Jeb Brugmann, Founding Partner of The Next Practice, is a strategist and innovation expert in the fields of business and development, serving major corporations, local governments, and non-profit organizations worldwide. In addition to using a tested, disciplined innovation process developed with leading business thinker Prof. C.K. Prahalad, he focuses on innovation in market analytics, product development, and business modelling to increase local responsiveness and customization as a source of competitive advantage and global problem-solving. With professional experience in 28 countries, he has been a pioneer of new practice domains including urban sustainability and climate change mitigation, ‘base of the pyramid’ (BOP) business development for large low-income market segments, place-based development and social enterprise. In 1990, he founded ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, an international association of 1,200 cities and towns worldwide that are advancing practices in local sustainable development. He served as ICLEI Secretary General from 1991-2000, and as interim Executive Director of ICLEI USA in 2009. In 2004, he co-founded The Next Practice innovation consultancy with Prof. Prahalad. He is speaker to business, government, civic, and academic audiences worldwide and provides executive education as a Senior Associate with the University of Cambridge (UK) Programme for Sustainability Leadership. He has received a variety of distinctions and awards for his international initiatives and publications. His new book, Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities Are Changing the World, was published in 2009.
Jeb has played a particularly pioneering role in three areas of “next practice”:
Jeb’s work has been financially supported by the governments of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the UN Development Programme, UN Environment Programme, UN-Habitat, the World Bank, hundreds of municipalities, and numerous private foundations. His initiatives have received official praise from the UN General Assembly (1997), the UN Conference on Human Settlements (1996) and the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002). Brugmann’s leadership starting with worldwide Local Agenda 21 initiative won him the Millennium Award (2000) from the European Environment Agency/Princes’ Award Foundation and the Stockholm Partnerships Award (2002) from the City of Stockholm and King of Sweden.
Whether through executive leadership or consulting to client organizations, Jeb takes a unique “applied strategy” approach that designs, tests, and institutes the new models and solutions needed translate a client’s strategy into a ‘next’ body of practice in their organization and industry. His partners and clients have included national government agencies, major corporations, cities, United Nations programs, the World Bank, private foundations, and national and international NGOs.
Jeb is the author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities Are Changing the World (2009), and a contributor to four books on urban sustainability. He has published in Harvard Business Review (winner of the 2007 McKinsey Award for best article) and other peer-reviewed academic journals. He established and was a regular contributor to an extensive series of case studies on urban management best practices. He is a longstanding editorial board member of the journal Local Environment.
Jeb’s work is analytics driven. He has been a principal researcher for multi-year, multi-country action research projects, including the Urban CO2 Reduction Project, a 12-city project to develop the methodology for urban greenhouse gas inventories and mitigation planning; and the Local Agenda 21 Model Communities Program, a 14-city project to develop methods for community-based sustainable development planning. In business practice, he specializes in providing clients with innovative ways to size and segment markets to increase their competitive advantage and operational efficiency. He also specializes in qualitative consumer research for BOP markets.
Jeb is a Senior Associate of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, and has lectured at other universities in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Brazil, and Australia. His speaking career has taken him to 19 countries. Audiences have included: the IIT Institute of Design Strategy Conference; the Front End of Innovation USA Conference; the CIES World Food Business Summit; the Australia Davos Connection; the Association of Management Consulting Firms, the World Bank; the Ministries of Environment of Colombia, Germany, Japan, Korea, and South Africa; the Oxford University Global Economic Governance Programme; the UN World Urban Forum; the World Water Forum.
Jeb lives in Toronto with his partner, Saddeiqa, and two sons, Rashad and Kareem, where he operates the family ice hockey shuttle service. Growing up in a community where residents built and maintained their own water system, bridges, and community facilities, Jeb enjoys a periodic hands-on “fix” of construction and landscaping projects. When life permits, he enjoys long distance hiking, canoeing and cross-country skiing. He completed hiking the 2,000+ mile Appalachian Trail when he was 16 years old. With a family team including his son, brother and nephew, they competed successfully this year in their first (340 mile) adventure paddling marathon race.