Virtual Watercooler Chat with Sasha Strauss: The Journey from Innovator to Brand Strategist, Teacher, and Preacher

Virtual Watercooler Chat with Sasha Strauss: The Journey from Innovator to Brand Strategist, Teacher and Preacher

Sasha Strauss is the founder & CEO of a “full-service strategic brand consulting and design firm,” Innovation Protocol (IP), in Los Angeles, California. Sasha promotes concepts such as social listening; how to align your company’s core values to bring values to clients; and the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), especially during the post-pandemic era.

With Sasha’s advice, “We can’t believe in you if we can’t hear you believe in yourself,” Ashley Cheung built Virtual Patent Gateway and hand-picked her crew to onboard her very own “Millennium Falcon.” Sasha has a love of teaching, as he concurrently teaches at USC Marshall School of Business, UC Irvine, Paul Perage School of Business, and UCLA Anderson School of Management, on top of being Chief Believer of his own creation, IP. Sasha’s energy and dynamic teaching style created a lasting impression for Ashley in how she wanted to shape VPG’s journey.

This Virtual Water Cooler Chat will be a discussion about 1) his journey to start IP; 2) the definition of branding; 2) working with generation innovation; 3) corporate social responsibility (CSR); 4) the art of social listening, and more, with some of the questions geared towards practitioners in the legal space.

About Sasha Strauss

Sasha is the son of a military doctor and spent much of his youth with US Navy SEALS. The mix of international affairs and world travel stirred in him a sense of duty and adventure that carries him daily through his ceaseless travel as a global brand consultant.

In 2006, Sasha founded Innovation Protocol to consult using a specialized, rigorous, protocol-driven brand development practice for innovators. Innovation Protocol has grown into an international brand consulting powerhouse, serving marquee organizations across categories, from biotech to fintech, academia to athletics.

Sasha’s passion for brand strategy has also driven his practice as a celebrated speaker, authoring and presenting original thought leadership and keynote speeches for audiences worldwide. Presentations such as “Branding in the New Normal” and “Rise of the Herogen” have been delivered in a dozen countries and viewed on YouTube over 1M total times.

When not leading Innovation Protocol or speaking, Sasha teaches brand strategy to graduate students at the MBA programs at UCLA, USC, and UCI, where he remains one of the highest-rated faculty members.

A SCUBA diver, passenger-aviator, voracious music consumer, fruit/nut/veggie scavenger, and perpetual futurologist, Sasha is a founder, culture captain, and senior client advisor.