About Us
Innovative Thought is an organization that offers clients individualized attention and experience. We are passionate about people and innovation. Working with clients from around the world, Innovative Thought helps organizations deal with the challenges of leadership, innovation and team development. Our aim is to build your organization’s capability for sustainable high performance.
Our approach is grounded in the latest academic research. All of our team have one foot in the academic world and one foot in business. This allows us to translate the latest thinking into the practical application and to enable our clients to have a competitive advantage in how they select, deploy and develop their people.
Our Team
President
Peter Steinberg
Pete has been working with organizations for almost 20 years, helping clients create more effective organizations. His expertise is working with exceptionally smart and creative people in very dynamic environments. Pete has provided consulting in innovation, leadership, strategic planning, marketing, recruiting and organizational development to clients. He is a master facilitator and instructor and works regularly as an executive coach for senior executives.
Pete was also an elite rugby coach, coaching the USA Women’s Rugby Team at 2 World Cups and at the Rio Olympics. He was the head coach of the Penn State Women’s Rugby team for 19 years winning 10 National Championships. He is a strong advocate for women’s leadership and uses his experience in elite sport to help organizations become more effective in developing their female talent.
Pete holds affiliated faculty positions with the Tepper Business School at Carnegie Mellon University and the Smeal College of Business at Penn State.
“We have an unusual educational consulting model at Innovative Thought. Unlike other consulting companies that do the work for you, we offer an approach that enables our clients to develop the skills to manage their own organization. Whether it is strategic planning, innovation or marketing, we always see it as a way to develop our clients capabilities so they do not need consultants in the future.”
Affiliated consultant
Maria Taylor
Maria Taylor is the former Executive Director of Executive Education at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. Throughout her career, Maria has combined strategic and financial acumen with organizational and leadership development to build the processes, systems and talent required for rapid and profitable growth. She has worked with clients in strategic and market planning, talent and learning systems solution design, and executive education. Maria co-authored Human Resource Transformation (Davies-Black 2008) and The Strategic Human Resource Leader: How to Prepare Your Organization for the 6 Key Trends Shaping the Future (Davies-Black 1998). She has published articles and papers in the Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Management Development, and The Institute for the Study of Organizational Effectiveness.
Affiliated consultant
Sam Hunter
Sam Hunter is an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Penn State University, with expertise in both leadership and innovation management. He has partnered with a range of organizations on applied and academic projects, including Lockheed Martin, NATO,Google, Nike, and Epic Games. His research has been funded the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and the Department of Defense. Sam is the current director for the Leadership and Innovation Lab at Penn State University.