transforming business to disrupt. for bio circular futures‍ ‍

using

Nature’s

design thinking playbook

biomimicry . living systems . relationality

ADAPT . TRANSFORM . DISRUPT .

We specialise in helping exec teams and entrepreneurs, transitioning to the bio circular economy, through the process of business model innovation. Bridging design thinking with living systems biotech science.

we believe strategy connected to the science of life unlocks unparalleled growth opportunity. We believe innovation that leverages Nature’s 3.8 billion years of R&D is the key. We believe the blueprint for market leadership lies with living intelligence. We’re out to showcase what’s possible.

life is rich.

$7.6t

value of circular bioeconomy, with 11.7% growth, positively impacting 9 SDGs (HTF 2025, Taron et al 2024).

70%

of business transformations fail to lift performance (McKinsey & Co 2021)

97%

of business leaders are ill equipped to undertake strategic transformation and innovation (BCG 2024)

#1

barrier to transformation is a leadership skills gap in adaptive agility, and complex systems thinking (WEF 2025)

the 3 problems

we solve

  • Business model innovation (BMI), the process of transforming or redesigning a business model is a compounding problem for bio-circular futures; it sits on top of an existing BMI problem. When it comes to transforming any kind of business model, there are a few big elephants in the room:

    ELEPHANT #1 - BMI SUCCESS RATES

    1. 70% of business transformations fail to improve performance over time (McKinsey & Co 2021). 

    2. 88% of transformation innovations fail at achieving their original goal (Bains & Co 2024).

    3. 97% of business leaders are not ready to deliver strategic innovation (Boston Consulting Group 2024).

    4. What’s more, those 30% of businesses that do succeed, still leave 1/3 of their potential value untapped (McKinsey & Co 2022).

    And the 70% that don’t? Most end in various forms of theatre - restructures, hackathons and process rewrites (5). Digital transformations are now estimated to cost global business an un-fathomable $2.3 trillion dollars in wasted time and effort (6).

    ELEPHANT #2 - BMI CAPABILITIES

    Behind these statistics sits a lack of critical thinking capabilities:

    1. McKinsey & Co (2022) identify the #1 root cause as a lack of fact-based clarity when defining strategic goals and purpose (7). In other words, value gets lost in the thinking.

    2. Bains & Co (2024) identify the #1 root cause as a lack of dedicated people with strategic thinking capabilities (8).

    3. World Economic Forum (2025) identify the #1 barrier to business transformation as a leadership skills gap in resilience, adaptive agility, and complex systems thinking (9).  

    ELEPHANT #3 - BMI TOOLS

    And behind these capability gaps sits a lack of thinking and practice tools. Research continues to reveal that, despite the many business model canvases that exist, it’s (i) the process of BMI that is the primary challenge in sensing and transforming value (Foss and Saebi 2017, Pieroni et al 2019), with (ii) a lack of contextual ecosystem framing (Zott et al 2024), and (iii) a gap in synthesizing the required capabilities needed to undertake a BMI process (Buruleaunu et al 2025).

    In short, there’s a big gap. Plugging this gap is where we play.

    We work with you in three, interdependent, ways:

    • Strategic transformation journey,

    • Capability building, and

    • Diagnostic measurement.

    In this way, you’re guided step by step through the BMI process from contextual discovery and sense-making through to strategic decision making through to design of your strategy, innovations and business model. No matter where your starting point is.

    We give you the thinking models, tech tools and practice steps. And we showcase what’s possible.

    WHY WE LOVE THIS GAME

    • Because the rewards for you are in multiples - 1. Multiple new revenue streams, 2. Multiple new market creating, 3. Demand-led B2B and B2C growth, 4. Scalable growth, 5. De-risking, 6.  Lower costs, 7. Capital flows, 8. More profit, and 9.  At the highest order of sustainability.

    • Because it strengthens both your decision making (THINK) and executional performance (DO) - for your ongoing adaptive resilience

    • Because it applies to any business, across any sector, doing strategy or innovation (not just the biotech disruptors). 

    • Because you don’t have to be a biologist, or even a design thinker, to do this. It only requires an entrepreneurial mindset.

    • And because frankly, it’s way more fun. It’s why we call it the bright side.

    ——

    (1) McKinsey & Company. December 2021. Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/successful-transformations

    (2) Bains & Company. April 2024. The Three Common Transformation Talent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them https://www.bain.com/insights/the-three-common-transformation-talent-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them/

    (3) Boston Consulting Group. June 2024. Innovation Systems Need a Reboot. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/innovation-systems-need-a-reboot

    (4) McKinsey & Company. February 2022. The science behind transformations: Protecting value from day one. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-organization-blog/the-science-behind-transformations-protecting-value-from-day-one

    (5) Harkin, B. 2024. $2.3trillion Wasted Globally in Failed Digital Transformation Programs https://newsroom.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/costly-business-overhauls-are-not-needed-to-embrace-new-digital-technologies-according-to-specialist/

    (6) Blank, S. (2019). Why companies do “innovation theater” instead of actual innovation. Harvard Business Review, 7, 2-5. ttps://steveblank.com/category/harvard-business-review/

    (7) McKinsey & Company February 2022. The science behind transformations: Protecting value from day one. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-organization-blog/the-science-behind-transformations-protecting-value-from-day-one

    (8) Boston Consulting Group. June 2024. Innovation Systems Need a Reboot. https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/innovation-systems-need-a-reboot

    (9) World Economic Forum 2026. Next Generation Leadership for a World in Transformation: Driving Dialogue and Action https://reports.weforum.org/docs/GFC_White_Paper_on_New_Leadership_Models_for_Future_Generations_2026.pdf

    (10) Foss, N.J. and Saebi, T., 2017. Fifteen years of research on business model innovation: how far have we come, and where should we go?. Journal of management, 43(1), pp.200-227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316675927

    (11) Pieroni MPP, McAloone TC, Pigosso DCA. 2019. Business model innovation for circular economy and sustainability: A review of approaches, Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 215, Pages 198-216, ISSN 0959-6526, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.036.

    (12) Zott, C., Amit, R., Giesen, E. 2024. Business Model Innovation Capability: A Game Changer for Sustaining a Firm’s Edge. In: Aagaard, A. (eds) Business Model Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57511-2_2

    (13) Buruleanu, C. L., Chléirigh, L. N., Bhaird, M. N. a., Curran, T. P., Reinmuth, E., & Bîzoi, M. 2025. Weaving Knowledge, Innovation, and Learning: A Transdisciplinary Pathway to Circular Bioeconomy Through BioBeo. Sustainability, 17(14), 6541. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17146541

  • How you think about value is at the core of BMI, design thinking, and dynamic capabilities. You can think of them like 3 circles in a Venn diagram:

    1. Business model innovation is based on how well you create, deliver, and capture value

    2. Dynamic capabilities are based on how well you sense, seize, and transform value

    3. Design thinking is based on how well you discover and design value

    All three, when done well, identify not just value, but value potential, and value risk.

    THE BIO CIRCULAR CHALLENGE

    The circular bioeconomy adds a topspin to value thinking, because it not only requires a reshaping of consumer behaviours, but a reshaping of incumbent value chains and market ecosystems as well.

    This requires you to push past the definitional boundaries of value that make up the three value pillars of a business model. In practice, it add a whole new dimension to the BMI process:

    1. To see the flow of value, and the value of flow across open networked systems.

    2. To see and transform emergent potential value of biomass waste streams.  

    3. To trade, transact and broker new reciprocal value exchanges in symbiotic win : win relationships, and co-create emergent value, with new business models

    4. To contribute and gift value that enhances the interdependent economic ecosystem as a whole.

    THE NATURE ADVANTAGE

    This requires a way of thinking, an intelligence, that is (i) contextual, (ii) relational and (iii) transformational.

    This is the reason why we look to Nature.

    As beyond-human intelligence that’s not artificial, but evolutionary. With 3.8 billion years of living, adaptive R&D, and hardcoded algorithms resilient enough to underwrite the very foundations of life.

    Right now cutting-edge businesses are re/designing anything from products, services and platforms to business models, value chains and operations - even ways of working as high performing teams.

    They’re transforming themselves, building adaptive resilience, and disrupting the shape of global markets, global industries, and the rules of the global economy.

    WEF estimates biomimicry could create US$10 trillion in GDP growth and 395 million new jobs by 2030 (1).

    We think this undersells it. Research show there is a 88%+ innovation gap between how biology designs and how humans design (Vincent and Mann 2002).

    Our own research shows Nature has evolved clear strategies to work dynamically across business model value axes, that can be cleanly and easily applied to business models, and the process of BMI. In the flow, exchange and transformation of value potential. In the creation, delivery and capture of value. In the sensing, seizing and leveraging of value.

    We see ourselves only at the beginning of our disruptive evolutionary journey. Our bio.t METHOD gives you the levers to unlock yours.

    Life is rich.

    ——-

    ‍ * this analysis of value is based on a literary review of 78 well cited papers in business journals, too exhaustive to list here. Melissa is currently working on a white paper.

    (1) World Economic Forum, July 2020. 395 Million New Jobs by 2030 if Businesses Prioritize Nature.  https://www.weforum.org/press/2020/07/395-million-new-jobs-by-2030-if-businesses-prioritize-nature-says-world-economic-forum/

    (2) Vincent J., Mann, D. 2002. Systematic technology transfer from biology to engineering. Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences. Volume 360, Pages 159-73, https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2001.0923

welcome to the

bright side

not human centered design, but life centered design. not artificial intelligence, but living intelligence.

OUR SERVICES

BUSINESS MODEL TRANSFORMATION

Our signature business model re/design journey - our bio.t MBA™ - tailored specifically for bio-circular disruption. For startups, it bridges the gap between biotech ideas and commercialisation. For incumbents, it helps you transform your business. From contextual sense-making to design of your disruptive future business blueprint.

for disruptive change makers

→

TRANSFORMATIONAL CAPABILITY BUILDING

Short nano courses to build your BQ™ thinking skills. Biomimicry, Living systems thinking, Living Resilience, Complex adaptive disruption, Dynamic Capabilities. Symbiotic collaboration. For incumbents and start ups, it flexes your thinking.

for disruptive design thinkers

→

BESPOKE CONSULTANCY + COLLABORATIONS

Bespoke one to one programs, strategic advisory services, or collaborative multi-disciplinary projects for businesses transforming for the circular bio economy. Selecting from diagnostic, strategic review, biotech discovery + design, business model transformation journey partnering.

for disruptive exec and board teams

→

welcome to

living

intelligence

Where Nature is not merely a TNFD or SBTN governance exercise, biodiversity offset or tree planting project. Instead, where Nature is a strategic design thinking partner for business innovation and growth.

high performance. high efficiency. high tech. high scalability. high growth potential. The risk only sits on the balance sheets and P&Ls of 20th century business models too slow to change.

“Living intelligence will drive an exponential cycle of innovation; an accelerant for technologies. For some, this will unlock unprecedented opportunities. For others, it will trigger overwhelming disorientation. The gap between leaders and laggards will widen dramatically, not over decades, but months.” - Future Today Strategy Group

“While AI dominates headlines, biology is converging with exponential technologies to unlock unprecedented value. It will revolutionize every market in the next 5-10 years” - Singularity University

which game

are you playing?

  • Rhetoric is one thing. Business practice is another. Where are you playing, in reality? Where are your BMI frameworks taking you? Where is your strategic advice pushing you towards? The more you answer YES to the following prompts , the more likely you are holding back your potential - and carrying a ton of risk:

    1. Your approach to INNOVATION orbits around "faster, better, cheaper, newer".

    2. Your approach to STRATEGY gravitates to chasing unfair competitive advantage.

    3. Your approach to ADAPTATION is a rinse and repeat of Agile.

    4. Your approach to TRANSFORMATION is digitization (or restructuring lol).

    5. Your conversation about DISRUPTIVE TECH FUTURES is stuck on large language tools.

    6. Your approach to MARKET SIZING is TAM, SAM, SOM x PESTLE forces.

    7. Your approach to NATURE is compliance disclosures, biodiversity credits, or TNFD tick boxes.

    8. Your approach to LEVERAGE (if you’re honest) hinges off a clever blend of extraction, exploitation, data scraping, restricted access, price arbitrage, borrowing, or zero sum plays.

    The #1 barrier that stops many people playing the bigger game is the ability to sense, seize, and scale value potential (called “dynamic capabilities”).

    In the circular bio economy, value potential plays with a different playbook.

    Is it time to update your design thinking practice?

come play the big game

our services