Dr. Antonio M. Oftelie is Executive Director of Leadership for a Networked World, an Innovation Fellow at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard University (TECH), part of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, an Expert in Residence at Harvard Innovation Lab, a Commissioner on the Ireland Commission for the Future of Policing, and the Federal Consent Decree Monitor for the Seattle Police Department.
Antonio conducts research at the intersection of law, policy and technology, administers the Harvard Public Sector Innovation Award program, leads the development and teaches of multiple summits and executive sessions, and since 2004, has developed and taught in more than sixty Harvard executive education programs. During his time at Harvard, Antonio has created practitioner-recognized frameworks and maturity models for organizational innovation and value creation including the Shared Services Horizons of Value, the Uptake and Edge Innovation Matrix, and the Health and Human Services Value Curve. As an application of his research, Antonio advises senior government and business executives on organizational transformation by helping them to adapt their mission and strategy, ideate new business and service models, build dynamic capacity, and create performance and value measures. In this capacity, he has directly advised three governors, public and private organizations and the White House. He advises on topics ranging from innovation strategy and shared services to homeland security and pandemic response to economic development, product and service design, organizational collaboration, government relations and public-private partnership strategies.
Prior to Harvard, Antonio worked in private consulting where he led an innovation practice. On the public sector side, Antonio worked for the Minnesota Office of Higher Education where he developed the Student Educational Loan Fund and grew revenue from $12 million to more than $38 million in three years, and later for the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development where he launched the Internet System for Education and Employment Knowledge – a cross-agency and public private partnership which successfully increased citizen and business access to education and workforce development services. Antonio holds a BS in Management and Ethics from Crown College, an MPA with a Business and Government Policy concentration from Harvard University, where he focused his studies on leadership, finance, and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and on strategic management, technology, and innovation at the Harvard Business School, and a Doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University, where his studies and research focused on constitutional and administrative law, technology and society, and institutional transformation.
I am unapologetically bullish on the future of this world.
I’ve never seen an unfixable problem. As a child growing up in South Minneapolis, one of my
favorite pastimes was strolling the lines of the Hiawatha railroad, collecting metal parts that fell
from the cargo trains, and with super glue, a soldering iron and some imagination, putting the pieces
together in new ways.
I haven’t changed much.
Every pressing challenge we have – ensuring economic security, expanding civil rights and justice,
sustaining the environment, redesigning healthcare, improving education, etc. – requires piecing
together innovative ideas in ways that transform our societal capacity to respond and act.
We are well on our way to a brighter future. Information and communication technology will unlock
dramatically new ways to run our organizations. The science behind genomics and molecular biology will
add decades to human lifespans and eradicate the diseases that ravage too many lives. Quantum computing
and robotics will blow the doors off our current productivity limits. Green-oil technologies,
terraforming and carbon sequestration will create clean energy systems as well as heal and sustain our
environment.
Yet there’s much work to do.
Moving forward organizational and technological innovations will be disruptive. As we transform our
communities, businesses, organizations and institutions there will be political and social
ramifications. We’ll have to pace the resulting “adaptive challenge” – surfacing
and resolving the underlying belief systems, loyalties and competencies that can both spur and limit
progress.
The challenge of putting the pieces together charges me up. Leadership for a Networked World, the Harvard
School of Engineering and Applied Sciences-based research programs I run, as well as my advisory
practice, bring together visionaries like you in order to develop the leadership strategy needed to move
forward.
Please poke around this website and let me know what ideas you’d like to engage. Together, we can
work on the solutions that enable our communities, businesses, governments and institutions to foresee
and activate their transformational journey.
Will you join me in this quest? Let’s learn together and create together. Let’s get to work!