What If Innovation

What What If Innovation does

What If Innovation (legal entity: What If Holdings Limited, registered in England and Wales, Company Number 03745474) is a privately held innovation consulting firm founded in 1992 by Matt Kingdon and Dave Allan. The firm partners with large global enterprises to invent new products, brands, services and business models, and to build the leadership, culture and capabilities required to sustain innovation. Its offering is organised as two flagship practices — 'Building Growth Futures' (Adaptive Strategy, Asset Driven Innovation, New Offer Incubation) and 'Leading Growth Cultures' (Energizing Leaders for Growth, Behavioral Experimentation, Experimental Organizations) — underpinned by a proprietary 'Experiment Engines' methodology and the 'Assumptionator' diagnostic tool, combining design thinking with lean startup principles.

The firm delivers engagements through six owned offices across three regional hubs: Americas (New York, Chicago), Europe (London, Amsterdam) and Asia (Shanghai, Singapore). Named enterprise clients include BP, Pfizer, AB InBev / ZX Ventures, KFC, Steinway & Sons, Mondelez/Kenco, Centrica and AARP, with reported outcomes ranging from the Steinway Spirio launch (80% incremental sales lift, ~50% higher margin) and Kenco Millicano (nearly 1 million packs in four weeks) to enterprise-wide training of 100,000 Pfizer employees. Recent leadership additions include Sal Pajwani as CEO, with co-founders Matt Kingdon and Dave Allan remaining active.

The business model is bespoke, quote-based professional services: engagements are sold directly through named regional contacts and a New Business Enquiry Form, with no published pricing or tiering. Revenue is generated from multi-year transformation retainers, project-based consulting, accelerator program design and large-scale training engagements, with a content-led marketing motion (multi-author blog, 'Innovation in Action' newsletter, 'The Innovator' interview series, 'The Founders Podcast') supporting inbound enterprise demand.

Name

What If Innovation

Legal name

What If Holdings Limited

Website

https://whatifinnovation.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1992

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

What If Innovation is a privately held, London-headquartered innovation consultancy (founded 1992) that helps global enterprises invent new products, brands and businesses and build innovation cultures, delivered through six offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Innovation Consulting

NAICS

Management Consulting Services (54161), Other Management Consulting Services (541618)

SIC

Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro primary industry

Innovation, Product & R&D Consulting (BPAHACAM)

akta.pro secondary industry

Innovation Leadership & Leading Growth (EDABAAAO)

Keywords

• Innovation consulting
• Growth strategy
• Corporate innovation
• Growth advisory
• Business transformation

Headquarters

HQ city

Shanghai

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Offices6 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Professional services / innovation consulting engagements: Core revenue stream derived from bespoke consulting engagements with global enterprises, including new product/brand incubation (e.g., Spirio for Steinway, Millicano for Kenco, Popcorn Chicken for KFC, Invigorate for BP), growth strategy work, innovation-culture transformation programs (Pfizer 'Dare to Try', AARP Disrupting Aging), and accelerator/incubation program design and facilitation (AB InBev/ZX Ventures 11-week program with 16 teams). Mix of project-based work, multi-month sprints and longer-running transformation retainers.
2. Enterprise training & capability-building programs: Large-scale training engagements to embed innovation tools and behaviors inside client organizations (e.g., 100,000 Pfizer employees trained globally; 1,000+ AARP employees trained; 50+ AB InBev employees upskilled through action learning). Typically bundled with broader transformation programs.
3. Growth Cultures & Growth Futures service lines: Two flagship offerings: 'Building Growth Futures' (vision, products, services, brands, new business) and 'Leading Growth Cultures' (leadership, culture, capabilities). Each contains sub-modules (Adaptive Strategy; Asset Driven Innovation; New Offer Incubation; Energizing Leaders for Growth; Behavioral Experimentation; Experimental Organizations). Sold as bundled transformation programs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

What If Innovation is a management consulting firm that helps large corporations build and embed innovation capability. It sells three service lines: Building Growth Futures (growth strategy and futures work), Leading Growth Cultures (organizational culture and capability transformation), and the Experiment Engines methodology (a proprietary approach to rapid prototyping, testing, and validation of new business concepts).

Product overview

What If Innovation (legal entity: What If Holdings Limited, registered in England and Wales) is a single-brand innovation consultancy rather than a software vendor. Its offering is organised as a platform-plus-modules architecture delivered through consulting engagements: the two core practices, 'Building Growth Futures' (customer-facing growth innovation, made up of the Adaptive Strategy, Asset Driven Innovation, and New Offer Incubation modules) and 'Leading Growth Cultures' (capability and culture transformation, made up of Energizing Leaders for Growth, Behavioral Experimentation, and Experimental Organizations), are underpinned by the proprietary 'Experiment Engines' methodology. Adjacent editorial offerings such as the 'Innovation in Action' monthly newsletter and 'The Innovator' interview series round out the portfolio and are used to nurture prospects.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Building Growth Futures A strategic consulting service that helps corporations identify and pursue new growth opportunities through futures work, market insight, and growth strategy formulation. Targeted at senior executives, chief strategy officers, and corporate strategy teams responsible for long-term growth.
• Leading Growth Cultures An organizational change service that helps companies build internal cultures, leadership behaviors, and operating capabilities to sustain innovation and growth over time. Aimed at CEOs, chief people officers, and leadership teams responsible for culture and capability development.
• Experiment Engines A proprietary methodology for rapid prototyping, testing, and validation of new business concepts, products, and services, designed to compress the time from idea to market. Used by client innovation, product, and corporate venture teams to systematically run growth experiments.

Quantifiable outcome

• Steinway Spirio delivered 80% incremental sales lift at ~50% higher margin than standard Steinway products across 8 pilot cities, then rolled out across North America, Europe and China
• +7 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments7 records

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature5 records

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• McKinsey & Company (Design practice): Global strategy giant whose design and innovation practice competes for the same enterprise innovation-transformation budgets, but as part of a much broader transformation portfolio.
• Boston Consulting Group (BCG X / BrightHouse): Global consulting incumbent with dedicated innovation, design and venture-building units. Overlaps with What If Innovation on growth strategy, new-offer incubation and culture transformation mandates.
• Accenture Song (incl. FJORD): Global consulting incumbent with FJORD design studios and Accenture Song covering design, product innovation and growth transformation at enterprise scale, often competing for the same C-suite mandates.
• Deloitte (Deloitte Digital / Doblin): Big-Four consulting and advisory firm with a significant innovation, design and human-centered practice competing for enterprise transformation and growth mandates.

Direct peers

• frog (Capgemini Engineering): Design and innovation consultancy (now part of Capgemini) that helps global brands invent products, services and experiences. Highly comparable in mission, methodology and enterprise client base to What If Innovation.
• IDEO: The archetypal design and innovation consultancy. Closest direct peer: similar boutique size, design-thinking heritage, methodology-led engagements with global enterprises and a comparable mix of product/brand incubation and capability-building work.
• R/GA: Global innovation, design and technology consultancy working with Fortune 500 brands on products, services and digital experiences. Direct peer in the brand-led innovation and product-launch space.
• Board of Innovation: Boutique innovation consultancy operating globally with a focus on corporate innovation, new venture building and capability programs. Comparable offering (innovation strategy + accelerator-style programs) at a similar scale.

Emerging players

• Synapse: Product innovation consultancy that partners with global brands to develop and launch new products. Comparable on the product-innovation and go-to-market side, with a more product/engineering-leaning profile.
• Livework: Service-design and innovation consultancy that works with large organizations on new services and growth offerings. Comparable on service-design and human-centered methods, though smaller and more regionally concentrated.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/whatifglobal
• Facebookfacebook.com/whatif.innovation
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/what-if

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about What If Innovation