Meet Kaihan
The global authority on emerging business trends, technology, and strategy.
Kaihan Krippendorff is the Founder of Outthinker, a global think-tank of chief strategy, growth, transformation, and innovation officers shaping the future of business. He has been recognized by Thinkers50 and Global Gurus as one of the world’s top 20 business thinkers. A sought-after keynote speaker and strategic advisor, Kaihan works with CXOs from the world’s most admired companies, helping them to drive transformation, reduce risk, and chart their path to long-term growth and success.
Ahead of the curve.
Kaihan has 400+ conversations annually with chief strategy officers and executive leaders from across industries where he discusses challenges, solutions, trends, and the future. Kaihan conducts his own proprietary research of trends, technology, and strategy that inform his unique perspective and outlook for the future and what it will take to win.
Podcast Host.
Kaihan hosts Outthinkers, the #1 business strategy podcast for the latest strategic insights, emerging ideas, and future mindsets needed for executives to avoid disruption and lead boldly. He also hosts The Chief Strategy Officer Podcast and Strategy at Scale Podcast — trending new podcasts produced by Outthinker for its growing audience of 40,000+ business leaders. Interviews with iconic CEOs, Founders, CSOs, CIOs, Professors, and Experts pull out practical insights and solutions to key challenges that reach listeners in more than 75 countries.
Tools and frameworks
Combining practical skills and experience honed at McKinsey and Company with one-of-a kind insights, Kaihan’s rigorously researched and tested tools are designed to be intuitive and easy-to-use. His tools have helped create $3B+ of new annual recurring revenue to date.
Author. Professor. Thinker.
Kaihan has published six books, including bestsellers Outthink the Competition, Proximity, and Driving Innovation from Within. He regularly contributes fresh ideas to Harvard Business Review and FastCompany.
Kaihan is a professor at Wharton Executive Education, NYU, FIU, and special guest lecturer at business schools across the globe.
Kaihan has engineering, finance, and business degrees and a PhD in Economics, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering, Wharton, Columbia Business School, London Business School, and Abo Akademi.
Brings diversity and perspective
Kaihan speaks English, Spanish, and German. He is a dual citizen first-generation American who maintains strong familial and cultural ties to South Asia (mother is Bangladeshi), Germany (father’s side), and Latin America (wife’s family). Kaihan has lived on five continents, while work and life has brought him to more than 75 countries. He brings a diverse global perspective to everything he does.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammad Yunus has said, “Kaihan shows that with a compelling idea anyone can change the world” and that message has made Kaihan one of the most sought-after business speakers in the world.
Lifelong learner
Kaihan has always explored from the edge. Raised in a deeply intellectual and globally engaged household, he grew up surrounded by questions that crossed disciplines and borders.
His father, the longest-serving professor at the University of Pennsylvania, invented the field of content analysis and advanced concepts of social constructionism that anticipated today’s era of data, AI, and communication science. His mother, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and social scientist with the United Nations, immersed herself in communities around the world to understand how people live, lead, connect, and shape their futures together.
As a high school student, Kaihan attended a specialized school for gifted artists exploring color, form, and creative expression before studying engineering, finance, and strategic history.
Today, he stands at the intersection of art and science, ancient history and emerging futures, creativity and logic — translating ideas once on the periphery into practical wisdom for leaders building what comes next.
Let’s outthink the future together.
