Luis Solis is President of Imaginatik plc, a global innovation software and consulting firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. Born to Guatemalan pioneers, Luis is both entrepreneur and intrapreneur. He has applied his critical thinking, business development and leadership skills at McCown De Leeuw & Co. (private equity), GE Capital (global service roll-ups), Symbius (supply chain start-up), GroupSystems and Imaginatik (business software turnarounds), in addition to non-profit Boards. Author of “Innovation Alchemists: What every CEO needs to know to hire the right Chief Innovation Officer,” Luis is an in-demand speaker on corporate innovation leadership. In Malcom Gladwell’s terminology, he is two parts Connector, one part Maven and two parts Salesman. Believing in the inherent value of a liberal arts education, Luis majored in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, then completed Business and Law degrees at Stanford University. Residing in Boulder, Colorado, he and his sons are avid skiers nine months of the year.

On the Tuesday, Solis talked about the role of the Chief Innovation Officer. The CIO needs to be the persistent voice at executive commitee meetings that is keeping innovation as a hot topic for funding, resource allocation, and enterprise. He gives an organization a better chance at getting more results out of innovation. It is the fastest growing C-level title around, representing a growing awareness that merely adopting a strategy is insufficient to get sustained outcomes. Solis discussed how to go about hiring a good CIO,how they should battle the HIPPO effect (highets paid person’s opinion), and he also explained why some CIOs fail.