Eddie Obeng

Eddie Obeng’s project career began as an engineer researching the implementation of novel biotechnology, for which he filed a global patent. His engineering skills won recognition for his design and project execution of the most energy efficient rfinery in Europe. Later at Ashridge Business School, whilst studying the impact of speed and scale on business, he took on the project management suite of courses only to discover the approach and content was obsolete. In the 1990s he was a pioneer in focus on the art-of-project management – the human and context as well as broadening the science-of-project management to cover more open, foggy projects that required agile flexible methods These are covered in the first edition of All Change!
His Global TED Talk introduces the World After Midnight model (WAM) that makes sense of our 21st century challenges. Applying the model across business challenges produced ten books including two Financial Times best sellers. Duke CE call him ‘the Rock Star of Business Education’.
Eddie created the world’s first Virtual Business School, Pentacle, in 1993. The model was to interlace learning and application. Pentacle has been operating on campuses in an enterprise-metaverse, QUBE, for over ten years. In the words of the Wall Street Journal, QUBE ‘is a campus filled with meeting rooms a, common areas giant screens and whiteboards’. To The Economist, QUBE ‘creates a fuller sense of shared experience, spontaneous human reaction and relationship building’.
The impact of Eddie’s project management tools and method innovations earned him a lifetime achievement Monty-Finniston Award. Eddie’s influence on the global Design community stems from his role on the Board on the UK Design council and in the re-invention of IDEO.
Eddie is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Henley Business School.
He also holds a helicopter pilot licence.