During the past 20-plus years, Dr. Eva Diedrichs has acquired comprehensive expertise in developing digital innovation management capabilities in SMEs as well as in large international corporations. She is also an experienced entrepreneur. In 2020, she started her own international innovation management consulting company (www.ed-imc.com) supporting companies and agencies in leveraging digital innovation management skills and consulting international investors on developing highly innovative infrastructure projects.

She was a founding Managing Director of IMP³rove–European Innovation Management Academy, Dusseldorf, Germany (2014–19) (www.imp3rove.de) as a spin-off of KEARNEY. In this role, she supported the World Economic Forum (WEF) as adviser on “Enhancing Europe’s Competitiveness Fostering Innovation-driven Entrepreneurship in Europe” and on “Collaborative Innovation Transforming Business, Driving Growth.” Under her leadership at IMP³rove, the largest global benchmarking database on innovation management was developed with more than 11,000 companies. From 2013 to 2019, she served as national representative in the ISO Technical Committee 279 on Innovation Management and supported the development of the ISO 5600X series. During her convenorship at ISO and CEN, the standardization documents ISO 56004 “Innovation Management Assessment Guidelines” (2019) and the CEN TS 16555-7 “Innovation Management Assessment” (2015) were published. She served as a chief expert of the APO on developing the Digital Innovation Process Guide (2020), Developing a Roadmap for Industry 4.0, among others. From 2006 to 2019, she managed large international projects funded by the European Commission to enhance (digital) innovation performance in SMEs across Europe and in North African countries. In 2008, she received the European Commission’s “Best Innovation Tool” Award for the IMP³rove online assessment tools.

As consultant at KEARNEY (2002–19), Dr. Diedrichs supported leading international companies in the pharma, telecom, aerospace, and finance sectors in improving their competitive positions. She has been a speaker at numerous international conferences, including those organized by UNIDO, ISPIM, and Front End Innovation. She has published numerous articles on innovation management and co-authored books on benchmarking and on developing core competencies.