Inventor, artist, prototyper, author, humorist and cartoonist with 30 years experience in upstream technologies, new product development and inventive problem solving. Spent 23 years within P&G across a variety of challenging assignments such as Corporate Visioneering, Systematic Innovation Systems, Consumer Understanding, New Business Development, Training Creative Problem Solving and Upstream Packaging design. Spent the past 10 years developing new systems for teaching inventive problem-solving and training disruptive innovation across all age levels from young children to college students to corporate clients such as Lexis Nexis, Herman Miller and P&G. Tom’s creative mix centers around his unusual blend of both divergent artistic and convergent scientific skills. He holds 16 US patents, and more than 120 global patent publications to date and growing. Developed hundreds of breakthrough innovations for consumer products, processes, formulations, and technologies. Some successful projects/patents include Dryel, Cascade Action Pacs, Tide Buzz Ultrasonic Pen, Downy Triple Concentrate, Fit fruit & Vegatable Wash, Pringles Prints, environmental packaging for liquids and powders, detergent refill packaging, home robotics, soil release polymers, optimizing prill hydration in a spray tower, fluid bed technologies, plasma treatment systems, bio-plastics, etc. Also volunteers as VP of the Inventor's Council of Cincinnati, a non-profit org supporting independent inventors. Tom specializes in creative visual communication, technical illustrating, brand imagery and logos that clarify product design and communicate the ideal product message and brand positioning to customers and clients. An accomplished cartoonist and humorist for Cincom System's e-newsletter Expert Access, which publishes regularly to 140,000 readers in 50 countries. A gallery of his cartoons will be available for viewing at www.Zenovate.us.
"Do more than create... Zenovate"
http://www.fastcompany.com/user/tom-hortel
Owner / Partner, Zenovate Ltd.
Private, Sole Proprietor employees, Consulting industry"Simple Elegant Solutions" Zenovate is an "Idea Factory" that develops and delivers new products and training systems for consumers and clients. Zenovate is also focused on designing and training new systems for inventive problem solving, with a particular focus on teaching breakthrough ideation and creative thinking to schoolchildren, other innovators and visual creatives. Zenovate is a collaboration between two key partners; Tom Hortel and Jim Sinclair. Tom has 30 years experience as an inventor, innovation trainer and internal creative consultant for Procter & Gamble, while Jim was a 30 year Kroger executive and former CFO of SuperX Drugstores. Their Zenovation systems for inventive problem solving have broad applications across all ages and levels of expertise, from ages 8 to 108 and have been field-tested from 5th grade Science classes to graduate level universitities and corporate clients such as Herman Miller, Lexis Nexis and P&G. Earned 16 US Patents and 120+ global patent publications.
Owner / Partner, VentureForward LLC
Private, Sole Proprietor employees, Consulting industryVentureForward was a unique provider of creativity and innovation services to clients large and small. B2B consultants who drive business growth applying Systematic Innovation methods and a huge toolkit of creative tools. We're not expert at every technology, rather we're expert at applying Inventive Problem-Solving tools that can solve ANY tough business problem, from highly-focused technical to highly abstract people issues. Our expertise is drilling down to the core underpinnings of problems and developing actionable solutions. We don't just talk innovation... we deliver it. Our powerful systems leverage core principles and trends of evolution to solve ANY tough business problem. We leverage whole-brain thinking via creative visualization and design to drive consumer understanding, communication and team alignment. Trainers/coaches for SIP (Systematic Innovation Process), Knowledge Systems, High 5 Inventing, VizTriz, Inventive Problem-Solving, Rapid Innovation, and Mind2Market Systems
Public, 5000+ employees, Consumer Packaged Goods industryVarious Assignments within P&G: Corporate Visioneering Team in the Emerging Technologies Group of Corporate Engineering Global Innovation Trainer and Coach for Technical Engineering School Upstream Technology Design For New Business Development Innovation Trainer and Coach for QuickStart Prototyping Upstream Process Development For F&HC Global Innovation Creative Concept Development and Consumer Understanding Upstream Packaging and Product Design Designed "Circle of Creativity" intranet website on P&G's internal InnovationNet to train creative problem solving online Designed "Effective Problem Defintion" intranet website on P&G's internal InnovationNet to define and clarify the correct problems to be addressing. Following several decades of hands-on experience at creating game-changing new products like Dryel, Cascade and Swiffer WetJet, I was`drafted to join the Emerging Technologies Group of P&G Corporate Engineering to train and facilitate the "Art of Innovation". We created a Corporate Visioneering team as a bold experiment to put the Vision back into Engineering, to lead global project teams through systematic innovation processes and help them "Think Outside The Cubicle". We set a benchmark goal of 2-3 successful projects as our year one success criteria goal. In our 1st year we led 6 successful project teams... in our 2nd year we led 24 roject teams. Clearly there existed a huge opportunity for leveraging innovative leadership and systematic problem-solving broadly across the company. We created VentureForward in 2001 to further refine these powerful methods and training systems. I still consult and train as an innovation facilitators for P&G's Initiatives GYM, Corporate Engineering and the technical R&D centers.
University of Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Areas of study: Environmental Technologies
Industrial Management
