About - John Winsor

Innovator. Leader. Entrepreneur. Author.

John Winsor is an entrepreneur, thought-leader and global authority on the future of work, open talent and remote work. John’s ideas, expressed through his writing, speaking, and the companies he’s built, have placed him at the intersection of innovation, disruption and storytelling.

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“20 years ago most people saw me as disruptor. Now I consider myself an ambassador for opportunity and success in the open talent era.”

Innovator

The global authority on the future of work.

John is currently the executive-in-residence at Harvard Business School’s Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH), which studies AI and Workforce Transformation strategies, and founder and CEO of Open Assembly, a company that provides content, community, and strategic advising to organizations, people, and platforms to co-create the future of work.

Recently, he has been leading a global industry coalition made up 4000 global leaders in the open talent and innovation industry to start a non-profit trade association, The Center for the Transformation of Work with the goal of Transforming work for a billion people by 2025.

Entrepreneur

Building businesses in the open economy.

In his past life, John was the chief innovation officer of Havas, when Havas purchased his open advertising agency, Victors & Spoils, in 2015. Winsor founded V&S after introducing the advertising world to the practice of co-creation in his role as vice president and executive director of strategy and innovation at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. Winsor had merged his company Radar Communications, the world’s leading open strategy and research company, with CP+B back in 2007. Other companies Winsor founded include Sports & Fitness publishing, sold to Conde Nast, and the Gravity Games, sold to NBC.

Author

John has written the book(s) on open talent for decades.

Winsor’s new book, “Open Talent: Leveraging the Global Crowd to Solve Your Biggest Challenges,” published by Harvard Business Press, comes out in the fall of 2023.

Winsor’s is also the author of “Beyond the Brand,” “Spark,” “Flipped,” and the best-selling “Baked In,” winner of the 2009 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award in marketing. Winsor is also an advisor to the Digital Initiative at Harvard Business School, and a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, Forbes and Digiday.

World Traveler

Witness to global transformation.

Winsor was an early digital nomad. Twenty years ago, he found a satellite dish, mounting it on his house in a village in Mexico and connecting in illegally to a network in Canada to communicate with the world. He has also worked on his skiing, surfing and climbing exploits from Fiji to Alaska.