25+ years of turning disruption into opportunity

Mark W. Johnson

Founder & CEO

Mark co-founded the strategy and innovation management consultancy Innosight with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen in 2000, which was acquired by Huron Consulting Group in 2017. From 2022–2025, he was Huron's Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer.

Mark is the author of Lead from the Future: How to Turn Visionary Thinking Into Breakthrough Growth (2020), a manifesto for "Future Back" thinking that was named one of the 10 best business books of 2020 by Forbes and Inc Magazine and was an Axiom Business Book Awards gold medal winner in 2021. Mark is also the author of Reinvent Your Business Model: How to Seize the White Space for Transformative Growth (2018) and a co-author of Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today's Business While Creating the Future (2017). He has written and co-written numerous articles for a wide range of publications, including the McKinsey Award-winning "Reinventing Your Business Model" for Harvard Business Review, one of HBR's 50 best-selling articles of all time. Prior to Innosight, Mark was a nuclear power-trained surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.

Mark has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a master's degree in civil engineering and engineering mechanics from Columbia University, and a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Erika J. Meldrim

Partner

Erika brings more than 25 years of experience partnering with corporate leaders across industries to drive transformational growth and navigate disruption.

Prior to Ascendant Growth Partners, Erika spent 17 years at Innosight where she most recently served as an Associate Partner. During her tenure she also held roles as Head of Business Development and Co-founder of Innosight Connect – a new consulting venture she helped to develop, launch, deliver, and scale.

Following Innosight's acquisition by Huron Consulting Group, Erika was recruited to serve as the Senior Director of Strategy & Innovation for the enterprise. Earlier in her career, Erika held several strategic brand management and marketing leadership roles in the consumer goods industry, co-taught the Marketing Management course at Harvard Extension School, and led her design and marketing freelance business called Visioneri.

Erika has a Masters of Liberal Arts in Management with honors from Harvard University, a Bachelor of Science, cum laude, from Cornell University, and an Executive Certificate in Strategy & Innovation from the MIT Sloan School of Management.