Management gurus have always said “people matter.” But those same gurus still relegate strategy to an elite set of executives who focus on frameworks, long presentations, and hierarchical approaches. After many years of working with Apple, Adobe, HP, and many other companies, Nilofer Merchant discovered the best way to create a winning strategy, which she details in her book. “ The New How : Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy.” Nilofer Merchant is the founder and CEO of Rubicon, a strategy and marketing consultancy, and leads a distinguished team of hands-on operational veterans. Her firm works with global corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Pinnacle, Logitech, Openwave, Symantec, among others, to create solutions to win markets. She’s won multiple awards for her insights on applying strategic thinking and innovation, and has been quoted or published in major business publications such as BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur, Fortune, and The Wall Street Journal.