About Josh

Founder and CEO, ePrize
Jazz Musician, Author, Speaker

A successful four-time entrepreneur and well-respected jazz musician, Josh Linkner bridges the gap between the arts and business to help audiences maximize their creative potential. Josh teaches, inspires, and entertains in speeches, workshops, consulting, and his writings. He is on a mission to make the world a more creative planet by providing powerful, fun, and practical techniques that push all levels of the business world to jumpstart their creative energies.

Bio

At an age when most pre-teens were still finding their way to Geometry class, Josh began performing in public as a jazz musician. He was 13, and he’s been improvising ever since. The improvisation has continued in the business world, where Josh has founded and built four highly-successful technology companies over the last 20 years.

As the founder and CEO of ePrize, he has led a revolution by dislodging the old guard and dominating the industry through disruptive innovation and creativity. ePrize has produced over 5,000 industry-leading interactive promotions across 36 countries, for 74 of the Top 100 brands including Coca-Cola, at&t, The Gap, Procter & Gamble, Disney, Dell, adidas, Citibank and Microsoft.

ePrize has won dozens of awards including Red Herring’s Top 100 Technology Firms in North America, Inc. 500 (five years in a row), #1 fastest-growing on PROMO 100, Fast Company’s Fast 50 Reader’s Choice, and 101 best places to work in Michigan.

Josh is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, and is a frequent source-for-comment among top business, technology and marketing media. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, AdAge, Entrepreneur, AdWeek, and Inc. Magazine. Josh has won several business, technology, and design awards including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Crain’s 40 under 40, Automation Alley’s CEO of the Year, and the Detroit Executive of the Year.

Josh’s highly-anticipated second Book – Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System for Breakthrough Creativity – is due out in February, 2011 (Wiley / Jossey-Bass). The book offers a 5-part process that will transform your organization – or your career – into a non-stop creativity juggernaut.

You can still catch Josh improvising today; both playing jazz professionally in smoky jazz clubs and inspiring thousands worldwide on igniting their creativity.

Books

Leaning Forward, 2007
Disciplined Dreaming, Coming Feb. 2011 by Jossey-Bass / Wiley

Key Awards

Entrepreneur of the Year, Ernst & Young, 2004
CEO of the Year, Automation Alley, 2005
Fast 50 Readers’ Choice, Fast Company, 2005
Executive of the Year, Detroit Executive Association, 2009

Representative Clients

adidas
American Express
at&t
Citibank
Clorox
Coca-Cola
ConAgra Foods
Condé Nast
Dell
Disney
Facebook
General Motors
HBO
Johnson & Johnson
Microsoft
P&G
QuickenLoans
Sears
Starwood Hotels
The Gap
Warner Brothers