E. Peng, MBA
Asia Consulting Associate
E, Peng, also known as "Roc" in international community, is a seasoned consultant, practitioner and scholar on innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, with over 10 years of work experience in pursuit of innovation excellence.
Roc is the Chief Representative, Greater China of rInnovation Group. Roc also teaches graduate students at Sun Yat-sen University on entrepreneurship and Enterprise Innovation Management. Before his current position, he worked for Accenture in the U.S. and China, GE Corporate U.S., Oracle China and Beijing Beida Jade Bird on various roles related to innovation team and project management. Roc has provided professional innovation management and technology training and consulting services to Fortunate 500 companies and large NGOs as well as small firms across multiple industries on strategic planning, system integration and innovation management projects. The clients he has serviced are, among others, China Mobile, Best Buy U.S., China Construction Bank, Bureau of Shanghai Worldexpo Coordination, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone Group, Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce. He is a senior member of the China Creative Studies Institute, Birds of a Feather Innovation Leaders Group and Toastmasters International, among many other professional organizations.
Roc earned his M.B.A. in radical innovation and corporate entrepreneurship from the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York and a B.E. in fluid mechanics from University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. He has co-authored two books, numerous papers and delivered presentations at seven premiere conferences internationally on topics covering business, IT, innovation, creativity and corporate entrepreneurship. Roc has travelled to nine countries and currently he is based in Shanghai, China.
Dr. Gina O'Connor
Founding Advisor
Dr. O’Connor is Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College and a Founding Advisor at rInnovation Group. Gina is a well-recognized thought leader in the field of innovation, having been widely quoted in The Economist and Fast Company, among other publications. She has executive education experience with General Motors, IBM, Albany International and other companies in the Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship (I&CE) program at RPI. At the rInnovation Group, she guides global Fortune 1000 companies in how to develop, embed and sustain innovation management capabilities through the rInnovation Group.
Gina’s fields of interest include new product development, radical innovation, technology commercialization, and strategic marketing management in high-technology arenas. Most of her research efforts focus on how firms link advanced technology development to market opportunities. She has numerous articles in refereed journals, including Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM), Journal of Marketing, Organization Science and R&D Management. She is the only JPIM contributor to have won five best paper awards. She is Co-author of Radical Innovation: How Mature Companies Can Outsmart Upstarts, HBS Press, December 2000; Lead Author of Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation, Jossey Bass, 2008, a Strategy + Business Magazine Innovation Award winner, along with Innovation Nation, Wikinomics and Patent Failure.
Her other contributions include: Co-author Bringing Radical and Other Major Innovations Successfully to Market - Bridging the Transition from R&D to Operations, PDMA ToolBook Chapter 2004; Co-creator of the Learning Plan™ designed for uncertainty reduction; Co-author Implementing a Learning Plan to Counter Project Uncertainty, Sloan Management Review, Winter 2008; Co-author Create Three Distinct Career Paths for Innovators, Harvard Business Review, December 2009; Author Sustaining Breakthrough Innovation, Research-Technology Management Research Report 2009; Author Innovation – From Process to Function, JPIM, 2012; Co-author Beyond Invention: The Additive Impact of Incubation Capabilities to Firm Value, R&D Management 2015; and Author It’s Time to Professionalize Innovation, CIMS Innovation Management Report, July/August 2015. Prior to joining RPI in 1988, Dr. O’Connor earned her PhD in marketing and corporate strategy at New York University, and before that worked at McDonnell Douglas and Monsanto Chemical.
Dr. O’Connor is Lead Author of Beyond the Champion, published in January, 2018.