James Barnes, an independent innovation consultant, came to America from England on a Morehead Scholarship in 1973 to study business at the University of North Carolina. Always a creative thinker, Barnes has innovated during work assignments in strategic planning, sales, consulting and project management in a variety of industries. For example, in 1986 Barnes took on the management of a two year $30 million Napa Valley estate winery development project-Atlas Peak Vineyards which offered a number of opportunities to innovate.

He considers himself fortunate to have collaborated with some outstanding innovators, including Piero Antinori, patriarch of a 600-year-old Italian wine family and Jack Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group that today is entrusted with over $500 billion in mutual fund assets, author of several books on investing including "Bogle on Mutual Funds-New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor," and was named one of the investment industry's four "giants of the 20th century" by Fortune magazine.

Barnes works with some of the best facilitators of the creative process in the world such as Dr. Sheldon Rovin, DDS, MS, Emeritus professor at Wharton and consultant in creativity and systems thinking and Arthur (Andy) VanGundy, Ph.D. - Professor of Communication at the University of Oklahoma, founder of All Star Minds, global brainstorming consultancy, author of 10 books on creativity and a pioneer of creativity techniques.
Barnes founded his innovation consultancy because innovation is one of the few unlimited resources available to mankind and it offers huge potential returns on investment to clients. Barnes is also testing the hypothesis that the unbridled ideas of young people can be of value to organizations and communities, Barnes developed "YouthStormers," which taps the skills of college and high school students with a flare for creativity to address tough business challenges. In planning senior management strategic conferences, Barnes has utilized role-plays, debates and competitive "war games" that enable corporate leaders to demonstrate new collaborative behaviors. These result, he says, in a greater willingness within senior leadership teams to innovate and support change.
Barnes' collaborations have resulted in a number of "breakthrough" initiatives which have saved time and money. One workshop prompted a major mutual fund company to develop an online education program for 401K participants which saved the company millions of dollars.

While managing the Atlas Peak Winery project, breakthrough thinking exercises resulted in the purchase of earth moving equipment, including a uranium mining machine, and the hiring of the machine's crew from Colorado to tunnel wine caves. Equipment purchases saved the project more than $1 million on a $15 million capital budget.
Barnes also has consulted on a variety of leadership, strategy and change projects with companies like Wyeth, CapitalOne, Verizon, SAP, Bovis, Panasonic and SolutionPeople, itself an innovation consultancy.