2018 IMAP Fall Conference in Miami

Over 90 delegates from IMAP member firms, representing 32 countries, congregated in Miami from October 25th - 27th to attend IMAP’s 2018 Fall Conference.  The event was hosted by Falls River Group (FRG), IMAP’s partner firm in Florida and was set around the theme of ‘Disruptive Innovation’. Kerry Dustin, Chairman and CEO of FRG, and IMAP Chairman Jurgis Oniunas, launched the conference in style.

The Symposium, held prior to the main conference and attended by clients, allowed hosts FRG to introduce two leading experts involved in buying, building and valuing innovation. John Nottingham, Co-President and Co-Founder of Nottingham Spirk, a leading business and product innovation firm, along with Mike Wetzer, Founder & CEO of The Coastal Investors and an accomplished Senior Executive, Investor, Entrepreneur and Innovator, both shared practical examples of business innovation products and processes that have delivered transformational results.

The IMAP ‘Perspectives’ panel showcased deals where clients are truly working on the edge of innovation and illustrated the converging forces and cross-sector disruptions, with case studies presented in the Life Sciences, IT/Automotive, Consumer, Energy and Industrial Packaging sectors.  The geographic disruption panel covered current topics and trends from around the world that have potentially wide-ranging effects on our business environment. It included IMAP partner perspectives from China, Europe (and in particular, Italy’s new direction), NAFTA and Brexit.

The aim of the conference was to reinforce the mindset needed to embrace disruptive innovation and leverage that mindset internationally, by looking at disruptions in one sector and applying the learnings to other industry verticals. The theme also sparked ideas on how IMAP can internally harness disruption and innovation in its thinking and processes. 

IMAP’s next global event will be the 2019 Spring Conference, which will be held from 22-23 of March in Munich, Germany.