Innovation Consulting

Innovation Consulting –
Drive Transformation and Accelerate Growth

Transform your business with Toptal’s Innovation Consulting. Our innovation experts partner with you to define bold strategies, develop disruptive solutions, and optimize innovation processes that fuel growth and drive sustainable competitive advantage.

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Clients Served

35,000+

Total Vetted Professionals

30,000+

Toptal Total Projects Delivered

85,000+

Years in Business

15+

TRUSTED BY LEADING BRANDS AND STARTUPS

Our Services

Toptal Innovation Consulting Services

Our Innovation Consulting services help organizations reimagine strategies, processes, and offerings to stay ahead in a rapidly changing market. Through a blend of strategic insight and creative execution, we empower businesses to turn bold ideas into measurable growth and lasting impact.

Innovation Strategy

Build a comprehensive innovation roadmap to align new initiatives with long-term business goals.

Design Thinking

Apply human-centered design principles to uncover user insights and create groundbreaking solutions.

Digital Transformation

Leverage technology to enhance business agility, operational efficiency, and customer experiences.

Business Model Innovation

Redefine your value proposition to stay ahead in competitive and evolving markets.

Product Ideation Workshops

Spark creativity through structured sessions that turn creative concepts into validated business opportunities.

Innovation Process Optimization

Streamline innovation workflows to improve collaboration, accelerate time to market, and scale successful initiatives.

Emerging Technology Integration

Adopt and integrate AI, IoT, and other emerging technologies to fuel innovation and future-proof your business.

Change Management Strategy

Enable seamless innovation adoption through effective communication, stakeholder alignment, and culture change.

Market Trend Analysis

Leverage data-driven insights to anticipate shifts and guide strategic innovation decisions.

Corporate Innovation Training

Build innovation capabilities through experiential training that empowers teams to ideate, test, and scale new solutions.

Innovation Program Management

Oversee end-to-end innovation initiatives to ensure delivery excellence and measurable outcomes.

Customer Experience Innovation

Reimagine customer journeys to enhance satisfaction, loyalty, and market differentiation.

Looking for guidance about the perfect innovation consulting service for your needs?

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PARTNERSHIP THAT WORKS

How We Deliver Innovation Consulting

Our innovation consultants, with experience at leading companies, develop and deploy tailored solutions to meet your business needs and unique industry demands for sustainable results and long-term success.

Discover

A leader from our team works with you to understand your business challenges, pain points, and strategic goals to uncover new opportunities and identify the options to reach your objectives.

Define

Toptal leaders collaborate with your team to define your specific goals and service needs, evaluating multiple approaches and aligning requirements with your strategic objectives to define the best solution.

Develop

Once your service is defined and you have your talent or team on board, they will create your unique project timeline, process, and initial proposals, whether you’re launching a new innovation strategy or reinventing your business model.

Deploy

Toptal will get to work, tracking quality assurance, handling project management, and maintaining the delivery schedule.

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Matthew McNaghten

Business Strategy and Finance Consulting Practice Lead

As Toptal’s Business Strategy and Finance Consulting Practice Lead, Matt focuses on helping clients address critical issues and drive value across their enterprises. He brings 35 years of senior-level consulting experience, having held leadership roles at Cognizant, Accenture, IBM, and Deloitte.As Toptal’s Business Strategy and Finance Consulting Practice Lead, Matt focuses on helping clients address critical issues and drive value across their enterprises. He brings 35 years of senior-level consulting experience, having held leadership roles at Cognizant, Accenture, IBM, and Deloitte.

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CUSTOMIZED SOLUTIONS

Innovation Solutions That Drive Impact

Toptal delivers leading innovation consulting services through its diverse talent network and flexible delivery models. We implement the right skills at each project phase, blending expertise from various roles for seamless execution.

End-to-End Delivery by Toptal
On-demand Talent and Teams

End-to-End Delivery by Toptal

Comprehensive project delivery, tailored to your specific requirements.

Business Strategy and Finance Consulting Practice Lead

Delivery Manager

Innovation Strategist

Artificial Intelligence Developer

AI Product Manager

Digital Transformation Strategist

Product Manager

Design Thinking Expert

Matthew McNaghten

Business Strategy and Finance Consulting Practice Lead

Previously at

Experience

35+ Years

Rachael Karaffa

Delivery Manager

Rachael serves as a Delivery Manager at Toptal with a focus on leading diverse global teams in developing innovative solutions for our clients. She works across multiple disciplines, including technology, marketing, and management consulting. Rachael specializes in managing people and client relationships, process optimization, and driving teams toward optimal business outcomes.

Previously Managed Client

Experience

9+ Years

Erick Watson

Verified Expert in Product Management

14+ Years

of Experience

Innovation Strategist

Erick is an innovative, entrepreneurial executive leader who translates customer needs into compelling product strategies that animate the business and technical worlds. He accelerates business impact with outstanding performance across product strategy and execution, challenging the status quo with industry-disruptive tech solutions. Erick distills and communicates complex technical information to drive action across the organization, interfacing with board members and C-level executives.

Previously at

David Dai

Verified Expert in Engineering

13+ Years

of Experience

Artificial Intelligence Developer

David has extensive experience in building machine learning and deep learning (DL) solutions at top companies, including Apple, Google, and Facebook, unicorn startups, and academia, as he has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon U. He holds multiple patents in DL-based medical imaging tech and large-scale AI systems. David has grown an AI team to 60+ as the director and tech lead.

Previously at

Adrian Gonzalez

Verified Expert in Artificial Intelligence

13+ Years

of Experience

AI Product Manager

With an engineering degree, two master's degrees, including an MBA, and the ability to speak four languages, Adrian has delivered as a product manager in North America, LATAM, and Europe on multiple innovation initiatives, including software development, AI strategy, project delivery, blockchain, geolocation, and Agile implementation. Adrian has extensive experience in technical and business roles and has worked in several industries: telecom, cloud native, supply chain, retail, fintech, and IT.

Previously at

David Bailey

Verified Expert in Product Management

25+ Years

of Experience

Digital Transformation Strategist

David has a rich experience in diverse marketing and product roles. He led cross-functional teams in global organizations, including Apple and Samsung, and managed distributed teams in smaller startups and scale-ups. David is passionate about developing and executing strategies to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Previously at

Divya Chittoor

Verified Expert in Product Management

15+ Years

of Experience

Product Manager

Divya is a fractional product leader with diverse experience in software engineering, consulting, and product management. She has held multiple leadership roles at high-performing organizations such as Facebook, McKinsey, and Y Combinator-backed startups. She can help companies build high-performing product teams, set a product strategy, and improve teams’ execution.

Previously at

Kate Valdes

Verified Expert in Design

20+ Years

of Experience

Design Thinking Expert

With more than 20 years of design industry experience, Kate has delivered successful digital experiences for startups and well-known brands including Netflix and BlackLine. Her work spans industries and platforms. Leveraging her background in user research, Kate bridges the gap between strategy and experience, integrating design thinking into complex workflows.

Previously at

On-demand Talent and Teams

30,000+ vetted professionals, ready to deploy individually or in teams.

Product Manager

Artificial Intelligence Developer

Innovation Strategist

Machine Learning Engineer

Digital Transformation Expert

Market Research Expert

Innovation Consultant

AI Consultant

CX Consultant

Verified Expert in Product Management

19+ Years

of Experience

Product Manager

Andy has been collaborating with visionary and creative teams to make ideas happen for more than 19 years. He has launched a DJ brand at Pro-Audio, worked in digital advertising as a project manager, at Google as a producer, at Red Bull as a digital manager, and founded a digital product design studio. He has guided more than 100 web, mobile, and IoT projects, and specializes in designing and delivering against strategic MVP roadmaps to validate ideas.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Engineering

24+ Years

of Experience

Artificial Intelligence Developer

Lovro is a machine learning engineer and data scientist with a strong enthusiasm for deep learning applications. By combining his academic knowledge with practical industry experience, he is able to contribute to every stage of the AI software development process. Lovro’s professional background spans startups, large corporations such as his engineering role at Amazon, and research positions in academic institutions and universities.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Management Consulting

15+ Years

of Experience

Innovation Strategist

Jessie is an experienced growth strategist in international education and purpose-led startups who excels in APAC market development and operational management. She has the ability to connect Western best practices with Eastern cultural norms, fostering innovation and a growth mindset. Jessie is driven by continuous learning and the idea of co-creating a just world through commerce.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Engineering

18+ Years

of Experience

Machine Learning Engineer

Simone is a machine learning scientist and engineer with experience in academia and enterprises, including Microsoft and Huawei. He likes to work at the intersection of deep machine learning, NLP, and information retrieval. Simone also loves to work on exploration analysis and building theoretically sound machine learning pipelines ready for production. He especially enjoys building web products.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Product Management

15+ Years

of Experience

Digital Transformation Expert

Sreedevi is a ground-up executive with more than 15 years of experience building, scaling, and transforming organizations at hypergrowth B2B and large companies. She has led teams across Google, Yara International, and startups within product, strategy, and customer success. Sreedevi has experience working across several high-profile organizations and enterprises, including Unilever, Mondelēz International, Philip Morris International, and The Tata Group.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Management Consulting

16+ Years

of Experience

Market Research Expert

Francesco has years of experience in finance, consulting, business management, and sustainability. Throughout these years, he has worked on more than 20 projects as a consultant at Bain & Company and launched Uber operations in Turin, Italy. Lately, he has founded Tondo, an organization spreading circular economy concepts, and Tondo Lab, a company driving the implementation of clean and circular innovations. Francesco is passionate about innovation and entrepreneurship.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Management Consulting

28+ Years

of Experience

Innovation Consultant

An MIT MBA graduate, Michael served large corporations at Bain and helped build new businesses at firms backed by top-tier VCs (Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, Softbank). He's led pricing work at a Silicon Valley firm acquired for $185 million and joined Toptal to work on challenging business problems. His work has led to the discovery of multimillion-dollar business optimization opportunities and contributed to a client’s multi-fold revenue increase.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Engineering

9+ Years

of Experience

AI Consultant

Lorenzo is a senior software engineer experienced in building robust and scalable applications. He has worked at BMW Innovation Labs, CynaxLabs, DP World, Interjoin, and Deloitte, where he took responsibility for finding solutions to emerging challenges and implementing them seamlessly. With a background in mechanical engineering, Lorenzo is a critical thinker and a skillful software and AI developer eager to embrace new experiences.

Previously at

Verified Expert in Design

11+ Years

of Experience

CX Consultant

Rachel is a product designer passionate about enhancing human experiences through technology and user-centered design. With more than 11 years of experience, she has worked with startups and FAANG companies, leading research and product design efforts to align with business goals and address UX challenges. Rachel has worked across industries including autonomous vehicles, marketing automation, fintech, advertising, and recruitment platforms.

Previously at

Looking for guidance about the perfect innovation consulting service for your needs?

Get a Free Consultation Now

Looking for guidance about the perfect innovation consulting service for your needs?

UNRIVALED EXPERTISE

Our Talent Has Worked With Top Companies

Having previously worked with these leading global companies, our talent brings valuable insights and expertise to deliver world-class outcomes.

https://www.toptal.com/management-consultants/business-management-consultants

WHY ORGANIZATIONS CHOOSE US

Toptal in Action

Discover the cutting-edge benefits our global clients enjoy from the Toptal network.

Toptal partners with Boston Children’s Hospital to accelerate cutting-edge software projects and AI innovation.

Challenge: The Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator team at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) works on a range of software projects, from government initiatives to AI-integrated imaging apps. They needed a nimble solution to augment their teams with on-demand, highly qualified developers, designers, and other specialized technical talent.

Solution: When the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tasked BCH with rapidly developing Vaccines.gov to connect patients with vaccination centers, BCH turned to Toptal. Within days, Toptal supplied a team of full-stack developers with niche technology and industry experience, enabling them to integrate immediately and help the project meet its critically tight deadline.

Outcome: Toptal’s partnership has enabled BCH to develop multiple cutting-edge products enhancing and saving thousands of lives, including Vaccines.gov, Vision Ninja, and Virtual Hip—an AI-based imaging program that facilitates better, more accurate care for orthopedic patients.

When I think of Toptal, I think of a seamless, true partnership. Toptal understands our work, and we always feel like we are partnered together and moving in the same direction.

Mark Oglia

Manager, Application Development

Toptal Ranked #1 Most Reliable Professional Services Company in America

Newsweek and Statista’s rankings were based on an independent survey of more than 2,400 decision-makers at Fortune 500s.

IBM — Newsweek's Most Reliable Companies in America 2026 ranking. Toptal is ranked #11, the highest-ranked professional services firm.

See the Most Reliable Companies in America

Methodology for the Rankings

How likely the respondent is to recommend the selected company to others.

Measures the convenience of interaction with the company and efficiency of processes.

Measures the company’s cost-effectiveness and quality relative to price.

Measures whether the company consistently meets or exceeds expectations in quality and timeliness of deliverables.

Measures the company’s ability to consistently fulfill commitments and maintain customer trust.

See the Most Reliable Companies in America

OUR THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Explore Insights From the Innovation Field

Read the latest articles and resources to keep you current on emerging trends in innovation.

Business Model Innovation: Driving Resilience When Disruption Is the Default

Toptal’s Senior Client Solutions Advisor explores how leading companies like SAS and ServiceNow successfully updated their business models—and shares advice for other organizations looking to do the same.

Michael Valocchi

35 Years of Experience

Michael is a management consulting and client advisory leader with experience at IBM, PwC, Cognizant, and Toptal. Over the course of his career, he has designed and directed consulting practices, including serving as head of consulting for the Americas at Cognizant, where he advised leaders across sectors such as telecommunications, media, and energy and utilities. Michael holds a BS in accounting from St. Joseph’s University and has completed advanced management programs at Harvard, Columbia, and Emory universities. He also serves as a guest lecturer at Columbia University and Baruch College.

Previously at