My passion and unique talent is helping complicated groups of people articulate what they can all rally around but haven’t yet found the words for. I believe the best hopes for transformative progress – as organizations, as institutions, and as a society – lie in the shared path not yet written.
After earning his MBA from Columbia Business School in New York in 2001, Josh Greenhut spent three years as an executive speechwriter at IBM.
In 2004, he went to work for a very different sort of large, mysterious enterprise: author Lemony Snicket. Mr. Snicket’s best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events was being adapted into a movie starring Jim Carrey, and there was a great deal of marketing to be written in his stylized voice. Over the years, Josh has written more than 15 kids’ books. His most recent one, Winnie’s Great War, co-authored with Lindsay Mattick, was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. He uses writing children’s books to hone his skill at distilling complexity and keep his writing for organizations fresh.
In 2008, an ad agency asked Josh to lead the development of positioning for North America’s largest maker of backyard fencing. For the first time, he had the opportunity to help a group of people define their strategy from the inside up. The project was a lightbulb moment. Josh had found his calling.
By 2010, Josh decided to professionalize his skills as an interviewer and facilitator. He went to in-sync, a premiere insights firm for healthcare, where he led hundreds of interviews and focus groups with physicians, caregivers, and patients. Once he’d deepened his strengths, he went back out on his own.
In 2012, a design firm called Cooler Solutions became Josh’s client. Originally an industrial design firm, they were evolving to design services and experiences. Josh helped the company clarify who they were and who they wanted to be, which resulted in a new identity: Bridgeable.
In 2014, Josh started serving clients as part of the Bridgeable team. The first project he contributed to – as lead researcher on the redesign of mobile phone contract renewals for TELUS – went on to win “Best Commercial Project” at the 2017 Global Service Design Awards in Madrid.
Ahead of its time in 2012, Bridgeable is now one of the leading Service Design firms in the world. Josh became Strategy Lead, specializing in projects that required facilitating sensitive conversations with C-level executives and Boards, and began producing strategic plans for large organizations.
In 2018, Bridgeable won the opportunity to work with MTA New York City Transit. A new President, Andy Byford, was committed to delivering a comprehensive turnaround plan within his first 100 working days. Josh led the facilitation and writing of the plan, with input from thousands of NYCT employees.
Fast Forward: The Plan to Modernize New York City Transit – and the unique approach to strategy it represented – won a Core77 Award, 1st Place in the Design Value Awards from the Design Management Institute, and a 2019 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award for Mobility.
In 2020, Josh launched Josh Greenhut & Associates, a company dedicated to facilitating and developing vision, values, and plans for enterprises and institutions. He continues to do projects with Bridgeable, where he is Strategic Storyteller-in-Residence. And from time to time, he still writes children’s books to keep his pen sharp.