News Release

Product Innovation Guru Dr. Robert G. Cooper and Nine Leading Companies Address Business Executives at the 1st Annual Stage-Gate^® Leadership Summit

Ancaster, Ontario- March 13, 2007 – Stage-Gate Inc., in partnership with The Management Roundtable, hosted the First International Stage-Gate Leadership Summit on February 20-21, 2007 in St. Petersburg, FL. The sold-out event was chaired by world-renowned product innovation expert, Dr. Robert G. Cooper, and focused on the innovative practices of organizations (of all sizes and industries) that use the Stage-Gate system to drive successful new products to market.

Dr. Robert G. Cooper opened the event with a powerful presentation outlining the ten best innovation practices of top performing companies. He also informed the business executives that product innovation across most industries was in trouble. According to Cooper, new product portfolios of companies have worsened considerably during this past decade due to shorter-term pressures of meeting the next quarter’s numbers.

“Innovation portfolios have shifted from containing highly profitable ‘New-to-the-World and/or New-to-the-Company’ projects to smaller tweaks and improvements. The percentage of small improvement projects contained in the average innovation portfolio has grown by a staggering 80.1%! This shift is costing industry billions of dollars in new wealth and competitive advantage,” claimed Cooper.

The summit event was devoted to discussing what executives can do to help steer their companies to achieve successful, profitable product innovation that can make a real impact on their businesses. The key topics were organized into three key themes; Innovation Leadership – The Innovation Diamond™, Great Gates – Improving Decision Making and NexGen™ Stage-Gate – Lean, Flexible and Scalable Innovation.

Cooper introduced speakers from nine leading innovators; Ansell Limited, Air Products, CJIT, Exfo Engineering, Hydro Quebec, ITT Industries, Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Kennametal and Procter & Gamble, who openly shared their companies’ experiences, success stories, lessons learned and best practices. “The speakers did a great job and were really very open about their experiences,” commented Cooper.

“This was indeed a very impressive exchange and collaboration of ideas, solutions and experiences with some of our industry’s best and brightest business executives and innovators,” remarked Dr. Scott J. Edgett, Chief Executive Officer of Stage-Gate Inc.” Attendance was a ‘who’s who’ in the world of innovation. Although predominately attended by delegates headquartered in the United States, the event attracted executives from around the world including; Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, United Kingdom and Switzerland.

Numerous Stage-Gate Storyboards were submitted to the Summit by innovation professionals from around the globe. Top storyboards were selected by Dr. Robert Cooper and Dr. Scott Edgett and were displayed at the Summit, including the winning storyboard which was awarded to Lawrence Del Principe of Ansell Limited. Runners-up included storyboards from; Cooper Standard Automotive, Greene Tweed and Company, Kennametal Inc., Parker Hannifin, Sanofi Pasteur and Valley Lab.

Delegates gave the summit high scores on all accounts. “In our 25 years of developing and delivering specialized conference and summit events, we’ve never received such high evaluation ratings across the board resulting in an overall 4.6 out of 5.0,” reported Tracey Kimball, Director of Conferences at Management Roundtable. “There was clearly a ‘buzz’ about the conference for the entire two days”.

The next International Stage-Gate Leadership Summit is planned for April 29-30, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois. Management Roundtable and Stage-Gate Inc., plan to partner and co-host the event again in 2008.

Stage-Gate is a business system designed to drive new products and technologies from idea to market faster and with higher rates of commercial success. Invented by Dr. Robert G. Cooper in 1985 as a result of his ground-breaking research studies, Stage-Gate is now widely accepted by industry as the preferred method for new product commercialization. According to the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) through their benchmarking studies, the percentage of companies in North America using a stage and gate system has almost doubled from 44% in 1995 to 73% in 2005. For more information on the evolution of Stage-Gate, view this downloadable story of its history.