ABOUT TODDI

Driving innovation and creative approaches to solve business challenges is at the heart of the design thinking, and Toddi Gutner is both a champion of its benefits and an expert in its use. 

As the Global Lead for IS Business Innovation team at Firmenich, a $4 billion privately-held fragrance and flavor company, Toddi facilitates digital transformation workshops and innovation methodologies trainings with internal and external clients as well as coaches business teams to bring digital ideas to market.

Toddi brings over 25 years of professional experience to her work. She has extensive expertise in developing strategic, client-focused capabilities to drive innovation, leading design thinking, business model canvas and lean startup initiatives and creating communication and marketing initiatives to increase user adoption. She has consulted for companies and organizations such as PFIZER, Capital One, VIAD, and AARP, among others.

With long-term experience in classroom and workshop training, Toddi has taken the practice from IDEO and Stanford (where she studied) into the academic world. She currently teaches at Cornell University’s CornellTech graduate program and Colorado College as well as directly to corporations. Leaders learn to address their business challenges in a way that provides unique insights into behaviors and opens the conversation to new product, service and process ideas as well as strategies to fulfill strategic business goals.

Prior to transforming her career as an innovation professional, Toddi was an award-winning business journalist who covered the financial markets, personal finance, small business and talent management for print, television, radio and the web for The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, MSN Small Business Channel, Reuters, and collaborated on The M Word: The Money Talk Every Family Needs to Have About Wealth and Their Financial Future (McGraw-Hill, 2013).

Toddi was an associate editor at BusinessWeek magazine for 11 years, where she had a proven track record for groundbreaking, provocative stories and special reports. Toddi became the first woman columnist at BusinessWeek magazine when she created and wrote a popular and well-respected weekly column in print and online called HERS, which focused on women and their financial and professional lives. Before joining BusinessWeek, Toddi wrote for Forbes for five years.  Prior to becoming a journalist, Toddi was as an economic analyst for five years at a private economic consulting firm, National Economic Research Associates in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Gutner also ran her communication consultancy that created and executed marketing communications strategies for corporate clients to boost their media profile. Her ability to create dynamic messaging has helped companies enhance visibility and differentiate themselves from the competition. The firm created thought leadership, marketing collateral, and content for websites and social media for global financial and serviced based companies such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young and Accenture. Her work also appears in publications for The Conference Board, an economic and business tank, where she authored a groundbreaking report on “A Leadership Prescription for the Future of Quality.” During this time she contributed as a Senior Strategist to Bliss Integrated Communication, a business-to-business (B2B) strategic public relations and marketing communications.

Ms. Gutner is the recipient of the Medill School of Journalism’s Financial Writers and Editors Award for Best Business and Financial News Coverage for co-authorship of “Guide to Internet Investing” and was a finalist for Financial Journalist of the Year Award for cover story contribution on the hidden impact of AMT in Business Week. She was also nominated for the Newswoman’s Club of New York’s Front Page Award for columns for her weekly column on women’s professional and financial lives for BusinessWeek.

A highly respected expert, Ms. Gutner has been featured on numerous networks and programs including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Power Lunch, Good Day New York, Weekend Today, Lifetime Live, Fox News, and This Week in Business. As a speaker and moderator, Toddi has spoken and moderated
at several conferences including, The Women’s Forum for Economy & Society in Deauville, France, The Conference Board, Deutsche Bank's Women on Wall Street, Financial Women's Association and others.

Toddi has served on several nonprofit boards such as Healthcare Chaplaincy below, a nonprofit dedicated to the spiritual care of families and individuals in need, and on the advisory boards of Nina McLemore, the Belizean Grove and the executive committee of the Winston Preparatory School in Winston, Ct. She is an active member of the International Women's Forum and the Economic Club
of New York.

Toddi holds a Master of Science degree from Northwestern University’s Medill Graduate School of Journalism as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from University of Michigan. She completed Design Thinking Training at Stanford University Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design and the executive education course The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Business Strategy at MIT.

Toddi lives in Chappaqua, NY with her husband and has two adult sons. She enjoys adventure travel, hiking, skiing and reading.

BACKGROUND

Clients

Publications, Teaching & Speaking

INDUSTRY RECOGNITION

  • Finalist for Financial Journalist of the Year Award in 2005 for contribution to cover story on the
    hidden impact of the alternative minimum tax.

  • Finalist for Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism Award in 2004 for special report
    concerning the financial impact of raising children with special needs.

  • Nominated for Newswoman's Club of New York's Front Page Award for columns on the professional and financial lives of women 2002.

  • Won Medill School of Journalism's Financial Writers and Editors Award for Best Business
    and Financial News Coverage in 1999 as a co-writer for the Guide to Internet Investing.