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Alan Iny has the pleasure of spending his entire working life on creativity in business. With Boston Consulting Group since 2003, he has trained thousands of people on how to think creatively, and he works with a wide range of clients across industries worldwide. He also has a deep focus on navigating uncertainty, using scenarios to help clients think more expansively about the future. 

Alan is a member of the firm’s Corporate Finance & Strategy practice leadership team and has expertise in innovation, transformation, and organization design. With BCG's Luc de Brabandere, he coauthored Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity in 2013. The book is available in 11 languages, and Publishers Weekly called it "a must-read for anyone in a leadership position who dares to look at the world in new ways." 

His writing with Luc de Brabandere has also appeared in various journals, including Strategy & Leadership and Technological Forecasting & Social Change. You can follow Alan @Alan_Iny on X.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

EDUCATION

  • MBA, management and social enterprise, Columbia Business School
  • BS, honors, McGill University

Publications and Videos

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Are Leaders as Prepared for Strategic Risks as They Think They Are?

Companies must be ready not only to mitigate the negative consequences of risk but also to capitalize on the positive ones.
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Five Ways for P&C Insurers to Build Resilience Amid Uncertainty

Insurers that build resilience can anticipate shocks, shape or absorb the impact on a company’s offerings, adapt to exploit new opportunities, and reimagine the business.
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To Drive Innovation with GenAI, Start by Questioning Your Assumptions

Generative AI can bring a host of ideas—and a critical “outside the box” perspective—to teams working through the innovation cycle.
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Uniting Strategy and Risk Management to Seize Opportunity in Uncertainty

Risk is a two-sided coin—business leaders need to embrace its upside, not just avoid its downside.
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Four Futures for the Global Food System

The cost of food is rising rapidly, and hunger is on the increase. What will it take to build a better way to feed the world?
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Bold Plans Do Not Come from Old Planning Processes

In this pandemic year, leaders who embrace bold vision-setting, backstopped by robust analysis, can create a once-in-a-career opportunity to change the trajectory of their organizations.
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Building Your Uncertainty Advantage

For some companies, disruption is a risk to be avoided. For others, it’s an opportunity to be embraced. With better sensing, modeling, and planning capabilities, businesses can use upheaval as a catapult to success.
Can Your Strategy Survive These Four Futures?

Can Your Strategy Survive These Four Futures?

BCG’s global expert on scenarios and creativity, Alan Iny, takes you on a tour of four distinct and plausible future competitive environments—and offers perspectives on how to shape smart strategies in the face of uncertainty.

Reigniting Creativity in Business

It’s a paradox: creativity has never been more essential to competitiveness in the business world, but the critical approach to practical creativity in organizations is often lacking. Alan Iny offers a key to the well-meaning exhortation to “think outside the box”: apply doubt to the very models and philosophies that make up the box itself.

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Have You Future-Proofed Your Strategy?

We present four scenarios that can help stretch your thinking beyond forecasts. They prepare organizations for the unpredictable and for whatever lies ahead.
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How to Run a Brainstorm Virtually

The classic principles are more important than ever, but you also need to consider new rules of engagement and how to create virtual intimacy.
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Seizing Opportunity in Adversity in Tech

This four-step approach helps tech companies create competitive advantage at a time when the industry is facing challenges on many fronts.