Giles Jacknain.jpg

Giles Jacknain

Principal

For more than two decades, Giles has helped the leaders of global organizations develop customer-centric strategies to sense, seize, and secure new opportunities for growth, organically and through innovation and acquisition.

He has lead consulting teams for global clients including, Microsoft, Google, VMWare, Take2, CenturyLink, Zebra Technologies, Caterpillar, Johnson Controls, Staples, Underwriter Laboratories, JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), Aon, and Accenture, as well as private equity firms, midcaps, startups, and nonprofits.

Recent engagements include:

Digital Transformation Strategy: For a $2.2B global testing, inspection, and certification provider, used natural language processing and machine learning to analyze market data, transaction history, and client feedback to uncover and qualify a $1 billion share of wallet growth opportunity. Established plans for digitally transforming the business model through unified, integrated data, online testing and engineering, and an interactive client experience to drive 20% in incremental growth over three years.

Enterprise Strategy: Led the largest independent owner-operator of electricity infrastructure in the US in scenario planning to find new sources of growth in the face of disruptive technologies, setting the groundwork for a strategic sale at a 33% premium.

New Business Strategy: Helped a $16B communications network provider examine the intersection of emerging trends and capabilities to highlight innovative opportunities for solution offerings to fuel new growth as their core IT infrastructure outsourcing business became commoditized. Supported planning and operationalizing their big data solution, driving $1M in incremental revenue in year one.

Acquisition Market Assessment & Strategy: For a $500 million, publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), enabled the roll-up of six high-performing emerging technology providers to create a new company representing the leading SaaS solution for the public sector in North America.

Go-to-Market Strategy: Following a merger, helped a $5B hardware manufacturer redefine its value proposition and redesign its go-to-market strategy to elevate its offerings from computer peripherals to become the leading provider in the Internet of Things and Enterprise Intelligence space.

Giles has an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Master’s degrees from Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities, along with his undergraduate degree from Edinburgh.

In addition to his work with the Market Strategy Group, Giles teaches postgraduate courses in Collaborative Product Development and Commercializing Innovation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. To recover from the working week, Giles enjoys horseback riding.

 giles.jacknain@mkt-strat.com