Strategic Initiatives Manager | Growth & Impact through Collaborative Partnerships

I lead and write from a place of purpose, heart posture, and story. 

My work spans development, partnerships, and strategy, and the thread through everything is relationship. I listen closely, notice what’s often unspoken, and use storytelling to help people feel seen, valued, and invited into something meaningful.

At the core of who I am is this
people matter
stories matter
and when the heart is engaged, everything changes.

Summer Applegate🍏

Managing Partner, Thinking Dimensions ► LinkedIN Top Voice 2024 ►Bold Growth, M&A, Strategy, Value Creation, Sustainable EBITDA ► NED, Senior Advisor to Boards,C-Level,Family Office,Private Equity ► Techstars Lead Mentor

LinkedIn Top Voice 2024/2025

Harvard Business Review Advisory Council Member, Strategy Tools Best Partner Award 2023  for outstanding work in Corporate Strategy, Transformation, and Growth. Annual Award Winner 2019, 2020 and 2024: Business Consultancy Professional of the Year from Corporate LiveWire. Executive Education Professor of the Year Award for 2021, 2022, and 2023 at CIMBA/University of IOWA, Techstars All-Star Mentor Award for 2024.

I am a Managing Partner at Thinking Dimensions, and an N.E.D.

I work with boards, CEOs, private equity, family office, senior leaders and owners in Fortune 1000 businesses to impact future sustainable growth and profitability.

As managing partner in Thinking Dimensions- an international management consultancy renowned for its problem solving & decision making processes- I am part of a global team delivering EBITDA impacting outcomes to clients through 3 distinct offerings:
 
•	Strategy Definition and Execution
•	Digital Transformation
•	Sustainable Value Creation

Thinking Dimensions has locations and expertise with a network spanning 17 countries of which I have conducted business on 5 continents.

With 30+ years of international experience in advisory activities balanced between both multinational and family controlled enterprises, I've had the unique opportunity to assist over 250 CEO’s and Senior Business Leaders globally.
  
Issues companies are focused around include:

Digital Transformation
Succession Planning
Corporate Venture Capital
AI Governance/Integration 
Internationalization including Early Stage Markets
Value Creation through non-organic growth (M&A, platforms)
Group and corporate reorganization/organization design
Go To Market/Sales 
Business plans/Industrial plans
Develop new business models
Funding of New Market development and commercial opportunities
Executive and board alignment
Platform and Ecosystem Design
Long-Term Sustainability 
Circular Economy and the Business Decisions necessary for the future

The organizations my teams and I work with achieve speed, alignment, and practical results with a future long term view.  

In summary I am working as a trusted advisor assisting leaders with the big decisions necessary for the future. 

I continue to publish at:
 
http://www.thinkingdimensions.com/resources/blog/strategy

As a Non Executive Director, I bring an international perspective focused on new business models, innovative approaches to Strategy, and Diverse capabilities required for sustainability. 

Specialties: Strategy, M&A, PE, VC,Non-Organic Growth, Emerging Markets, Family Office

Scott Newton

Why did the 2024 Mac Mini suddenly sell out on Amazon?

It's not people replacing their desktop machines.

It rather is a new viral trend. So big now that the memes are everywhere, including here.

In one word: Clawdbot

Clawdbot?

Yes, Clawdbot is an AI Assistant that is taking the (nerdy) tech world by storm. 

What does Clawdbot do? If you listen to the early adopter "evangelists" of the bot, everything.

It is an open-source AI tool. Silicon Valley techies are all over the internet, showing off their adaptations. You run it locally on your device, the most popular way at the moment (and of the easier approaches) to set up a Mac Mini and run it as a dedicated server for Clawdbot.

The reason it has become so virally popular is it's very impressive demonstration of Agentic AI. It can autonomously take complex multi step operations and actions on your behalf. 

And because it is Open Source, you can download and install Clawdbot straight from Github.

Is it safe to use?

Well, that's where it gets a bit more scary. Clawdbot has full read/write access to your entire drive, and users are giving it access to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, email, calendars, slack, teams....

The tech professionals, and the founder of Clawdbot are very clear: "Don't use Clawdbot without understanding the risks." 

"Clawdbot is an experiment" and as such there is no "perfectly secure" setup the founders explain. 

I certainly wouldn't encourage you to run it on any business machine in your company, unless you have an IT and Cybersecurity department who are fully aware and have built a sandbox to run this. It can easily go out of control. 

The users brave enough to let the bot be your "eyes and hands" to manage tasks 24/7 are using this Agentic AI to prepare morning briefings, write daily reports, set alerts when high priority messages arrive, read and write files, execute terminal commands, run scripts. 

The bot also controls Chrome to handle web tasks, managers calendars, "triages" email, and interacts with Notion and Todoist for example. 

It is a self learning tool, and can write its own code to create entirely new capabilities. 

Because it runs on your local hardware, it could (theoretically anyway) provide better privacy as compared to cloud-based services.

Hence why the little Mac Mini is sold out everywhere, as techies around the world begin to test out what is truly possible with Agentic AI, especially in open source. 

Fun last fact: Clawdbot are changing their name after a legal action was threatened by Anthropic (imagine why?) As of 01 February, the company will be know as Moltbot, and the cute little crustacean formerly known as "Clawd" will be know as "Molty."

One last warning. The creators of Clawdbot (soon to be Moltbot) refer to it as "Spicy," and what they mean buy that is that the agent does have the ability to "potentially destroy valuable files and leak confidential data if not properly secured."

You have been warned.

Strategy is Mastery.

Managing Partner, Thinking Dimensions ►Bold Growth,M&A, Strategy, Value Creation, Sustainable EBITDA ► NED, Senior Advisor to Boards,C-Level,Family Office,Private Equity ► Techstars Lead Mentor ► LinkedIN Top Voice 24/25

How do you show up?

What you wear, and how, communicates a LOT to those in your environment.

Where you are in terms of context is so important. 

Until recently, world famous organizations such as Lloyds would politely stop men coming in to the office without a tie. Mandatory dress code. Airlines have published detailed dress codes for employees since the inception of flying.

Why you chose to where a specific outfit and style will immediately set the tone as to how you are perceived. This is not always a positive by the way:

I famously went once (many years ago) to a corporate retreat and board meeting in the Rocky mountains with my case full of usual suits and ties. That was not my best decision to put it politely.

What are your "go to" outfits for business, and how have they changed over the years?

Until 2020, I wore a tie six days a week. I still have a collection of hundreds of my very favourite ties, yet now I am more likely to use them at most twice a week. Even now though I always pack 2 or 3 versatile beloved ties in my carry on.

Standards and expectations change.

How do you adapt to the times, and what are your favourite choices for business meetings and events? What do you find is the impact of your business attire on outcomes?

Is it time to bring back dress codes for the office?

Strategy is Mastery.

What do you think?

Palantir Technologies currently has a vending machine in its Washington, D.C., office, with nicotine pouches free for anyone 21 and older. 

Industries including Media, Finance, Big Law, and Technology have users in professional roles choosing to use Nicotine pouches for increased concentration.

As a former smoker (many decades ago now,) I can appreciate the draw: caffeine and nicotine together lead many people to note their concentration is improved for hours. I know this worked for me when the days exceeded 18 hours or more straight.

And pouches are noted to have lower negative health impacts as compared to smoking a cigarette. 

The Financial Times have noted this weekend that "Big Tobacco is turning into Big Nicotine." 

British American Tobacco (owner of pouch brand Velo) shares have risen over 90% in the past two years, and with a market cap of £92 Billion are now the 6th most valuable company in the UK.

Certainly a well designed pouch that removes unnecessary chemicals and additives can cause less harm than smoking. I support thoughtful technology that can help people to reduce harm. It wasn't that long ago that people were chain smoking in offices (especially in Media, Entertainment, and Finance for example.)

Will other companies follow in the footsteps of Palantir and Silicon Valley Tech in offering this amenity in their offices?

How well does your Strategy address changing trends and social norms?

Strategy is Mastery.

Photo credit: The Hustle

I love Minneapolis.

A great city. Beautiful area. I have had the opportunity to visit many times, both for business and leisure. A major hub for Delta airlines (used to be Northwest.)

Minneapolis is major corporate centre, with one of the highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the world. The city is known globally for innovation, health technologies, advanced manufacturing and food production.

Some of the largest multinational companies headquartered in Minneapolis include

Target (retail)
UnitedHealth Group
Best Buy
General Mills
3M

and Cargill, which is the largest private company in America.

Minneapolis also is home to “Medical Alley,” which is the number one ranked centre for healthcare medical technoogy in the world.

Currently with unemployment at just 3.7%, Minneapolis is an economic success story globally envied, even as 59% of businesses cite it is difficult to hire due to competitive conditions for labour.

Minnesota is ranked sixth in the nation for business, is home to over 1200 foreign owned companies, and has business taxes below the national average. The economic contribution of the state is $472 Billion in GDP for 2023 and growing. In the past two years the state has experienced tens of billions of dollars in new investment, including significant projects for AI Data Centres and Sustainable Aviation Fuel.

Award winning innovative industry leaders in Minneapolis include Ameriprise Financial (Fortune magazine’s most innovative company for 2026,) Gravie, Flywheel, NetSPI, Ascent Solutions, and Medtronic, as well as the others I have listed above. 

In Venture Capital, Minneapolis is ranked as a global ecosystem leader, and the tech sector contributes $28 billion to the local economy while accounting for 10% of the total workforce. The city is in the top 50 worldwide for both SaaS and Hardware/IOT.

This article is part of a series I share on Sunday of cities I have visited and conducted business in all around the world. Pictured below is me flying into the international hub at MSP, a major Delta operations centre.

My thoughts and support today are with all the kind hard working people living in Minneapolis, and their Constitutionally Protected Rights. Let us all ensure that the Constitution is respected, human rights are protected, and transparency and goverance are the cornerstone of every decision and action in the USA in the future.

How well does your Strategy address the opportunities in Minneapolis in a future that is not x+1?

Strategy is Mastery.

No alternative text description for this image

Back to the Future?

A trend which started on TikTok has taken over digital media this month. People posting photos of January 2016, with a tag of "2026 is the new 2016."

Celebrities, Entrepreneurs, Executives, Sports Heroes, and everyone in between... are all posting pictures from their digital camera rolls of 2016.

It has now spread worldwide, and while social media viral trends are often odd (remember the Ice Bucket challenge,) this one particularly so.

Why?

Because as humans we tend to look optimistically forward, and think about the future, while this trend is purely nostalgic to rewind back time by a decade.

2016 was a good year. As was 2025. And there is much to look forward to in 2026.

Yet a more interesting question than to rewind to 2016 is to think ahead to 2036.

What world will you create in 2036 which, while making you look back fondly to 2026, excites you even more about 2037, 2046, and beyond?

In your Strategy (both personal and corporate,) what key assumptions do you hold about the future, and where are your decisions and actions prioritizing and addressing your critical implications?

Because in a future that is not x+1, Strategy Is Mastery.

Photo: January 2016, speaking at a business conference, Ernie Els Winery, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

When were you last in Rome?

One of the most powerful impacts I feel in Rome is the history. You are walking through what was the headquarters of the first global empire.

History can teach us so much, and I take the opportunity to consider and study what it means in our current context and looking towards future scenarios.

I studied Latin, and still today recall translating passages related to Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known as Caligula.

Gaius was Roman emperor from 37 to 41 CE, initially adored but later remembered for extreme cruelty, tyrannical behaviour, and eccentricity. 

In his initial reforms, Caligula destroyed previous legal records of treasonous criminals, recalled exiles to Rome, and bringing back the public spectacles (held in the Colosseo which I have taken a picture of below.)

A year into power, Caligula fell ill and began to behave very erratically: killing for pleasure, claiming divine status, and attempting to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul.

Caligula had a fondness for grandiose, costly building projects, many of which were intended to benefit or entertain but are described in Roman history sources as wasteful. The projects drove the powerful Roman empire into financial disaster, after spending vast sums of money on lavish building projects dedicated to himself. 

More disturbingly still, he took great pleasure and power in humiliating the responsible Roman senate, and replaced their legally binding power with his own absolute personal authority. In the course of 39, Caligula's increasingly tense relationship with his Senate deteriorated into outright hostility and confrontation.

History has not been kind to legacy of Caligula and summarizes his rule as: "increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant, and sexually perverted thereafter, an insane, murderous tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, humiliated the Senate, and planned to make his horse a consul."

Of all the manifestations of wild and extravagant behaviour exhibited by Caligula during his brief reign, "nothing has better served to confirm the popular notion of his insanity than his apparent demand to be recognised as a god." 

Caligula sold priesthoods for his unofficial "genius cult" to the wealthiest nobles, for a per capita fee of 10 million sesterces, and made loans available to those who could not afford immediate full payment. 

Caligula is also remembered for his disastrous military invasions in CE 41, where he had to abandon an attempted invasion of Britain, and the installation of his statue in the Temple in Jerusalem. In personal life, Caligula divorced three times in his short stay on Earth. Historians also note that "the extreme stresses and strains of Imperial rule, for which Caligula was temperamentally ill-equipped, lead to considerable health complications."

In your Strategy, how effectively do you consider how past historical events coincide with future possible scenarios?

Strategy is Mastery.

You may not at first think that a story beginning with Venetian global explorer Marco Polo in 1285 connects to modern day strategy, M&A, and branding.

Yet it was in 1285 that Marco Polo first visited the port city of Xiamen in Fujian province. He was most interested in trading silk, porcelain, spices, and precious stones and metals, while he transferred knowledge about manufacturing, paper money, and gunpowder.

Fast forward seven centuries, and you had the leading performance footwear brands from Montebelluna in Italy looking for locations to scale their production to meet the global requirements of top technical brands including NIKE.

In 1991, Ding Shizhong of Fujian launched a small outsourcing factory, beginning to build shoes for Nike and Adidas. Yet anyone who has ever met Ding will note that while he remained humble and focused, the vision he shared was global. 

Ding understood early on that the brands held the power with the customer, and to become a strong player he too would need to leverage his company Anta Sports with a Go To Market approach that included well known brands. For this reason, Ding famously pledged to build "not China's Nike, but the world's Anta."

Starting in 1999, Anta sponsored table tennis champion Kong Linghui, the first step towards building a consumer recognized company. In 2009 Anta acquired the rights in China to Italian brand Fila. 

In 2025, Fila accounted for 33% of total revenues for Anta, while the Anta brand reached 44%.

My first business visit to PRC to assess the opportunities in outdoor sports and technical brands was in 2002. Already you could see that there was a buzz building. It has only increased, steadily moving towards a crescendo.

In 2019, Anta lead a €4.9 billion acquisition of Amer sports, the Finland based group of high performance technical brands including Arc'Teryx, Salomon, Wilson, Atomic, Peak Performance, Armada Skis, ENVE Composites, Louisville Slugger, EvoShield, ATEC, and Luxilon.  

Anta relisted Amer in 2024 on the NYSE, and retains 39% of the group.

In 2025, Amer acquired German outdoor brand Jack Wolfskin for $300 million.

This week, Anta made M&A headlines again, purchasing 29% of the German brand PUMA for €1.5 Billion from the Pinault family office, with Anta becoming the largest shareholder.

“Anta gained so much experience in managing production for Nike, Adidas, and Puma”  explains Yu at Kanter Worldpanel.

Anta said it expected the Puma stake to “enhance its presence and brand recognition in the global sporting goods market, thereby strengthening its overall international competitiveness.”

Just as Marco Polo transferred knowledge centuries ago, entrepreneur Ding Shizhong is learning and building a global outdoor activewear empire.

How well does your Strategy embrace new partnerships, developing and learning from your customers, and building global M&A programmes for long term value creation?

Strategy is Mastery.

Photo (author:) Arc'Teryx Store, Ningbo China

Do you want to go "behind the scenes" at Davos?

Our ever capable Strategy technology colleagues were able to monitor the camera system of the first "Bored of Peace" meeting which took place yesterday evening, and actually capture the moment when the tie breaking vote for withdrawing the invitation to Canada was resolved.

To validate the accuracy of this photo, the posting by Trump on his social media page immediately following the meeting last night: “Please let this Letter serve to represent that the Board of Peace is withdrawing its invitation to you regarding Canada’s joining, what will be, the most prestigious Board of Leaders ever assembled, at any time.”

How well does your Strategy track leading indicators and the weak signals that indicate changes in your global operating environments?

Strategy is Mastery. 

Fun quiz Friday: Which movie was this photo from? Year?? ;)

What happens when this happens?

As pension funds, governments, sovereign wealth funds, UHNWIs, Family Offices, insurance companies, alternative investors, and financial institutions confront a future that is not x+1, what will be the  key trigger that kicks it all off?

How close are we to crossing the red lines?

Where does your Strategy test your key Strategic assumptions for a future that is not x+1?

What weak signals are you regularly testing, and Why will you know when the data is changing in advance of monumental shifts?

In my experience, it is precisely in times of extreme volatility when a proven tested Strategy system delivers the most exceptional positive results.

Strategy is Mastery.

We all know that through every series of cycles, "Winter is Coming." 

Are you ready for it?

taplio

The Battle

Summer Applegate🍏

Scott Newton

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