Roger L. Martin

Roger L. Martin

World’s #1 Management Thinker, Architect of ‘Playing to Win’ & Former Dean of the Rotman School of Management

Core Intelligence Domain: Business Strategy
Location: Toronto, Canada | Languages: English
Representation: Represented globally by PSpeakers Global Intelligence

Roger L. Martin is globally recognised as one of the most influential management thinkers of our time, renowned for his proprietary frameworks in business strategy, integrative thinking, and enterprise design. Named the world’s #1 Management Thinker by Thinkers50, Martin has fundamentally revolutionised how global organisations approach strategic choice-making and competitive advantage. Acting as a trusted strategic advisor to the CEOs of some of the world’s most successful corporations, including Procter & Gamble, Lego, and Ford, he bridges the critical gap between rigorous academic foresight and high-impact corporate execution. His overarching mission is to challenge outdated management paradigms, replacing them with dynamic, choice-driven strategies that empower leaders to navigate volatility and achieve sustainable market dominance.

Strategic Leadership & Institutional Transformation

Martin’s legacy of leadership is deeply rooted in his transformative tenure as the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto (1998–2013). Under his visionary guidance, Rotman emerged as one of the premier global business schools, distinguished by its pioneering curriculum that integrated design thinking and strategic innovation. Prior to his academic leadership, he spent 13 years as a Director at Monitor Company, the preeminent global strategy consulting firm, where he served as co-head of the firm for two years. Today, he continues to shape global business education as a Professor Emeritus at Rotman and the Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute.

Proprietary Frameworks: The ‘Playing to Win’ Methodology

At the core of Roger L. Martin’s strategic foresight is the Playing to Win framework, co-developed with former P&G Chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley. Moving away from the conventional view of strategy as a static, risk-averse planning exercise, Martin redefines strategy as a cascading series of distinct, hard choices: What is our winning aspiration? Where will we play? How will we win? What capabilities must be in place? What management systems are required? This methodology has become the gold standard for executive suites worldwide, shifting corporate focus from mere operational effectiveness to genuine competitive separation.

Beyond strategy, Martin is the pioneering architect of Integrative Thinking—the cognitive capacity to hold two opposing ideas in mind and creatively resolve the tension to forge a superior model. His extensive body of work, comprising 13 critically acclaimed books such as The Design of Business, When More is Not Better, and A New Way to Think, alongside dozens of Harvard Business Review articles, consistently challenges leaders to abandon algorithmic business models in favour of heuristic, design-driven innovation.

Key Speaking Topics

• Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works: Demystifying strategy by breaking it down into a practical, actionable cascade of choices that drive market leadership and competitive advantage.
• Integrative Thinking: Equipping executives with the cognitive tools to solve complex, multidimensional business dilemmas without settling for suboptimal compromises.
• The Design of Business: Why design thinking and heuristic innovation are the next ultimate competitive advantages for modern organisations.
• A New Way to Think: Overcoming outdated, mechanical management frameworks and adopting contemporary models that align with modern corporate realities.
• Fixing Democratic Capitalism: A macroeconomic perspective on shifting corporate focus from relentless, fragile efficiency to long-term systemic resilience.

Key Takeaways

• Redefine Strategy: Understand that strategy is not a long-term budgeting plan, but a dynamic, continuous process of making precise choices about where to play and how to win.
• Master Strategic Tension: Leverage integrative thinking to transform organisational bottlenecks and conflicting priorities into groundbreaking competitive innovations.
• Embrace Design Thinking: Shift your organisational mindset from pure algorithmic execution to a culture that champions heuristic problem-solving and creative exploration.
• Prioritise Resilience Over Efficiency: Learn to build adaptable, robust corporate structures that thrive in volatile environments, avoiding the fragility inherent in hyper-optimised systems.