Steve Faktor is an innovator, futurist, and digital commerce expert with a reputation for asking 'why not?' - and daring others to do the same. As a senior innovation and strategy executive at American Express, Citi, MasterCard, and Arthur Andersen, Steve has created several $100-million-plus businesses, generated billions in sales volume, and deployed three enterprise-level innovation programs.

At American Express, Steve was the Vice President of Growth and Innovation and Head of the $50M Chairman's Innovation Fund. Steve's successful launches include Zync, LoyaltyEdge, and Private Sales (joint venture with Vente Privee). He also led the development of the company's portfolio management framework for the CEO and managed numerous, high profile strategy projects for the CFO and the executive committee.

Steve is the author of Econovation (Wiley, Nov. 2011), a mesmerizing, satirical tale about the future of the US economy and the innovations it will demand. Steve is a popular global keynote speaker on new growth opportunities and leads workshops, ideation and training sessions based on his proprietary 4C's of Innovation(TM) methodology.

Steve is also the founder of Blue Beacon Partners, LLC (dba ideafaktory), which develops, incubates and funds a portfolio of new businesses and patents. Ideafaktory also helps client companies think big, invent better offerings, and deliver sustainable growth.