What Clients Say

Given our past work together as colleagues at an Innovation Consulting firm, I knew Urko had the skill we were looking for at NetJets in helping us to better understand the needs of one of our key target audiences, CEOs who fly privately for business. This is a tough audience, and Urko worked diligently and creatively to secure their participation and get us the insights we needed. He did an excellent job extracting maximum value from a limited number of interviews. The findings were hugely valuable and enabled us to design a unique, business-centric service with premium pricing. I’m happy to recommend Urko to any business leader looking for a strategic thinker who can become a partner in addressing their challenges, bringing rigor and deep expertise into their innovation and growth strategy efforts.”

– Jeff Baker, Head of Market Research and New Product Development, NetJets

Urko offers high quality and comprehensive services targeted at company growth. He is a skilled strategist, tactician, and implementer. In our work with him he led the design and execution of an important information collection project, and then led our internal and business teams in workshops to integrate the new knowledge into our work. At every step of the process Urko provides the details that create a high level of confidence in the value of the final deliverables. I reflect fondly on the couple of projects on which Urko and I worked together. He is a consummate professional. I certainly learned from him and for that I am grateful.”

– Jim Long, Director, Herman Miller

NFPA had a challenging project of developing new products to meet our customers’ needs. The first obstacle was in how to frame the project. Urko’s patience and guidance in this very important step allowed us to move forward with the utmost confidence in his abilities. He has a deep knowledge of how to get to the customer’s needs all while keeping in mind the results we were trying to achieve. This is something that he never loses sight of while he manages the project. To me this is the biggest benefit he brings to his clients. He has a great ability to listen to his customers and make changes when he thinks it makes sense or when to gently remind you of the process and to stick with it. I would highly recommend Urko. He is professional, knowledgeable and dedicated to his craft.”

– Kim Fontes, Division Director, Product Development, National Fire Protection Association

Urko was a tremendous asset to me as I worked on three big projects simultaneously. He went above the call of duty to help, train, and assist me. I highly recommend him as a diligent, trusted associate who will do great work and make the ride enjoyable.”

– Kim Westover, Director, Marketing and Strategy, J.R. Simplot

Urko worked closely with our technical staff (junior and senior) on a day-to-day basis. He had a very positive influence on the technical team, both personally and professionally. He helped individual staff members improve their customer focus, responsiveness, and business acumen. He was looked on as a trusted advisor. He also talked with many of our key customers and prospective customers. Based on those discussions he helped us see ourselves from their point of view and understand how they define “superior value.” Urko’s findings and recommendations guided us in extending our value proposition beyond a focus on providing excellent engineering services to providing business solutions. If the opportunity arises in the future, we would be pleased to engage Urko for his services.”

– Ronald A. Cudnik, Vice President, Applied Energy Systems, Battelle Memorial Institute

Urko really helped us with the approach he took…If you use this jobs-to-be-done approach, I guarantee you, you’re going to bring some understanding of your customers that you didn’t know about, and this is going to bring the opportunity to highly innovate in your industries in a different way.“

– Christian St-Onge, Director of Global Strategy, Can-Am Off-Road Vehicles, BRP

I have seen Urko speak 3 times, in 3 different venues, and got high value every time. His approach enables companies to find important unsatisfied needs to focus resources, capital, and talent on areas that are known to add value to customers. This improves winning percentages and makes the business more profitable and successful. Understanding customers’ unmet needs is paramount for every business! Finding the best opportunities upfront is priceless. History is paved with new product introductions that failed because companies launched new offerings without knowing their customers’ unmet needs. Companies can spend a little now to identify the best market opportunities, or waste a lot of resources and money later.

– Gary Landsettle, Former Commercial Vice President, Asia Pacific, Ashland, Inc.

What I valued most about working with Urko was his patience in helping me understand the jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) approach, its benefits, and gain a greater insight into the gym market in South Australia. If you want to partner with someone who lives and breathes JTBD every day, then I recommend Urko to help you accomplish your innovation objectives.

– Michael Grope, Entrepreneur, South Australia

We had worked with Urko previously, and when we were considering a study on our doctoral students, we harkened back to the time we had hired him to connect with some undergraduate students. The quality of the work, the conversations that Urko was having with our prospective students and now our current students was very, very helpful, insightful, actionable, …and will help us to be more effective as an organization. I would absolutely recommend Urko and his team to any other executives who really are seeking a deeper understanding of their customer experience, who are genuinely interested in listening to the good, the bad, and the ugly, and trying to incorporate that in changing things to be more responsive. Urko was the natural choice.”

– Lynne Rouzer, PhD, Senior Vice President, Student Affairs and Enrollment Management, Franklin University

We were contemplating developing a strategic plan to double the size of the firm and came up with a lot of good ideas about how to do that but, ultimately, most of the ideas were around how to do what we were already doing better as opposed to how we can add something new. We realized that sitting in our offices trying to make up lists of things that we could sell probably wasn’t the right approach. That’s when we reached out to Urko to help us figure out what people wanted to buy rather than what we wanted to sell. That was very eye-opening because it helped us get outside of our own heads and think more broadly from the customers’ point of view.

One of the most important things that came out of our work with Urko was a shift in our mentality from focusing on what we know how to do, to what the client is trying to get done. Instead of saying “Here’s the audit report,” now we ask, “What is the client trying to get done with the audit report and how can we provide good business advice along with that work product?”

– Darci Congrove, Managing Director, GBQ Partners

We hired Urko to help us identify with precision where the opportunities for value creation lie in a particular market of interest. He exceeded our expectations and we enjoyed working with him immensely. He was professional, conscientious, collegial, a coach, and willing to spend extra time with us when we needed it. We are very excited about the results and we have high hopes that they will play an important role in helping us make vehicles that customers want to buy.”

– William J. Rosen, Technical Director, General Motors

Urko spoke to the Association for Corporate Growth, Columbus, on strategic growth, teaming with an executive of NetJets. Urko is an engaging speaker and presents this topic is a very enjoyable, understandable, and usable manner. I recommend him for consulting engagements and for presentations to groups like ACG which are interested in promoting corporate growth”

– Curtis A. Loveland, Partner in Charge, Corporate Department, Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur LLP

We hired Urko to help us uncover opportunities in a market with a high level of precision to develop next-generation products. We were extremely happy with the results of the project.”

– Paul Crossman, VP of Marketing, National Fire Protection Association

I was very impressed with Urko’s deep and expert knowledge. I couldn’t imagine a better experience and we created a very high-quality output. Urko is the perfect example of a professional and was very easy and friendly to work with. If I worked with someone on a project of this nature in the future I would insist that Urko be the guy.”

– Mike Irving, New Product Manager, A-Dec

We hired Urko to help us implement a sales strategy and generate more business for our R&D consulting group. In my first conversation with him, I couldn’t help but recognize professional and personal attributes that are often difficult to find in a consultant. He asks the right questions and listens for the real need of his clients. He cares deeply about his clients’ problems, suggested processes for improvement and achieved a consensus among our staff concerning the steps we should take. In a short period of time, we had implemented effective business and sales strategies that are tailored to our market, and we would not have considered without Urko’s creative input. I can’t recommend him highly enough.”

– Stephen Ricci, PhD., Principal Research Scientist, Engineering Firm

If we can accomplish this much in ten weeks — what can we accomplish in an entire year? Now we have a strategic plan and we know what we want to accomplish and that we can do it. Telefund Management is on its way. And it never would have happened if we had not had first class consultation from you. Thanks.”

– Stephen F. W. Schatz, Chairman, Telefund Management Incorporated

I have known and worked with Urko Wood for the past seven years. I can recommend him whole-heartedly as a colleague who has consistently demonstrated insight, integrity, diligence, and strong customer focus. He is particularly skilled at developing rapport with project teams. I also worked with Urko several years ago in preparing a business case on marketing strategy for in-house training at Duke Energy-Canada. His development of the training materials was superb. Our client feedback was that the training was clear and compelling, bringing a sense of urgency to an organization threatened by substantially increased levels of competition. I would be pleased to have the opportunity to work with Urko again and can highly recommend his consulting services.”

– David E. Jones, President, Jones Management Consulting