Pedro Moneo
Most large companies can run innovation labs. Few can turn them into commercial advantage. The gap between emerging technology and a working operating model is where boards lose ground to faster competitors.
Pedro Moneo helps senior leaders move emerging technology from pilot into operating advantage, as founder of innovation consultancy Opinno and publisher of MIT Technology Review in Spanish.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Pedro Moneo
- Structural early sight of emerging technology. As publisher of MIT Technology Review in Spanish and Portuguese since 2008, he sees breakthrough research before it reaches mainstream corporate strategy.
- A working model for moving innovation out of pilot. Opinno has executed digital transformation, AI, and innovation programmes for large enterprises across Europe and Latin America since 2008. The work shows what survives contact with the corporate operating model.
- Engineering rigour applied to commercial decisions. His training as a nuclear engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission, followed by reactor research at Argonne National Laboratory, gives him a system-design lens on technology adoption.
- Direct exposure to innovation markets outside the usual US-UK circuit. Opinno operates from offices across Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, giving him client experience that few speakers can offer.
Biography highlights
- CEO and founder of Opinno, a global innovation consultancy with more than 230 consultants and twelve offices across Europe and Latin America.
- Publisher of MIT Technology Review in Spanish and Portuguese since 2008; former online publisher of Harvard Business Review in Spanish.
- Senior Advisor to NASA on cross-industry innovation summits.
- World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2016), Eisenhower Innovation Fellow (2014), and Aspen Institute Adler Fellow (2016).
- Co-founder of the Madrid chapter of the XPrize Foundation.
- Member of the Board of Advisors at ESCP Business School. Featured as a published case study at IESE Business School.
Biography
Opinno was founded in Silicon Valley in 2008, the week Lehman Brothers collapsed. Pedro Moneo’s bet was that the crisis would force every large company to reckon with technologies they had been avoiding. He was right. The firm now operates from twelve offices across Europe and Latin America, working in the gap between emerging technology and the corporate operating model.
His route to that role is less obvious than the bio of most innovation consultants. He trained as a mechanical engineer at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, then as a nuclear engineer at the French Atomic Energy Commission. He started his career on reactor research at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. Strategy consulting at Accenture and a deputy directorship at FEDIT, Spain’s largest private R&D network, followed before he started the company.
Two adjacent roles anchor his view of emerging technology. Since 2008 he has been the publisher of MIT Technology Review’s Spanish and Portuguese editions. The role gives him sustained early sight of the research that eventually reaches corporate strategy. Since 2016 he has advised NASA on cross-industry innovation summits. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader in 2016, and the Eisenhower Foundation made him an Innovation Fellow in 2014.
Inside a corporate boardroom, the question he keeps asking is the one most innovation programmes avoid. What does the operating model need to look like for this technology to generate revenue? The answers come from Opinno’s enterprise work across Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina.
Key speaking topics
- Innovation as a managed corporate discipline
- Digital transformation in established enterprises
- Artificial intelligence in the operating model
- Open innovation and ecosystem design
- Emerging technology and corporate strategy
- The Iberian and Latin American innovation landscape
Ideal for
- Boards and CEOs trying to operationalise AI and emerging technology beyond pilot stage
- Chief Innovation Officers, CTOs, and transformation leads inside large corporates
- Executive teams in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets who need a credible local voice
- Industry bodies and ecosystem builders shaping national innovation policy
Audience outcomes
- Which emerging technologies are close to commercial maturity, and which are not
- The specific reasons most corporate innovation programmes fail at the transition from lab to operating model
- Worked examples from Opinno’s enterprise engagements across Europe and Latin America
- The texture of corporate innovation in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking markets, where most US and Northern European speakers cannot offer first-hand evidence