Clay Phillips is an experienced executive in the fields of open innovation, intelligence, business development, strategy, and alliance management. He founded Crow’s Nest Consulting in early 2014 to serve as an independent growth strategy and innovation advisor for startups, large companies and non-profits. Under the banner of Innovation Intelligence, he concentrates on the practical hands-on application of advanced innovation and intelligence best practices for faster and better insights, reduced uncertainty, and higher quality innovation investment decisions. He places an emphasis on understanding ecosystem dynamics, information source strategies, bias and blind spot detection and mitigation, and rigorous business model stress testing. The result is a faster path to actionable insights and higher quality innovation investment decision-making. He has developed and led programs in the automotive, technology, health care, materials, financial services, specialty chemicals, energy, and advanced mobility sectors influencing over 200 innovation project team cases to date. He is an executive advisor to SRI International, an applied research non-profit organization based in Menlo Park, California. He is an adjunct instructor for the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps program, faculty advisor for the Rocky Mountain Institute’s eLab energy innovation program, and mentor for the Detroit TechStars accelerator. From 2014 to 2016 he served as Business Development and Key Accounts Vice President for GLIDR (ex-LaunchPad Central), a San Francisco-based innovation software-as-a-service firm.
Prior to launching his advisory practice, he was an executive at General Motors where he spent most of his career at the R&D Center holding leadership positions in corporate and advanced technology intelligence and strategy, alliance management, and innovation commercialization. In the early 2000’s he worked with Clayton Christensen’s team on a disruptive technology assessment of the automotive industry, and then led strategic initiatives based on the resulting insights. He was a founding member and Vice President of GM’s corporate venture capital arm, GM Ventures, in 2010 and led commercialization strategy and planning for the R&D Center’s open innovation and internal startup program. Earlier in his career he managed international product and portfolio development and new business development initiatives.
Before joining GM Clay served as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Navy. He holds a BA degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and an MBA from Columbia University in New York City. For fun, he is an amateur musician and composer, and enjoys sailing on big water whenever possible.
Prior to launching his advisory practice, he was an executive at General Motors where he spent most of his career at the R&D Center holding leadership positions in corporate and advanced technology intelligence and strategy, alliance management, and innovation commercialization. In the early 2000’s he worked with Clayton Christensen’s team on a disruptive technology assessment of the automotive industry, and then led strategic initiatives based on the resulting insights. He was a founding member and Vice President of GM’s corporate venture capital arm, GM Ventures, in 2010 and led commercialization strategy and planning for the R&D Center’s open innovation and internal startup program. Earlier in his career he managed international product and portfolio development and new business development initiatives.
Before joining GM Clay served as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Navy. He holds a BA degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and an MBA from Columbia University in New York City. For fun, he is an amateur musician and composer, and enjoys sailing on big water whenever possible.