The five elements that separate companies that pull ahead from those that fall behind. None cost money. All cost courage.

Dr. Norman Goldberg is a chemist who ended up running a company. After a doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin and three years of research at Cornell alongside Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann, he moved into industry. His career took him through senior management at Henkel, including regional leadership in Asia, to Lohmann, where he served as co-CEO, and to tesa SE, where he joined the executive board in 2017 and was CEO from 2020 to 2025. Under his leadership tesa grew profitably, expanded internationally and built a culture that values diversity of minds. He has sat on both sides of the table this book is about: the laboratory bench where inventions are born, and the boardroom where they either become businesses or quietly die. Today he serves as chairman and senior advisor to a number of companies.