MEET JOSH<\/span><\/h3>\nAn \u201cuneducated\u201d engineer, Chief Executive at RPD International, a business that powers corporate R&D departments around the world. He focuses on how to drive innovation and change into businesses and is a world leader in rapid innovation and manufacturing. He explores how to encourage a culture of innovation, inspire teams, future technologies and flexible ways to look at supply chain models.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Josh\u2019 father is a chemical engineer and sparked his interest in engineering the field. He began his engineering career aged 10, by watching the TV show Robot Wars and teaching himself how to design complex components and systems through Google. At first Josh would build his own machines, but later he found out that he needed manufacturers to build the components for his evermore complex creations. He reached out to factories in the UK, but was either met with skepticism or too high prices, so he end up having everything built in China.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At this point, he started to communicate more regarding his creations, connecting with other engineers online and writing blog posts. Soon enough, people would be asking him for help on how to build and repair things. He began working as a freelance consultant for multinational firms when he was just 15.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Josh founded Miproto: an internet based product design, develop and prototype different products. It allowed anybody to upload their product idea and manage the project as it turned it into something real.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For almost three years Josh ran corporate supply chains across the US, Europe and Asia, from his bedroom, demonstrating how enterprises could use Chinese production to cut their own costs. For two years, nobody asked how old he was and at one point he was earning \u00a310,000 a week. Josh ended his early consultancy career when his clients discovered he was only 17 years old.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Josh didn\u2019t go to University. He found all engineer degrees too technical and unable to solve the real issue: how to unblock the path between an idea and a successful business, without spending a lot of money.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In 2012 Josh founded RPD International and at still just 19 he closed a \u00a3250,000 seed funding round to value the company at more than \u00a31m, just six months after he launched it – in 2017 RPD was rumored to be worth as much as \u00a35m and having a current growth rate of 450% year-on-year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
RPD is an innovation accelerator headquartered in London with offices in The Netherlands, China and Singapore. The company powers global R&D for the multinationals such as Vodafone, Bosch, Pernod Ricard and Unilever. It employs 25 to 80 contractors across London and Shenzhen at any given time, including ex-engineers from Rolls-Royce and submarine designers. At its core the helps companies to test, develop and launch products in weeks instead of years. This is possible due to the distributed creativity model created by RPD: a flexible supply chain of people and facilities in over 40 countries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Josh\u2019s other endeavors and actions supporting innovation:
\n\u203a Corporate Speaking: conference keynotes focusing on how to encourage innovation, and manage change within your business.<\/p>\n
\u203a\u00a0Product Workshops: workshops to help teams develop new product propositions, with a focus on how it’s made and what it will cost.<\/p>\n
\u203a\u00a0Innovation Consultancy: helping big businesses develop innovation programs that make spend more predictable, whilst engaging more people.<\/p>\n
\u203a Advisory Positions: Josh also holds several advisory positions at the Royal Academy of Engineering and multiple investment groups.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”55px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css_animation=”element_from_fade” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” background_color=”#0a0a0a” anchor=”home” z_index=””][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/4″][vc_empty_space height=”120px”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
\u2018I love stupid questions. I think they are brilliant. I think there aren\u00b4t enough stupid questions asked and there aren\u00b4t enough people prepared to answer stupid questions\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text el_class=”name-depo”]<\/p>\n
JOSH VALMAN<\/span><\/h5>\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”140px”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/4″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[vc_row css_animation=”element_from_fade” row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”grid” angled_section=”no” text_align=”left” background_image_as_pattern=”without_pattern” background_color=”#ffffff” z_index=”” css=”.vc_custom_1564055759069{margin-top: 80px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_empty_space height=”100px”][vc_single_image image=”16723″ img_size=”full” qode_css_animation=””][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][vc_column_text] Episode [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][vc_video link=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/MOFzaMh6EJM” align=”center”][vc_empty_space height=”40px”][vc_column_text] Official links [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][vc_column_text] More about Josh Valman Twitter [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”40px”][vc_column_text] Hashtags [\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”5px”][vc_column_text] #joshvalman #rpd #rapidproductdevelopment #engineer #supplychain #manufactore…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full_width.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16722"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16727,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16722\/revisions\/16727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadersinactionsociety.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}