Robert Niemiec is the Managing Partner at Twisthink where he manages business strategy, day-to-day team leadership, and business development. Throughout his 15 years of entrepreneurial experience and 18 years of senior-level corporate experience, Robert has a proven track record of building high functioning, diverse teams that achieve success and deliver results. Robert Niemiec created Twisthink as an experiment to test the belief in the value of twisting together the skills of design and technology for the purpose of innovation. For nearly 2 decades, Robert has been leading his team to serve Fortune 500 clients as well as entrepreneurial start-ups with speed and excellence. Some of their clients include Whirlpool, Stryker, Herman Miller, Crown Equipment, Lutron, and BISSELL. Robert brings a unique background and perspective to the world of digital innovation, with a strong focus on methods to understand stakeholders’ unique problems, unmet needs, goals, and constraints. Twisthink’s fresh eyes approach allows the team to imagine new business opportunities and create exciting new user experiences through their “relentless empathy” for the end-user. Robert Niemiec returns to the podcast to discuss how they are helping companies create the ideal user experience, which allows their customers to become leaders in their industries and accelerate growth. We discuss the importance of focusing on innovation excellence over operational excellence. Why it’s important for business leaders to lean into change in today’s digital age and why design thinking is a proven process for creating successful IoT or AI solutions. We also talk about why the digital edge is the most intriguing place for product innovation to occur and explore the power of a cross-functional team that contains both left-brain and right-brain thinkers. All this is washed down with inspiring stories of digital stories of innovation that unlock new business value. Digital stories of innovation that unlocked new business value (including industries like healthcare, industrial, residential, automotive and manufacturing) The power of a cross-functional team that contains both left-brain and right-brain thinkers.