Theodore Forstmann

All industries have innovative pioneers, and the financial industry had one with Theodore Forstmann, who recently passed away at the age of 71. Theodore Forstmann, with others, pioneered leveraged buyouts (LBOs), which is responsible for not only leveraging new companies, but also leveraging and enabling dormant human capital already within organizations.

Mr. Forstmann is associated with the following quote: “The entrepreneur, as a creator of the new and a destroyer of the old, is constantly in conflict with convention. He inhabits a world where belief precedes results, and where the best possibilities are usually invisible to others. His world is dominated by denial, rejection, difficulty, and doubt. And although as an innovator, he is unceasingly imitated when successful, he always remains an outsider to the ‘establishment.'”

If organizations have such individuals within their ranks, perhaps they will make productive members of innovation teams.

reference: WSJ, editorial page, Nov. 22, 2011

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