Platform of 2025.
- 2026
Mark Fuller and Bill Achtmeyer join as Senior Partners
Mark Fuller of Monitor Group and Bill Achtmeyer of The Parthenon Group join as Senior Partners. The new Global Innovation Science Handbook is published by Kendall Hunt.
- July 2026
GIMI earns ISO/IEC 17024 accreditation
GIMI becomes the first innovation certification body accredited to the standard for certifying people.
- September 2026
IXL begins work with the World Bank in Peru
With the World Bank and Peru's CONCYTEC, IXL begins building ISO 56001 innovation capability across public research institutes.
Proven programs, from first idea to certified system
Each program can run on its own or as part of a larger engagement. All are built on the GIMI body of knowledge and lead to recognized certification.
Start anywhere. Build toward all three.
Get started, deliver new growth, then make it last.
1 · Jump StartGet started
Build excitement, clarity and alignment to start the innovation journey.
Innovation Audit2–4 weeksScore how you innovate today, assess your people, get a roadmap.
Innovation Potential AssessmentOnlineMap each person's innovation strengths to build balanced teams.AI Readiness AssessmentAI2–4 weeksScore workflows, data, people and governance for AI.Outcome You leave with a shared language and a prioritized roadmap.
2 · Breakthrough ResultsDeliver new growth
Develop bigger, better and bolder concepts, and drive them faster and cheaper to implementation.
Innovation Strategy2–16 weeksFive steps from intent to fundable business cases.Innovation 5.0 strategyAIAI-poweredAI trend search, scenarios and concept pressure-testing.Team crowdsourcing2–6 weeksGamified hackathons that turn your people's ideas into business concepts.Pursuit · build the business case
Innovation Olympics8 weeksGraduate-student teams compete on your growth challenge.
Growth and new business consulting4 weeks–12 monthsSenior strategists build new platforms and businesses with you.Realization · make it happen
IXLerator 10X4 monthsAccelerator that has grown 1,000+ small and mid-sized companies.Also builds capabilityAI implementationAI90 daysWorking AI agents in your workflows, with ConnectLoop and Sedin.Breakthrough process improvement6–12 weeksMap, redesign and agree better processes and services.Outcome You leave with funded business cases and concepts in front of customers.
3 · Capability BuildingMake it last
Build strong capabilities around Innovation Strategy, Capacity and Discipline.
Leadership Program8 weeks–6 monthsExecutives who lead innovation. 2,000+ trained.CEO Brain Trust8 hours a monthChoose three of nine top advisors, plus AI-nstein, on call.GIMI professional certificationLevels 1–4Certify your people from Associate to Leader.Innovation summits1–3 daysLearn best practices and trends at Innova Latam and GIMI events.Teams · learn by doing
Innovation Academy3–12 monthsMasterclasses, action learning and GIMI certification.AI Academy and governanceAIOngoingAI skills, rules and value tracking that keep AI working.
EPIC immersion and Go Global5 daysInnovation weeks in Boston and U.S. market entry.Organization · build the system
High Performance Innovation Management6–18 monthsStrategy, capacity and discipline to innovate again and again.
ISO 56001 and certification4–8 monthsCertify your system against GIMI Levels 1–4 and ISO 56001.Innovation districts and centers6–24 monthsDesign and launch regional innovation ecosystems with governments.Also delivers resultsOutcome You leave with a certified innovation system your people run themselves.
A typical path for you
- StartInnovation Audit →
- GrowInnovation 5.0 strategy and Innovation Olympics →
- Make it lastHigh Performance Innovation Management →
- StartInnovation Audit of agencies and institutes →
- GrowIXLerator 10X national program →
- Make it lastGIMI and ISO 56001 certification →
- StartInnovation Olympics for credit →
- GrowInnovation Strategy for your institution →
- Make it lastFaculty and GIMI certification →
- StartStrategy workshop →
- GrowIXLerator 10X →
- Make it lastEPIC immersion and Go Global →
Grow 10X with an innovation system of your own
IXLerator is a four-month, learn-by-doing accelerator for small and mid-sized companies. Each company builds its own innovation system and develops growth ideas next to its core. Coaches help it take them to signed customers.
“Not stage-gate. Use a flexible, disciplined concept-to-commercialization process.”IXL point of view
Three stages over four months
AI AI agent module. Each company builds AI agents for its own sales, service or operations, with ConnectLoop.
- An innovation audit and a roadmap
- Workshops, webinars and one-to-one mentoring
- A certified innovation management system
- GIMI certification for its team
Ministries, chambers of commerce, development banks and city governments. In Colombia, IXLerator powered the national 10X program with the Ministry of Science across 14 departments. It has also run in Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, Canada and the United States.
One innovation language across your organization
The Innovation Academy builds lasting capability. Your people learn the GIMI methods, apply them to real projects and get certified. Some become trainers, so the capability keeps growing.
Know, How-to, Do
We teach you how to fish and help you catch the fish. Learning is always tied to a live business challenge.
AI AI modules. Every track now uses AI for trend search, ideation and building agents for real work.
“Innovation is a team sport.”Ronald Jonash
Academies we have built
Petronas
Licensed GIMI Level 1 and 3 courses for 400 people and certified 25 internal trainers to scale the program to senior managers.
OCP Nutricrops
An innovation learning pathway, learning platform and operating guide for 600 people.
Belcorp
An Innovation Academy with three tracks for R&D: expert development, business-concept training and onboarding.
Read the case →Natura
An Innovation Academy, a Boston innovation hub and 500+ people trained.
Read the case →Bank Muscat
236 employees certified at GIMI Level 1 and 29 at Level 2 between 2019 and 2023.
Know where you stand before you invest
Our Innovation Audit runs on GIMI's Organizational Innovation Assessment (OIA). It scores your innovation management system, names your three biggest gaps and gives you a roadmap to the next maturity level. We have assessed more than 1,500 organizations in 30+ countries.
Four questions, twelve elements
The OIA uses the GIMI High Performance Innovation framework.
Leaders score each element 0–10 twice: where you are today and where you need to be. The gap shows where to act first.
Do we know why, where and when to innovate?
- Innovation intent
- Focus areas
- Portfolio and pipeline
Can we drive ideas to commercialization?
- Process
- People and partners
- Resources
Can we finish what we start?
- Leadership
- Culture
- Metrics
Does innovation pay off?
- Create value
- Capture value
- Artificial intelligence AI
Four outputs leaders can act on
Your GIMI level, 1 to 4
Where your innovation system stands today, on the same scale as ISO 56001.
Your three biggest gaps
Current versus desired state for all twelve elements, ranked by size.
Drivers and barriers
What helps and what blocks innovation, in your leaders' own words.
The moves to the next level
Actions ranked by impact and ease, with owners and dates.
“Companies that assess every year and act on the punch list move up a maturity level faster.”IXL point of view
Assess, prioritize, act: in two to four weeks
Then repeat it every year to track progress.
Four levels to high-performance innovation
Like a marathon, build capability in stages: less risk, fewer resources, lasting results.
What leaders did with their audit
From 66th to 12th in Colombia's innovation ranking
An audit of 13 business units and a roadmap built an energy-transition portfolio, including Latin America's first green hydrogen blending project. Read the case →
151 innovation projects and 16 patents
An audit and roadmap helped build 1,167 registered intellectual properties, 118 awards and the first accredited police innovation lab in the Middle East.
Go deeper on people and AI
Who your innovators are
An online assessment that places each person in one of seven innovation profiles. Build balanced teams and target training.
How ready you are for AI
Workflows, data, people and governance, scored against what AI needs. You get ranked use cases to start.
Decide where to play next, and how to win
Innovation Strategy turns a growth gap into a focused portfolio. Our five-step process, now powered by Innovation 5.0 and AKAIO, aligns your leadership team. You agree why to innovate, where to play and what to fund.
Five steps from intent to business case
“The silver bullet is the high-risk path. Build a portfolio inside a focus area.”IXL point of view
Choose the depth you need
Strategy workshops
Align leaders on the growth gap and the fields of play.
Innovation strategy project
All five steps with your team, ending in funded business cases.
Innovation 5.0
The same process at AI scale: thousands of signals and futures, every concept stress-tested. How it works →
Make innovation a management system, not a project
High Performance Innovation Management builds the strategy, capacity and discipline to innovate repeatedly. It is based on the GIMI High Performance Innovation framework, used to certify organizations worldwide and aligned with ISO 56001.
Strategy, Capacity, Discipline and Performance
Innovation Strategy: what, where, when, why and how much to innovate.
Innovation Capacity: the people, processes and resources to do it.
Innovation Discipline: the leadership, behaviors and metrics that sustain it.
Innovation Performance: the growth it delivers.
AI AI governance. We build AI roles, policies and risk controls into the innovation system.
“Innovation is a critical function like strategy, with a team reporting to the CEO.”IXL point of view
From assessment to a certified system
Coming soon: Innovation Decoded: The Unified Blueprint for High Performance Innovation and Growth, by Hitendra Patel and Ronald Jonash. Our books →
Certify how your organization innovates
ISO 56001, published in 2024, is the first certifiable standard for innovation management systems. We helped found the U.S. team behind the ISO 56000 series. GIMI's four-level certification gives you a clear path to meet and exceed it.
Four phases
“What gets measured gets done. Measure what moves the needle, not what is easy to measure.”IXL point of view
Who has done it
Innovation districts and centers
We help governments design, launch and run innovation districts and centers. Each one connects companies, universities, startups and the public sector around shared goals.
From feasibility to a working ecosystem
- 1 · AssessPrefeasibility and benchmark →Global benchmarks, stakeholder engagement and the case for a district.
- 2 · DesignStrategy, business model and governance →Focus areas, anchor projects, operating model and partnerships.
- 3 · Launch and runPrograms that fill it →Accelerators, Innovation Olympics challenges, training and GIMI certification.
“High-performing teams and strategic partnerships are the twin engines of innovation.”IXL point of view
Districts we have designed
Leaders who think and act differently
Innovation needs leaders who can see what's next and build teams that deliver it. Our Leadership Program draws on work at Arthur D. Little, Monitor Group, the Society for Organizational Learning and Innovation Associates.
One program, from one team to 2,000 CEOs
8 weeks online or in person
Four modules: self-awareness and reflection, leadership values, leadership amplifiers and leadership results. Each ends in a personal action plan.
2,000 CEOs with SEBRAE
In Brazil we trained 2,000 small-business CEOs and developed 500 trainers. Read the case →
From Verizon to Ingredion
Programs for leaders at Verizon, Johnson Controls, Natura, Emirates NBD, Cigna, HSBC, Bunge and Ingredion.
AI AI module. Lead teams that work with AI agents: what to automate, what to keep human and how to govern it.
“Embrace the Power of And: manage the present and create the future.”IXL point of view
Excite leaders, then align them
A keynote makes the case for growth. A leadership workshop turns that energy into where to play and what to do first.
Choose the stage or the room
Speeches excite many leaders at once. Workshops align a few leaders on decisions.
Talks that start the conversation
Hitendra Patel speaks to leaders across the Americas, the Middle East and Asia.
Each talk mixes research, client stories and a live challenge for the audience.
Growth is the strategic imperative for all CEOs
Show why growth is a choice and how leaders close the growth gap.
AI-powered Innovation 5.0
Show how AI moves strategy from human intuition to strategic certainty.
From the strategy of hope to the hope of strategy
Replace wishful plans with a disciplined system for growth.
We democratize innovation
Show how anyone, in any role, can learn to innovate.
Keynote
Open a summit or offsite with a clear call to act.
Panel or fireside chat
Take your leaders' hardest questions on growth and AI.
Keynote plus workshop
Turn the energy into a plan the same day. See workshops →
“Move from the strategy of hope to the hope of strategy.”Hitendra Patel
Workshops that align leaders
Leaders work on their own growth challenges, not case studies.
Every workshop builds buy-in in four steps.
Innovation strategy workshop
Agree on the growth gap and the fields of play.
AI leadership workshop
Agree where AI creates value, and what it should not touch.
Audit roadmap workshop
Turn the audit findings into the first moves to make.
Where workshops started the journey
7 growth pillars
Leadership workshops set the pillars for growth. Read →
An innovation system
An audit and a leadership workshop built the system. Read →
New aluminum markets
Workshops and an Olympics challenge found new markets. Read →
50–60 leaders trained
Workshops built innovation capability for leaders. Read →
CEO Brain Trust
The minds behind Monitor and Parthenon, on call for you.
Nine leaders who built Monitor Group and The Parthenon Group, led Arthur D. Little's innovation practice, ran Braskem and Monitor Asia, shaped John Deere's corporate strategy, and helped write the global innovation standards. Plus AI-nstein, the world's first AI board advisor. On call for your leadership team, every month.
- Hitendra Patel
- Mark B. Fuller
- Ronald Jonash
Bill Achtmeyer
Fernando Musa
Maarten Kelder
Adi Alon
Brett Trusko
Alex Sayago
Ask any question. Hear from people who have done it.
Big decisions deserve more than one point of view.
Top-of-mind answers
Advisors who have built firms, run companies and advised Fortune 500 boards answer on the spot.
Backed by IXL's knowledge
Answers draw on IXL's books, 300+ engagements, the GIMI framework and AKAIO.
A monthly Board Brief
Every answer, recommendation and next move, in one report your team keeps.
One question, many dimensions
Each advisor answers from a different angle. AI-nstein adds the evidence. You get one brief.
“Should we launch a digital services business next to our equipment business?”
“Start with the end-game. Who else wants this customer relationship, and where will they be in five years?”
“Don't bet on one concept. Test three to five service models in 90 days, then fund the winner.”
“Your dealers and service teams will make or break it. Pilot with your best ten customers first.”
Comparable launches, frameworks and IXL cases, ranked by relevance, in seconds.
Three perspectives, the evidence and a recommended next move.
Illustrative example.
Nine advisors and one AI
Choose any three as your core members. Invite any of the others when your agenda needs them.
Hitendra Patel
Founder and CEO, IXL CenterCo-founded Monitor Group's Innovation Practice; former innovation principal at Arthur D. Little.
Mark B. Fuller
Co-founder, Monitor GroupBuilt Monitor with Michael Porter to 27 offices in 17 countries; former Harvard Business School professor.
Ronald Jonash
Co-founder and Chairman, GIMILed Arthur D. Little's Technology and Innovation Management practice for 20 years, then founded Monitor Group's Innovation practice.
Bill Achtmeyer
Founder, The Parthenon GroupFounder of Parthenon and Acropolis Advisors; brings AI solutions to market.
Fernando Musa
Former CEO, BraskemOperating partner at Advent International and senior advisor at Bain & Company.
Maarten Kelder
Former CEO, Monitor AsiaFormer Head of Strategy at Zuellig Pharma; expert in Asia-Pacific markets.
Adi Alon
Former Managing Director, Accenture20+ years in innovation strategy and R&D operating models.
Brett Trusko
Founder, IAOIPDistinguished professor and former CFO; helped start the U.S. committee for the ISO innovation management standards.
Alex Sayago
Founder, Sayago Advisory; former John Deere executive25 years at John Deere, from plant engineer in Mexico to Corporate Strategy and global commercial leadership; led business innovation at CEMEX.
Pick your core three
Any three advisors join every session and get to know your business.
Invite any others
Bring in any other advisor for at least two meetings when a topic needs them.
Always on
AI-nstein joins every session and answers between them, 24/7.
A lifetime of boardrooms, in one room
Educated at the world's top schools. Tested in the world's toughest markets.
- Harvard
- Princeton
- MIT Sloan
- INSEAD
- Dartmouth Tuck
- Kellogg
- Iowa State
- Washington University in St. Louis
- University of Texas
- Tecnológico de Monterrey
- ITA Brazil
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Harvard Business School
- Texas A&M
- Mount Sinai
- Tufts
- Hult
- Monitor Group
- The Parthenon Group
- Arthur D. Little
- Bain & Company
- McKinsey
- Booz Allen
- Accenture
- Braskem
- Advent International
- John Deere
- Zuellig Pharma
- Motorola
- Dow Chemical
- CEMEX
- Rosc Global
- World Economic Forum
- Energy and petrochemicals
- Chemicals and plastics
- Agriculture and farm equipment
- Pharmaceuticals and healthcare
- Healthcare IT
- Electronics and telecom
- Industrial manufacturing
- Mining and metals
- Banking and insurance
- Consumer goods
- Private equity and venture capital
- Professional services
- Education
- Government and public policy
- Social impact
- Innovation
- Strategy
- Marketing and sales
- Operations and supply chain
- HR and talent
- Organizational behavior and culture
- M&A and integration
- AI and digital
- Market entry
- Governance and boards
- Finance and investment
- Energy transition
“Generate better information than your rivals.”Mark Fuller
Eight hours a month, your way
Pick the cadence that fits how your leadership team works. AI-nstein covers the hours in between.
2 hours every week
A standing session to work through the week's biggest questions.
3 × 1 hour, then 5 hours
Short calls in weeks 1–3, then a working session with your board or executive team.
One 8-hour day
A full working day each month, on site or online.
Design your own
Split the eight hours the way your agenda needs them.
Answers, a brief and an advisor that never sleeps
8 hours with the Brain Trust
Live answers from the advisors matched to your questions.
A monthly report
Answers, recommendations, relevant IXL research and what to watch next.
24/7 AI advisor
Ask anytime between sessions. Built on our ConnectLoop platform.
IXL research and GIMI tools
Books, white papers, the Innovation Audit and AKAIO, when you need them.
Questions CEOs bring to the Brain Trust
Where Should We Place Our Next Big Growth Bet?
How Do We Make AI Pay Off, Not Just Pilot?
Should We Build, Buy or Partner?
How Do We Win in Asia or Latin America?
Is Our Innovation System Ready for ISO 56001?
How Do We Get Our Board Behind a Bold Move?
Three steps to your first session
The global standard for innovation professionals
The IXL team founded the Global Innovation Management Institute in 2009 to make innovation a profession. In July 2026 it became the first innovation-management certification body accredited to ISO/IEC 17024.
Four levels, one body of knowledge
GIMI certifications follow the Innovation Management Body of Knowledge. Levels 1–2 lead to the Certified Innovation Professional (CIP) credential. Levels 3–4 lead to the Certified Chief Innovation Officer (CCIO) and cover ISO 56002–56004. GIMI also certifies Design Thinking and Future Foresight.
We certify organizations and shape the standards
Certify organizations
GIMI audits and certifies organizations at Levels 1–4. Its framework was reviewed by former ISO TAG members and endorsed as "ISO+".
Shape the ISO 56000 standards
After merging with IAOIP in 2023, GIMI hosts the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for innovation management and has worked with 50+ experts on ISO 56001.
Convene experts and recognize leaders
The GIMI Think Tank unites 200+ experts. The GIMI Innovation Awards recognize leading companies, governments and hubs.
GIMI programs and awards
Certified Training Partners in 31+ countries
Local experts who deliver GIMI courses and certification in local languages.
Executive immersions in the world's innovation hubs
Boston Innovation Gateway (BIG), co-founded by IXL Center in 2014, takes leaders to the places where the future is being built. Delegations learn first-hand in the world's hubs, earn GIMI certification and leave with ideas and partners.
Innovation hubs, first-hand
Every EPIC week follows the same pattern: learn the method, see it working, apply it to your own challenge.
Boston & Cambridge
Most EPIC weeks run here: workshops in the morning, visits in the afternoon, networking in the evening.
Visits include MIT, Harvard i-lab, MassChallenge, CIC and Venture Café, LabCentral, Greentown Labs, Ginkgo, MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, Broad Institute
Silicon Valley
Technology and market-expansion immersions for business leaders and tech founders from Brazil.
Visits include Google, Adobe, Plug and Play, startup and investor sessions
Barcelona
EPIC España for Brazilian business associations, with classes at La Salle–Ramon Llull and GIMI certification. Barcelona is also home to student and construction-executive cohorts that come to Boston.
Visits include ACCIÓ, Barcelona Health Hub, Barcelona Tech City, D-Factory, ITeC, Catalan clusters
London
An executive-education journey with Imperial College London for 40 delegates from FIEC, the Ceará industry federation.
Visits include Imperial College London
Dubai
EPIC Dubai Future Now explores government and business innovation in the UAE. BIG has also hosted UAE government delegations in Boston since 2018.
Visits include Museum of the Future, DIFC, Area 2071, Expo City Dubai
Seoul, Shanghai & Delhi
Immersions in Korea, China and India, from Seoul to Shanghai to Delhi, run with IXL partners on the ground.
Visits include KAIST, Yonsei, IIM Bangalore, IIT Bombay, TiE
Three reasons leaders travel with us
See what's next
Morning workshops, afternoon visits to labs, startups and corporate innovation centers, and evening sessions with speakers. Participants can earn GIMI certification.
Set your own agenda
For companies, industry federations, chambers of commerce and governments. We design the visits around your sector and the challenge you bring.
Enter the U.S. market
Validate opportunities, find partners and build a U.S. go-to-market plan. More than 50 companies from Colombia and Brazil have taken part.
Who we have taken, and where
Selected programs (12)
| Year | Where | Delegation | Highlights |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Boston | OCP Nutricrops | 40 senior leaders, 25+ in the C-suite. 10 speakers, 8 visits and 6 workshops; all 40 earned GIMI Level 3. |
| 2024 | Boston | IEL / CNI (Brazil) | About 45 Brazilian executives in an executive-education week at MIT. |
| 2024 | London | FIEC (Ceará, Brazil) | 40 industry leaders, led by the federation's president, with Imperial College London. |
| 2024 | Silicon Valley | Sebrae SC | 17 founders from about 10 Brazilian tech companies. |
| 2023 | Barcelona | Sebrae SC and FACISC | 15 association leaders, with La Salle–Ramon Llull and GIMI certification. |
| 2023 | Boston | Clarus Consulting (Malaysia) | Executives from Petronas, Sarawak Energy, MOSTI and others. |
| 2022–2024 | Boston | La Salle Barcelona | Student weeks; about 60 students and faculty in 2024. |
| 2019 | Silicon Valley | Ceará business leaders | About 20 leaders from Fecomércio, Senac, DNIT and others. |
| 2019 | Boston | Colombian chambers of commerce | SME executives from Bogotá, Cali, Cartagena, Cúcuta and Manizales, plus Italian founders. |
| 2018 | Boston | UAE government | About 36 officials, with Sia Partners. Dubai RTA followed in 2019. |
| 2017–2026 | Boston | Tec de Monterrey | Student immersions, about 30 students per edition. |
| 2017–2025 | Boston | Gruppo Barletta (Italy) | Recurring weeks for Italian startup founders. |
“This week showed how innovation and collaboration can turn bold ideas into real impact.”
Boston, first-hand
GIMI partners in 31+ countries
GIMI Certified Training Partners deliver GIMI courses, certification and IXL programs in local languages. Our Cambridge headquarters supports them.
Want to represent IXL or GIMI in your country? Become a partner →
What's happening at IXL and GIMI
Announcements
IXL begins work with the World Bank and Peru's CONCYTEC
A national evaluation and improvement system, aligned with ISO 56001, for Peru's public research institutes.
GIMI accredited to ISO/IEC 17024
GIMI becomes the first innovation certification body accredited to the standard for certifying people.
Mark Fuller and Bill Achtmeyer join as Senior Partners
The co-founder of Monitor Group and the founder of The Parthenon Group join IXL's executive team.
New Global Innovation Science Handbook
Edited by Brett Trusko, Hitendra Patel and Ronald Jonash and published by Kendall Hunt, with 50 chapters. See our books →
GIMI Innovation Awards 2025
Held with IEL and SENAI in Brazil, recognizing leading companies, governments, innovation hubs and startups.
Join us
Innovation Olympics
Sponsor a challenge or enter a student team. Learn more →
GIMI Innovation Awards
Regional ceremonies announced for 2026.
EPIC immersion weeks
Five-day innovation programs for executives and students. Learn more →
Innova Latam summit
One of Latin America's largest business innovation events; IXL hosted Innova Latam 2024 in Cartagena.
Work on the world's toughest growth problems
We work on hard problems, use structured approaches, and we are bold, persistent and have fun. There are several ways to join the IXL and GIMI community.
Four ways to work with IXL and GIMI
Join the Cambridge team
Consultants, program managers and developers work on client projects, the Innovation Olympics and our AI platforms.
Apply or ask →Intern in Cambridge
Interns in Cambridge coach university teams, support client research and help run our programs.
Apply or ask →Become an ambassador or junior mentor
Past participants help recruit teams at their schools and mentor new teams through each season.
Apply or ask →Become a country or GIMI training partner
Represent IXL in your country, or become a GIMI Certified Training Partner and deliver GIMI courses locally.
Apply or ask →Draft for legal review. Not yet approved.
Privacy policy
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Information we collect
Information you give us, such as your name, organization, work email and message when you use our contact form. Basic usage data, such as pages visited and browser type, collected through cookies or analytics tools.
How we use it
To answer your inquiry, provide our programs and services, send updates you have asked for, and improve this website. We do not sell your personal information.
Sharing
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Draft for legal review. Not yet approved.
Terms of use
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Content
The content on this site, including text, books, white papers and logos, belongs to IXL Center, the Global Innovation Management Institute or their licensors. You may read and share our white papers for non-commercial purposes with attribution. Any other use needs our written permission.
Client names and results
Client names, logos and results are shown with permission and remain the property of their owners.
No warranty
The site is provided for information only. Program details, figures and schedules may change.
Links
Links to other websites are provided for convenience. We are not responsible for their content.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, USA.
Books, handbooks and white papers
For more than 15 years, our team has codified how innovation works. The work runs from 2008 roundtables to handbooks used in 100+ countries.
What we believe about managing innovation
Ten positions, one for each element of the GIMI framework.
Innovation Strategy
Business innovation is the creation and capture of new value. Without capture it is an invention, not an innovation.
Make innovation a strategic imperative through a Case for Change, a Growth Gap and Investment Criteria, not a random activity.
Focus innovation on strategic themes where the company wants to play and win in the future.
Build portfolios and pipelines to derisk innovation and close the growth gap across multiple time horizons.
Innovation Capacity
Use a flexible, disciplined concept-to-commercialization process, not stage-gate.
High-performing teams and strategic partnerships are the twin engines of innovation. Build from inside and outside.
Keep an innovation investment balance sheet. Most organizations have more innovation resources than they realize.
Innovation Discipline
Embrace the Power of And: manage the present and create the future. “Or” produces missed opportunities and imbalance.
Work with your existing culture, not against it. Don't fight the current; flow with it.
What gets measured gets done. Use system-wide metrics for both innovation management and innovation results.
Seven contrarian views
- Not stage-gate. Sprints, pivots and conditional progress replace rigid stages.
- Prioritize concepts, not idea fragments. Cast a wide net, then choose between robust concepts.
- Culture is an asset, not a barrier. Most organizations see culture as a barrier to innovation. We believe the opposite.
- The silver bullet is the high-risk path. A portfolio inside a focus area beats a single big bet.
- Innovation reports to the CEO. It is a critical function like strategy and needs its own team.
- Measure what moves the needle. Not what is easy to measure. Recognition motivates; rewards can backfire.
- You have more resources than you think. Innovation assets sit across departments, business units, suppliers and partners.
Read our thinking
We publish what we practice.
Every paper comes from real work with clients, students and leaders, from 2008 to Innovation 5.0. Free to read; each opens as a PDF.
Companies innovating to change the world
Every industry is being reinvented. These books show who is doing it, and how.
Each book profiles 50+ organizations whose breakthroughs are reshaping an industry.
The reference works behind the discipline
We didn't just practice innovation management. We helped write it down.
The handbooks, journals and GIMI bodies of knowledge that professionals in 100+ countries use to learn and certify.
Our other books
Field notes from fifteen years of making innovation real.
Case collections, guides and research from IXL's teams around the world.
Books by our senior partners
The thinking behind the thinking.
Books by the leaders who shaped Arthur D. Little's and Monitor Group's strategy and innovation practices.
Brochures to download and share
Four pages each: your issue, the solution, why us and how to reach us. Sorted by stage.
Watch our thinking
Keynotes, talks and programs on video.
Tell us about your growth challenge
A partner will reply within two business days.
IXL Center
110 Cambridge Street
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