Our Mission

Moving to China in 2006 to start up an Innovation Center for a Fortune 500 firm, our founder, Martin Daffner, discovered both a huge need and significant untapped potential for innovation in China and the greater Asia Pacific region. As an innovation practitioner of nearly 20 years, Martin struggled to find the resources needed to support his new innovation organization in China.

 

Five years later, Martin handed the leadership of this new Center off to his successor, and joined another Fortune 500 company as the Innovation Director in Asia Pacific. Once again, there was tremendous potential for innovation within the organization, and very little support for developing this needed capability. During these 7 years in China, Martin discovered a naturally creative culture and a thriving business environment that had a great appetite for innovation – yet very few experience innovation practitioners and subject matter experts were available to help these businesses grow their capability. After developing and deploying innovation programs in China for two Fortune 500 firms, Martin founded his own business in China with a simple and clear mission.

 

Our Mission: Support China and the Asia Pacific region in becoming a global innovation powerhouse.

 

Emerge Innovation was born with this mission in mind. The firm focuses on three key areas: Innovation Education, Innovation Awareness, and Corporate Innovation Capability. Each of these three strategic pillars supports Martin’s and Emerge Innovation’s longer term mission in Asia. From the beginning it has been clear to Martin that no one firm or subject matter expert has all the knowledge and tools necessary to drive a real change in innovation capability across all three strategic pillars. Key partnerships would be critical to success.

 

With more than 20 years of innovation practice experience in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific, Martin has direct experience with many of the best firms in the innovation ecosystem. He understands first hand which practices would fit best with the current business management and education practices in this region. To bring the best the world has to offer in the areas of Innovation Education and Capability Development, Emerge Innovation has developed key strategic partnerships with some of the best thought leaders around the world. Through these continued partnerships, Emerge Innovation can bring leading edge innovation practices and knowledge to all its clients and students in Asia Pacific.

 

While these partnerships allow Emerge Innovation to leverage innovation best practices globally, it’s also imperative that we bring tools and processes that can readily be adopted by local organizations in Asia. Through nearly a decade of hands on experience in the region, Emerge Innovation has the capability and knowledge to adapt each of these global tools to deliver the best results in the context of local business culture and a firm’s specific business management practices. It’s this combination of global expertise from a wide variety of subject matter experts AND local experience that sets Emerge Innovation apart from anyone else in the region. No other team is better prepared to support Asia in becoming a global innovation powerhouse.