Principal

Background

John Saiz, formerly the Chief Technology Officer/Chief Technologist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, works with manufacturing and technology-intensive companies worldwide to enhance their capabilities across the three core elements of innovation and technology management:

• Strategy– including the business strategy and the corresponding innovation strategy of an organization
• System– the decision support framework considering innovation and technology management disciplines for identification, selection, acquisition & development, exploitation, and protection;
• People and Organization– focusing on leadership/management styles, skills and competencies and the culture of an organization to examine whether they are appropriate for the desired performance.

Since 2014, he has led collaborations with a number of multinational commercial organizations including AstraZeneca, FMC Technologies, GE Global Research, GE Oil & Gas, Halliburton, Oxiteno, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Schlumberger, and Subsea 7. Saiz has also supported industry consortia and academia including the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, BioPhorum, OrthoWorx, Purdue University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Maine.

While at NASA, Mr. Saiz directed a number of technology and flight development projects that included efforts spanning the full spectrum of technology readiness levels from initial proof-of-concept laboratory demonstration through long-term spaceflight operations on the Space Shuttle, Russian Mir and International Space Station.  He managed a portfolio of nearly 200 internal research and technology development activities during his CTO tenure at the Johnson Space Center.

Industry experiences include engineering and technology management roles at Halliburton, ILC Space Systems (now Oceaneering), and Honeywell Defense Systems. He also worked a brief stint as a ‘mud logger’ with Integrated Drilling and Logging, Inc. in the Texas and Louisiana oilfields.

John maintains his appointment as a Principal Industrial Fellow with the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge.

 

Areas of expertise

• Business strategy (strategic visioning, scenario planning, management tools/toolkit development, strategic roadmapping)
• Innovation management (open innovation, innovation KPI development, creativity tools & methodologies)
•  Technology management (portfolio methods, technology intelligence, technology evaluation, balanced scorecard, option mapping, etc.)
• Design management (design for assembly, platforming, modularization)
• System engineering (requirements engineering, life cycle management, interface definition and control, work breakdown structure)
• Supply chain management (supply chain mapping, make or buy)
• Technology enterprise (industry-university collaborations, technology venturing & incubation)

Education

• BSc. Mechanical engineering, University of Houston, USA
• MSc. Petroleum engineering, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, USA