Strategy First – How Businesses Win Big
In Strategy First, Brad Chase, the mind behind some of Microsoft's largest and most successful initiatives, explains why building robust strategies is the imperative to business success. Chase leads readers through his easy-to-use strategy model, Strategy = E x mc², which teaches readers the art of strategy how to build and execute winning strategies relative to the competition. To supplement the model, Chase provides 5 key tips to strategy prosperity and over 50 examples from a broad range of businesses that help the reader think about how they can use his Strategy First toolkit. The author will inspire readers to examine the effectiveness of their current strategies, using the model that has served him in his distinguished career.
Chase began his Microsoft tenure in 1987, where his award-winning marketing campaign promoting Windows 95 broke numerous records, and his efforts as MSN.com's leader prompted a turnaround of the site's success. Chase ended his tenure at Microsoft in 2002 and since then has served as an advisor and board member to many companies, such as GE, Brooks, Expedia, and the Boys and Girls Club. Chase has also shared his Strategy First approach across the nation through speeches to large and small business executives, incubators, students at topflight MBA programs, and at conferences.
About Brad Chase (Seattle, Washington Author)
Brad Chase has a broad and extensive business career from board member to strategic advisor to marketing and leadership consulting to public speaking to running some of Microsoft’s largest businesses. He has advised leaders from many different size businesses ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 firms in markets ranging from mobile to education to enterprises and consumer services. Some of the companies he has worked with include public companies such as GE, Telstra, VMWare, Mozy (a subsidiary of EMC) and Blucora, to midsize tech companies such as Sonos to start-ups such as Vizrea and Crisply. He also serves and/or has served and held leadership positions on many for profit and nonprofit boards ranging from larger tech companies like Expedia to midsized tech companies like Ooyala to small start-ups like DreamBox to consumer companies like Brooks to non-profits such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of King County and The Nature Conservancy. As a public speaker, Brad has given his talk on business strategy to executives at large and small businesses, to incubators, at conferences and to students at top flight MBA programs.
Before consulting, board work and speaking, Brad spent 14 years at Microsoft finishing his tenure as a Senior Vice President (one of about 17 in the company) and Executive Officer managing a team of over 4,000. From April 1999 until mid-2002, Brad led the turnaround of MSN.com from an internet service also-ran to the worldwide traffic and search leader. Under his leadership MSN and search traffic, revenue, and internal team morale all more than doubled. Prior to MSN, Brad led marketing for the client and server business for Windows 2000, Windows 98 and Internet Explorer (IE) versions 1-5. Brad’s marketing team introduced a new more profitable product strategy for the server and client businesses, successfully launched Windows 98 and Windows 2000 and helped IE become the market leader. Brad also developed and led the marketing strategy, execution and worldwide launch for Windows 95, a record-breaking launch that is often considered the event and product that ushered computers and software into the mainstream. Brad and his team won numerous awards for the Windows 95 marketing effort. Brad also oversaw the record-breaking launches for both MS-DOS 5 and MS-DOS 6, and he was also the first marketing leader for Microsoft Office.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 1987, Brad worked as a sales representative for Boise Cascade's office products division. He holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and a BS degree from the University of California at Berkeley.