Entrepreneur and business strategist Josh, is the CEO at RPDK. He started designing and manufacturing at thirteen, was a consultant at fifteen, and in his early twenties headed an innovation and manufacturing strategy business. Josh seeks to disrupt established business models and challenges received wisdom on innovation strategy, out-sourcing and supply chain as well as how to become a more agile, creative business. He also looks at the future of R&D and technology.
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Alliance of Chambers East Sussex
Josh Valman is the CEO at RPDK, who work with businesses to solve difficult technical problems. He was the founder and CEO of RPD International, a business powering corporate R&D departments around the world.
Taking an unconventional route to business, Josh’s career started when he was ten, when he designed his first robot for the BBC2 show Robot Wars. He taught himself engineering using Google and was soon designing complex components and systems, and then had to seek out companies to make them. By fifteen he was a consultant helping businesses cut costs with Chinese production and running supply chains across Europe, the US and Asia from his bedroom. No-one, he says, asked his age, until he was seventeen and he had to formalise his business, which forced him to strike out alone.
Josh’s passion for engineering and solving problems saw RPD go on to power over a hundred R&D departments around the world, including the likes of Vodafone, Air New Zealand, and Unilever. Josh’s vision is to solve problems from idea to implementation in the best, most innovative, efficient way. The business asks what might happen to the world, if companies had the ability to launch, test and develop products in weeks, instead of years. They help achieve this in everything from consumer electronics to medical devices, to industrial equipment.
Josh specialises in making innovation happen, not just talked about. Covering everything from problem-solving to market disruption, supply chain to R&D, he also looks beyond manufacturing to services. Josh broadly looks at communication and interaction, how to cultivate and stabilise supplier relationships and how to make services more creative, flexible, and responsive to open up the potential for growth. He discusses the future of consumer behaviour, examining how to predict change and keep pace with the ever-changing demands of each generation. Furthermore, Josh also speaks about his unique entrepreneurial journey and the lessons in determination, commerce, and success.
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