Building innovation that lasts, from the inside — Stephan Klaschka — advisor, keynote speaker, and author of The OrgChanger.
The OrgChanger book is coming!
The OrgChanger book (2027)
The OrgChanger book is a practitioner’s account of building a financially self-sustaining innovation ecosystem inside one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies — for years without a formal mandate, and then for three years with one that produced a portfolio of 75+ projects and a 10x return across the portfolio (calculated conservatively). – Book release in January 2027.
It is the documented decade behind the HBR/Ivey Business School case study “Boehringer Ingelheim: Leading Innovation,” now taught at 40+ business schools across 20+ countries from Harvard, INSEAD, Wharton, Kellogg to the London Business School.
Where the case stops — at the 2012 decision point, asking “what do I do now?” — the book answers: what I actually chose, what it produced, and what it cost.
Join the conversation between the chapters in my field notes at OrgChanger.com on Substack.
The OrgChanger book (release January 2027)
Read the first chapter for free and get notified when ‘The OrgChanger’ book becomes available! – No Spam, opt out at any time.
Thank you!
Thank you for your interest in ‘The OrgChanger’ book!
I will send you the first chapter, “The Blockbuster Trap,” via email as soon as it becomes available (January 2027). I will also let you know when the book is released for pre-order.
The Ivey Business School case studydocumenting this work — “Boehringer Ingelheim: Leading Innovation” (Ivey Publishing, January 2015) — has been taught in over 42 business schools across at least 23 countries, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Wharton, and the London Business School. The case study is also available at HBR.
A Teaching Case Study The Ivey case is a decision-point case: it presents Klaschka’s threefold mandate, his three self-identified challenges, and a menu of unpursued options — then stops before any choice is made. Students analyze what he should do; the book reveals what he did and the results (a 75+ project innovation portfolio returning 10x its investment — calculated conservatively — an institutionalized School for Intrapreneurs, and the ERG-to-BRG model that reached the C-suite). Assigning both lets students test their own recommendations against a documented ten-year outcome — rare in case teaching..
The OrgChanger book is the full account behind that case: the decisions that were not obvious at the time, the relationships that took years to build, the failures the case study format cannot accommodate, and the human cost that sits behind every set of documented results.
It is a practitioner’s account of building a financially self-sustaining innovation ecosystem inside one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies — for years without a formal mandate, and then for three years with one that produced a portfolio of 75+ projects and a 10x return across the portfolio (calculated conservatively).
It is the documented decade behind the Ivey Business School case study “Boehringer Ingelheim: Leading Innovation,” now taught at 40+ business schools across 20+ countries from Harvard, INSEAD, Wharton, Kellogg to LBS.
25+ years practitioner experience 75+ innovation projects built10× portfolio ROI
42+ schools teaching the Ivey case 23+ countries 445+ LinkedIn Group members
Stephan speaks from the inside. Every case he describes is one he built, led, and — in the honest tradition of practitioner writing — sometimes got wrong. His talks combine the intellectual rigor of someone who has studied organizational change formally (MIT ACE, MIT EDP winning team) with the operational credibility of someone who has actually changed large organizations from within. Audiences leave with frameworks they can use on Monday morning, not just ideas they find interesting on Friday afternoon.
Talk 1 — The Three Barriers Why innovation programs fail — and what actually breaks through
Audience Intrapreneurs, corporate innovators, leadership development audiences, business school students
Format Keynote | Masterclass | Workshop
Duration 45 min – full day
Participants leave knowing: • The ten-step playbook for building innovation from the inside • How to build the sponsor relationships that make everything else possible • Why the permission comes after the proof, not before • How to protect themselves from burnout while doing this work • The Kotter alignment: why this approach follows proven change theory from the bottom up
Talk 1 — The Three Barriers: Why innovation programs fail — and what actually breaks through
Talk 2 — From ERG to BRG: Turning Your Employee Group into Organizational Infrastructure The transformation model that became a global case study
Audience ERG/BRG leaders, DEI professionals, HR practitioners, diversity and inclusion conference audiences
Format Keynote | Workshop | Panel
Duration 45 – 90 min
Participants leave knowing: • The fundamental distinction between an ERG and a BRG • The five-pillar BRG business model used at Boehringer Ingelheim • How to build the business case before asking for executive sponsorship • Eight principles for a BRG that outlasts its founders • What the Climate Survey data showed: why BRG membership reduces attrition
Talk 2 — From ERG to BRG: Turning Your Employee Group into Organizational Infrastructure – the transformation model that became a global case study
Talk 3 — Innovation in Regulated Industries: Navigating the Organizational Immune System Why the regulated industry immune system is stronger — and how to work with it, not against it
Audience Pharmaceutical, financial services, energy, healthcare leaders; compliance-heavy industry audiences
Format Keynote | Panel | Workshop
Duration 45 – 90 min
Participants leave knowing: • How the organizational immune system operates in compliance-heavy environments • Why regulatory culture intensifies resistance and how that resistance can be navigated • Cross-industry evidence: what transfers from pharma to energy, financial services, and technology • The trust architecture that makes change possible in regulated contexts • Case studies from pharmaceutical, energy, and financial services organizations
Talk 3 — Innovation in Regulated Industries: Navigating the Organizational Immune System
Talk 4 — The Intrapreneur’s Playbook: Changing Large Organizations as an Insider A tested framework from the inside of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies
Audience Intrapreneurs, corporate innovators, leadership development audiences, business school students
Format Keynote | Masterclass | Workshop
Duration 45 min – full day
Participants leave knowing: • The ten-step playbook for building innovation from the inside • How to build the sponsor relationships that make everything else possible • Why the permission comes after the proof, not before • How to protect themselves from burnout while doing this work • The Kotter alignment: why this approach follows proven change theory from the bottom up
Talk 4 — The Intrapreneur’s Playbook: Changing Large Organizations as an Insider
Talk 5 — Managing by Outcomes, Not Presence: What the Future Workplace Actually Requires – The decade-ahead lesson that COVID-19 confirmed
Audience HR practitioners, people managers, remote work practitioners, organizational leaders
Format Keynote | Workshop | Panel
Duration 30 – 75 min
Participants leave knowing: • Why managing by presence is an optics system, not a performance system • The NACAS pilot: clinical trial methodology applied to organizational change • The numbers: +30% customer satisfaction, +37% employee satisfaction, +58% work-life balance • How to build the SMART goal infrastructure that makes remote trust possible • Why organizations that built this before 2020 navigated COVID-19 far better
Talk 5 — Managing by Outcomes, Not Presence: What the Future Workplace Actually Requires – The decade-ahead lesson that COVID-19 confirmed
Documented ratings and organizer testimonials are available on request.
Top rated/—Pharma PPM Toolbox, Basel (2015) 4.93/5.0top-rated conference workshop – Conference Producers said: • “Stephan’s sessions were the best part of our 2015 Pharmaceutical PPM Toolbox.” • “Your strong voice, great stage presence, and engaging with the audience made your presentation unforgettable.”
4.3/5.0 Network & Affinity Leadership Congress (NALC), New York City (2010) Session: “Structure a Business Plan that Measures Your ERG’s Effectiveness”
100%/— Intrapreneurial Spirit Workshop (2016) 100% of participants: understanding of intrapreneurship improved; workshop helpful; would recommend
100%/— GUERBET Corporate Intrapreneurship Workshop, Paris (2017) 100% of participants: able to apply learnings to their work
Recent Events
Seramount Global EmERGe Conference, London — April 2025 — the leading international ERG/BRG practitioner conference • Session:“A Road Map: Raising your ERG to a BRG – How to Become a Partner of Choice Leveraging your ERG/BRG to Drive Innovation”
• C10 Labs / NYC AI Nexus / Applied AI Accelerator — 2026 — Mentor AI and innovation
• German Accelerator NYC — advisor for German life-sciences companies entering the U.S. market
• Blueprint Health — advisor, speaker, and investor
What Audiences Say
“This session was outstanding with a lot of useful takeaways!”
“Very practical info. Can leverage immediately as program manager to ERG.”
“Content was much stronger — great coverage of strategy and aligning it with great examples.”
“The best session for me. I really got a lot of ideas and content.”
Boehringer Ingelheim “School for Intrapreneurs” wins Most Impactful Emerging Global Initiative at eyeforpharma Philadelphia Awards 2015
“This is a great idea! Many companies have made similar attempts, but this one just seems to get it right. They are providing the resources and tools to really foster innovation based on the principle that the most innovative ideas come from the people who are actually doing the work.” — Paolo Moreira, VP Global Clinical Operations, EMD Serono, eyeforpharma Awards Judge
The Ivey Business School case study “Boehringer Ingelheim: Leading Innovation”(Mitchell & Chandrasekhar, January 2015), which documents the core work, has been taught in over 42 business schools in at least 23 countries, including Harvard Business School, INSEAD, the Kellogg School of Management, Wharton, and the London Business School.
Signed copies are available for conference attendees. Bulk orders for conference use welcome — contact directly.
What Conference Organizers Receive
Pre-call to align talk content with your conference theme and audience
Custom abstract and speaker bio in your required format
High-resolution speaker photo
Slide deck adapted to your timing and technical requirements
Workshop materials if applicable (participant handouts, frameworks, exercises)
Post-event follow-up: willingness to engage with attendees via LinkedIn
OrgChanger.com blog for attendees to continue the conversation
Work with Stephan Today!
Stephan is available for keynotes, conference sessions, panel discussions, masterclasses, and full-day workshops. He is based in the Greater New York City area and is available for domestic and international engagements.
For 25 years, I built innovation inside one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies — not as a theorist, but as the person doing it. The work returned more than 10x its investment, became an Ivey Business School case study taught at 40+ schools worldwide, and is the subject of my book, The OrgChanger.
Now I help other organizations do the same: build innovation that lasts, turn stalled programs around, and equip the people trying to change their companies from the inside.
Most innovation efforts don’t fail for lack of ideas or talent. They fail for lack of pathways — the sponsors, structures, and conditions that let a good idea travel from where it starts to where it gets funded and built. That’s the work. – Here is how I can help you with it:
Advisory — For Leaders & Organizations
Hands-on engagements for executives and innovation leaders who need results, not a framework.
Innovation Program Rescue & Diagnostic
Your innovation initiative launched with energy and went quiet. Before you fund another program, find out why the last one stalled. In a focused diagnostic, I pinpoint which of the three structural barriers is killing it — ideas that can’t travel up, can’t travel across, or die in the gap between talk and action — and map the pathways that get work moving again. It’s the fastest way to work together, and often the first step toward everything below. Grounded in the same approach that drove a 360% revenue turnaround as interim CEO of a stalled company.
Innovation Ecosystem & Intrapreneurship Design
You have ideas and talent, but nothing reliably turns them into results — and your best builders stay hidden in the org chart. I help you build the system that fixes both: sponsor structures and seed-funding mechanisms that let early-stage ideas travel, plus a merit-based intrapreneurship pipeline — a “School for Intrapreneurs” — that surfaces inventive people and develops leaders through real work, not training modules. This is the system behind a 75+ project portfolio that returned over 10x, refined with Gifford Pinchot III, who coined the term “intrapreneur.” The same pathway-building applies when the goal is to turn employee and business resource groups into business-critical contributors.
Fractional & Interim Innovation Leadership
You need senior innovation leadership now, not a year-long search. I step in — as I did as an interim CEO — to stabilize, focus, and build: cutting the priority list down to what matters, standing up the structures, and preparing the organization for what’s next. For companies in transition, turnaround, or a critical build phase.
Facilitated Workshops
High-energy, hands-on sessions that move a team from talk to a concrete next move — in a half-day, a full day, or a multi-session program.
Innovation & Intrapreneurship Workshops
Your team is ready to work on the real problem, not sit through another presentation. I design and facilitate working sessions where your people diagnose their own barriers, pressure-test a live initiative, and leave with a completed diagnostic and a decision — not a deck. Formats range from a single keynote-plus-workshop day to a structured program. I’ve run these for corporate teams internationally, from an “Intrapreneurial Spirit” workshop for a global pharmaceutical group in Paris to innovation and digital-transformation sessions across Europe. Ideal as a leadership offsite, an innovation-program kickoff, or the practical follow-on to a keynote.
Speaking — For Events & Conferences
Keynotes and sessions for leadership offsites, innovation summits, industry conferences, and executive education.
Keynote — “Why Organizations Reject the Change They Ask For”
Every company says it wants innovation, launches a program, and watches it quietly die. This talk reveals why — the organizational immune system that rejects even the change an organization needs — and the counterintuitive way insiders get past it. Practical, story-driven, and grounded in a decade of doing the work. For a broad leadership audience.
Keynote — “Your Organization Doesn’t Lack Ideas. It Lacks Pathways.”
The idea at the center of my work: the bottleneck to innovation is never a shortage of ideas or talent, but the missing routes that let them travel. Audiences leave able to spot the missing pathways in their own organization — and with the confidence that anyone, at any level, can start building them.
The Ivey Case, Live
A session almost no one else can offer: I teach the Ivey Business School case study written about my own work — “Boehringer Ingelheim: Leading Innovation” — then reveal what the case leaves out: what actually happened next, what worked, and what it cost. For corporate leadership teams, executive-education programs, and business schools.
Every speaking engagement can be paired with copies of The OrgChanger book for your attendees. Ask about bulk and workshop packages.
Coaching — For Intrapreneurs & Change-Makers
For the people driving change from inside — with or without the authority to do it.
You have a good idea and no mandate. One-on-one coaching for people trying to build something inside a large organization: navigating the immune system, finding and keeping sponsors, building the credibility and evidence that protect you, and doing the work without burning out. For the person who keeps hitting walls and wants to learn where the doors are.
I also coach ERG and BRG leaders — individually or as a cohort — who want to move their group from social to strategic, prove its value, and grow their own influence in the process.
Start a Conversation
The best way to know if I can help is to tell me what you’re working on. Whether it’s a stalled innovation program, a team that needs a working session, an event that needs a voice, or your own fight to change a company from the inside — let’s talk.
Stop managing symptoms and start building a framework for sustainable growth. Let’s discuss how to align your technological roadmap with your clinical and commercial objectives.
Thank you for your message, I will contact you shortly!
Thank you for your message!
I will contact you shortly (typically within 24 hours) and look forward to talking to you very soon!
Best regards,
Stephan Klaschka
Principal, Klaschka&Co
OrgChanger@Klaschka.Co
