Expert Faculty

More than 100 people have been selected, trained and certified to be Innovation Trainers. These expert trainers have trained more than 100,000 people from 100 FORTUNE 500 companies in 50 countries. Our faculty has been personally trained by Gerald “Solutionman” Haman who founded SolutionPeople Innovation over 20 years ago. You can have the option of being trained by our Certified Trainers or by Solutionman if his schedule permits.

Gerald “Solutionman” Haman founded SolutionPeople.com Innovation in 1989, Thinkubators.com in 1997, InnovatorsDigest.com in 2005, InnovationTooloftheMonthClub.com in 2008, and he plans to launch illumiNation.com in 2010.  He is an adjunct professor of innovation at Northwestern University and teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Haman is the Founding Organizer of more than 30 Innovation Groups on LinkedIn.com that comprise a worldwide community of over 125,000 members. He is recognized by clients as “Solutionman” because of his ability to quickly help people develop breakthrough solutions. Since launching SolutionPeople over 20 years ago, Haman has helped clients generate more than three million ideas valued at over two billion dollars.

Formerly, Haman was an award-winning manager Procter & Gamble and Arthur Andersen’s Professional Education Center.  Haman is the award-winning inventor of the KnowBrainer™ innovation tool that has proven to increase creativity by over 530%.  He also created the world’s first innovative thinking eTools for the iPhones and iPods, and the FlashBrainer™ and Innovation Activator™ software programs. Haman has been profiled in over 50 major news publications including FAST Company, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek Japan, The Australian, Singapore Straits Times, the International Herald, US News & World Report, Investors Business Daily.

SolutionPeople has helped over 100,000 people from 200 of the FORTUNE 500 companies in 50 countries. More than 50% of BusinessWeek’s Top 50 of the “World’s Most Innovative Companies” have used SolutionPeople’s innovation products and services. SolutionPeople has been recognized by the Chicago Innovation Awards and the American Society for Training & Development awarded SolutionPeople a “Learning Excellence Citation” for their innovation training results. An entire chapter was published about SolutionPeople’s successful business practices in the book, Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba, which also profiled IBM and Southwest Airlines.

Haman earned a Masters Degree in Communications and Training from the University of Minnesota. He is a contributing author of the New Product Development Handbook and has published articles on innovation for the Journal of Innovative Management, Productivity Digest, Training Today and The Meeting Professional. Haman was recently certified as an Experience Economy Expert by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, the pioneering authors of groundbreaking books including The Experience Economy and Authenticity.  Haman incorporates many Experience Economy principles into his innovation workshops, facilitations and keynote speeches. He has also created highly acclaimed certification programs that designate graduates as Certified Innovation Trainers, Facilitators, Coaches, Questionators and Masters.

Solutionman gained international acclaim for establishing a world brainstorming record by facilitating 8,000 people in a Thinkathon® at the Singapore Stadium to generate 454,000 ideas in less than 60 minutes. He has given innovative presentations to over 100,000 people from around the globe and has been recognized for his creativity by the United States Congress and the American Academy of Achievements.

Prior to joining the corporate world, Haman was a concert producer for a variety of Grammy-award-winning musicians including Air Supply, Cheap Trick, Harry Chapin, Little River Band, Poco, Cliff Richard, Nick Gilder, Poco and Head East.

Haman originally grew up on a cattle ranch and farm in rural North Dakota and he now lives in downtown Chicago where he loves spending time with his 9-year old daughter Olivia.  Solutionman hobbies include magic, painting and organizing his growing collection of diverse music and art.