Innovation for Start-Ups: Cultivating Creative Ideas for Business Success

Jim Fitchett is an entrepreneur, a management consultant, and a Harvard Extension School management instructor. He has over thirty years of experience with premier and start-up organizations providing leadership, management consulting, and training for innovation, entrepreneurship, business strategy, marketing, leadership and sales training. Fitchett has started four businesses (three were sold), served as the first chief information officer for Harvard Medical School, and was a management consulting Partner with Ernst & Young, where he led the global knowledge management service for the health care industry. Fitchett has taught graduate courses at Harvard Extension School for over twenty years. His courses on innovation and entrepreneurship have been rated among the top ten in the management program. He also teaches business transformation, strategy, international business negotiation, and business ethics. He has led executive education programs at Harvard and on business and universities campuses in the US and abroad. These programs included innovation, entrepreneurship, strategic management, and sales force training. Fitchett holds a master of arts in government from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and a bachelor of arts in political science from the American University in Washington, DC. He is a former trustee and chairman of the board of the Boston Society for Information Management, and he serves on the advisory boards of several organizations. Fitchett often speaks at international conferences and has published in several management journals and texts. Fitchett has lived in Southeast Asia, Europe, and New York. He currently resides near Boston.