Innovation you can rely on with Alex Osterwalder, CEO of Strategyzer and top 10 business thinker: from guesswork to strategic exploration that pays off. Tools for reinvention in the AI age.

Change Wired

Whether you’re a business leader, entrepreneur, or someone reinventing yourself, the way you think about innovation will shape your future.

Innovation isn’t about guessing or chasing shiny ideas. It’s about having a process, the right tools, and the discipline to test, learn, and scale what creates value.

In this episode, I sit down with Alex Osterwalder—one of the world’s most influential strategy and innovation thinkers, inventor of the Business Model Canvas, bestselling author, and CEO of Strategyzer. Alex has changed how the world approaches business design. Millions of entrepreneurs and leaders use his tools to innovate with clarity instead of chaos.

We dive deep into the fundamental mistakes both large corporations and startups make: falling in love with ideas, building too much too fast, and only later discovering customers don't care.
Perhaps most valuable is Alex's framework for balancing core business operations ("exploit") with future-focused innovation ("explore"). This practical approach helps organizations avoid the common trap of applying existing business rules to innovation projects—a mistake that almost guarantees failure.
Whether you're leading a Fortune 500 company, building a startup, or reinventing your own career, this episode offers actionable insights to make innovation less of a gamble and more of a repeatable process.

What You’ll Learn

• From Volleyball to Strategy: How Alex’s unlikely journey shaped his obsession with creating and simplifying tools for business.
• Why Business Plans Fail: The origin of the Business Model Canvas and why structure beats guesswork.
• AI & Innovation: What AI changes (everything) and what it doesn’t (the fundamentals).
• Portfolio Thinking: Why great companies run many small bets, kill weak ones fast, and scale the winners.
• Avoiding Zombie Projects: How to spot and stop initiatives that drain resources but deliver no evidence of value.
• Systems, Not Slogans: Why excitement isn’t enough—innovation needs the right structures, incentives, and processes to thrive.
• Personal Success Strategy: Alex’s reflections on what success means beyond growth and money, and why defining your own metrics of success is essential.

👤 Guest Bio: Alex Osterwalder

Dr. Alex Osterwalder is the founder & CEO of Strategyzer and a visiting professor at IMD Business School. Ranked among the world’s top 10 management thinkers (Thinkers50), he is best known for inventing the Business Model Canvas together with Yves Pigneur. Alex has authored five global bestsellers, including Business Model Generation, Value Proposition Design, Testing Business Ideas, The Invincible Company, and High-Impact Tools for Teams. Through Strategyzer, he helps organizations around the globe build innovation capabilities and transform systematically

🔗 Links Mentioned

• Strategyzer
• Alex on LinkedIn

Innovation isn’t luck—it’s design.
Tune in to this episode to learn how to turn your vision into a system of repeatable wins, master the fundamentals that don’t change, and lead with clarity in a world of uncertainty.

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Brought to you by Angela Shurina

Behavior-First, Executive and Optimal Performance Coach 360, Change Leadership & Culture Transformation Consultant

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1. Episode Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Alex's Journey from Volleyball to Business (00:03:56)

3. Origin of Business Model Canvas (00:08:12)

4. Value Proposition Development and Playbooks (00:13:27)

5. AI's Impact on Business Fundamentals (00:19:17)

6. Portfolio Approach to Innovation (00:28:03)

7. Why Companies Fail at Scaling Innovation (00:36:35)

8. Common Startup Mistakes to Avoid (00:43:16)

9. Defining Your Own Success Metrics (00:55:08)

10. Key Takeaways and Resources (01:18:20)