ABOUT US
Beyond Design Thinking. Understanding Ecosystems of Change
What We Do: Designing Better Futures
We help firms understand complex ecosystems so they can design and deliver meaningful change. We specialise in Wicked Problems and Grand Challenges that cross traditional boundaries:
- Industries & Organisations: Aligning corporate strategy with systemic reality.
- Societies & Regions: Navigating the regulatory and cultural complexities of national transitions.
- Cultures & Mindsets: Bridging diverse stakeholders to create a unified path forward.
Our Story: Making Innovation Fit for Purpose
Explorer Labs was founded because traditional innovation is failing to solve today’s biggest challenges. Having led transformations for Fortune 500 companies globally, we saw that linear tools cannot solve non-linear problems.
We evolved into a Strategic Transition firm to bridge the gap between academic theory and industrial reality. We don’t just facilitate workshops; we author the new tools, methods, and frameworks required to navigate a world of “Wicked Problems.”
Explorer Labs provides that map.
Our Approach: Impact Through Innovation
We believe that effective Innovation and Business Design are the only ways to achieve lasting shifts. We don’t just provide insights; we provide the vehicle for change.
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Systemic Insight: Visualising the hidden loops that either drive change or keep you stuck.
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Strategic Business Design: Architecting the models and outcomes that ensure new technology and structural shifts drive long-term impact.
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Operational Delivery: Implementing the tooling, culture, and mindset needed to make these shifts functional and permanent.
A Wicked Partnership
This is our engine for solving global grand challenges. We develop the playbooks and systemic tools used by government teams and industrial leaders to navigate transitions in topics like: Future of Flight, Circular Fashion, Industrial Decarbonisation, Trust in Media, Critical Materials, Regenerative Food Systems, Healthy Housing and more. We provide the infrastructure to turn fragmented ideas into large-scale interventions. Discovery more about Wicked Acceleration Labs Below.
Wicked Labs Research CentreChallenges We Address
We focus on Wicked Complexity:
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Systemic Inertia: Moving organisations beyond “Sustainability Theatre” into deep-tissue industrial decarbonisation and electrification.
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AI-Enhanced Business Design: We do not design AI software; we integrate AI into the systemic innovation process. We help organisations identify exactly where AI serves as a leverage point within their business model to drive efficiency and sustainable impact.
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Knowledge Gaps: Transitioning leadership from linear management to Systemic Mastery, ensuring that Managing Directors, C-Suite, Executives and Teams can “see the whole” and act with certainty.
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Ecosystem Fragmentation: Understanding the hidden variables across industry sectors to align stakeholders around a single source of understanding.
Strategic Partnerships & Academic Roots
Explorer Labs is built on global collaboration:
- Academic Faculty: We lead the “Wicked Problems” and “Deep Tech Acceleration” modules at Imperial College Business School, ensuring our clients benefit from the cutting edge of systemic pedagogy.
- Industrial Scale: Our work with the Global firms and Governments, SME’s and Startups serves as the blueprint for mapping complex ecosystems to drive change.
- Global Standards: As Board Advisors to the Global Innovation Institute (GInI), we help set the professional standards for business design worldwide.
- The Wicked Acceleration Lab: We develop the tools, methods, playbooks used by global teams and students to tackle Grand Challenges and Wicked Problems
How We Support You
We upgrade your organisation’s capability through three core pillars:
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Methods & Tooling: Proprietary frameworks authored specifically for systemic complexity.
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Culture & Mindset: Moving leadership from linear management to Systemic Mastery.
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Business Design Outcomes: Ensuring innovation is a core process that delivers a better future and measurable shifts in performance.
Explorer Labs is on a mission to accelerate how we create sustainable business for the planet and its people.
Our Values
Our core values reflect those of a business started by bunch of constructive-troublemakers seeking to make a positive difference to our planet and its people.
System-Centric, Not Just User-Centric
We look beyond the individual to the entire web of causal loops, identifying the 5% of the system that drives 95% of the change.
Intellectual Rigour & Industrial Grit
We combine faculty-led insights with the raw complexity of Global Grand Challenges
Radical Transparency
Complexity is often used to hide truth. We use it to reveal leverage.
Constructive troublemaking
Inspire others to challenge the way things are done (ask for forgiveness later)
Generative Impact
Every intervention must leave the system more resilient and equitable than we found it.
Embody growth mindset
Learn and grow at every opportunity and be comfortable outside your comfort zone
