Aligned Agility was founded in 2001 by Geoff Marlow, formerly Corporate Director and Global Head of Innovation Leadership at the 3,500 person global consulting firm Arthur D. Little.

With many years in and around ‘big consulting’ it was apparent that innovation leadership clients increasingly needed truly experienced ‘grey haired’ guidance and support, reflecting and respecting the realities of their own situations and aspirations. The more sophisticated consulting clients, many of whom were former consultants themselves, were only too familiar with the limitations that plague large consulting firms. These ultimately stem from a business model based on a small number of experienced seniors leveraging relatively large numbers of junior, very bright but also very inexperienced consultants. This so-called ‘finders, minders and grinders’ model equips big consulting firms to provide efficient and profitable ‘one-size-fits-all’ consulting services, but fundamentally prevents them from helping their clients to solve their own problems. Since innovation leaders are, by definition, masters of their own destinies, they need help above and beyond the formulaic approaches that constrain traditional consultancies.

Geoff therefore set up Aligned Agility based on a fundamentally different model: offering clients genuine access to senior–only ‘grey haired’ consultants with the experience, insight and sensitivity to guide innovation leaders on their own unique journeys, respecting the specific needs, current reality and aspirations for embedding innovation as a way of life in their organisations.

All organisations must ultimately innovate or die. Companies based on science, engineering and technology tend to feel this innovation imperative very acutely and consequently tend to be in the vanguard of embracing innovation as a way of life. Aligned Agility’s primary focus on serving such businesses stems from Geoff’s own career path. From the late 1970’s onwards he worked as an electronics systems and software engineer specialising in real-time control applications, first with British Aerospace plc and then The BBC. In 1983 he joined the world's leading science, engineering and technology based contract design and development firm Cambridge Consultants Ltd (CCL), who had been providing ‘Open Innovation’ services since 1960, 40 years before Henry Chesborough coined that term. Geoff was promoted rapidly, as a waning interest in technology per se gave way to a growing fascination with mastering what makes people tick in world-leading science, engineering and technology based firms. Particularly in firms like CCL, where truly radical innovation was embraced as a way of life to such a degree that this spirit also enthused and infected our clients, many of whom were widely regarded as world-class innovators themselves.

Then one day a longstanding CCL client posed a challenge, the gist of which was: “We like working with your technical people better than working with our own technical people. Can you come and help make our technical people behave more like your technical people?” This fateful question triggered a unique career trajectory that continues to this day…

At Aligned Agility we pride ourselves on empirical pragmatism. Our insights into enabling, embedding and embracing innovation as a way of life in organisations stem from a singular 25 year focus on helping clients in real-world organisations in Europe, Asia and the USA do just that. Our insights come from seeing what works in practice – as well as seeing a lot of what other people think should work in theory, but somehow doesn’t work in practice. This hands-on, experience-led, empirical pragmatism is underpinned by a wide-ranging interest in models that help to explain, further inform and amplify our pragmatic, real-world practice.

Whereas academics are interested in what can be taught, and researchers are interested in what can be discovered, engineers are interested in what works. At Aligned Agility, our singular interest in is co-creating with you what works for you to enable, embed and embrace innovation as a way of life in your organisation.