DEBRA M. AMIDON is Founder and CEO of ENTOVATION International, Ltd. (Wilmington, Massachusetts) - a global innovation research and consulting network linking 90 countries throughout the world. Her Network has evolved into the internationally recognized ENTOVATION 100 of Global Leadership and The ENTOVATION Group – 125 from 52 countries. She’s been featured in notable biographical publications such as The International Book of Honor and the Woman of the Decade.

Considered an architect of the Knowledge Economy as early as 1995, her own specialties include knowledge management, e-learning networks, customer innovation, and enterprise transformation. For the last couple of years, her presentations have been heard throughout the North and South America, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Australia and South Africa. Her advice has been sought by diverse organizations such as the National Research Council, The Agility Forum, the Industrial Research Institute, the European Union, PBS, BBC and The World Bank.

Author of many seminal publications including –

Ø Managing the Knowledge Assets into the 21st Century (1987);
Ø Innovation Strategy for the Knowledge Economy: The Ken Awakening (1997);
Ø Creating the Knowledge-Based Business (1997);
Ø Collaborative Innovation and the Knowledge Economy (1998);
Ø The Architectural Primer for Knowledge Innovation (2001); and
Ø The Global Knowledge Primer (2001).

Her newest release - The Innovation SuperHighway (2003) - has been heralded by experts as “a milestone in the profession,” “a seminal work,” “a reflective and inspirational book,” “the breakthrough innovation book of the decade,” “must-read for any knowledge leader,” “the bible for the next ten years,” ‘Drucker operationalized”, “a must-read to understand the innovation process,” and “the book that picks up where other books in the knowledge profession leave off.” The European Union KnowledgeBoard selected it as the inaugural Book-of-the-Month (2004).

The co-edited contribution - Knowledge Economics: Principles, Practices and Policies (2004) – will soon be published and her latest research on knowledge zones features 100+ knowledge and innovation initiatives around the globe from knowledge and innovation cities, clusters, regions, and nations. Her concepts and practice of building collaborative advantage have provided a foundation for economic sustainability, stakeholder innovation and some would say, world peace.

Known among her peers as a management pioneer, philosopher and visionary, she has captured the imagination of academic, government and industrial leaders around the globe. With her seminal conference in 1987, she set in motion what has evolved to an expansive 'community of knowledge practice’ - comprised of theorists and practitioners from diverse functions, sectors, industries and geographies. Her "Momentum of Knowledge Management" – and subsequent "Global Momentum of Knowledge Strategy" - is available in many languages over the Internet. Her books have also been published French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and two dialects of Chinese.

She has served in a variety of executive management positions as Assistant Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Executive Director of a higher education consortium, was the first female dean at Babson College, established the first industrial-strength management systems research office and a variety of leadership or advisory positions, including the National Conference for the Advancement of Research, the Industrial Research Institute, and the National Science Foundation.

Among her credits is serving as a Senior research Fellow for the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas at Austin and on the faculty of Tilburg University (The Netherlands), IPADE (Mexico), the Banff Centre (Canada), Tartu University (Estonia) and the International University of Entrepreneurship. She is also the Global View editor for KnowMap – an electronic journal that is distributed electronically to 100+ countries and co-producer of I3 Update/ENTOVATION News – the original in the knowledge and innovation field.

Others often cite her progressive management concepts and methodologies in their own research. Her articles - known to challenge traditional thinking - have appeared in Research-Technology Management, Knowledge Inc., PRISM, Journal of Customer Partnerships, Exec!, 2000 The Handbook of Business Strategy, and the International Journal of Innovation Management to mention a few. Her publications – selected for Business Literacy 2000 - have been cited in The Financial Times, Management Service, Innovacion, The Observer, Management Today, Director, Silicon Valley North, Ottawa Citizen, KM Magazine, Singapore Business Times, TRACK, AMA Management Review et al. She was featured as the ‘Leading Light’ in Knowledge Inc.
Married with four children, she holds degrees from Boston University, Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.