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In the 1968 Mexico Olympics, Dick Fosbury stood alongside his competitors, no taller or fitter than all the other fine athletes. But he had a significant advantage. He thought differently. Whilst every other competitor followed the conventions established over the years, that a high jump involved straddling the bar feet first, Fosbury tried a different approach, leaping backwards over the bar. The biomechanical explanations would come later, all that Fosbury knew or cared about was that he had out-thought his competitors, and won gold.

20 years later Nicolas Hayek, a Lebanese-born Swiss actuary, was asked by a group of bankers to oversee the liquidation of two traditional watch-making firms who were in turmoil due to competition from Japanese manufacturers like Seiko. Instead he reorganized the businesses and acquired a young start-up brand called Swatch, who made cheap, plastic watches from minimal parts. He rapidly scaled the business, focusing on the potential of plastic for colour and design. The Swatch brand did not seek to emulate other watch-makers, but instead to be in the fashion business. ‘Why buy one watch, when you can have three or four, a different colour for each outfit?'

Ten years later, Jeff Bezos, a Cuban American, left behind his job as vice president of a Wall Street investment bank and headed for the West Coast, with little more than his car he drove, with his wife alongside him. He could see how the internet was starting to change industries and consumers' lives. A year later he launched Amazon from a garage in Bellevue, just outside Seattle. Within two months he was selling $20,000 of books a week. He dubbed it the world's first online bookstore, choosing the name Amazon because it started with an A and sounded a little exotic and different. Innovation for Bezos is about ‘1000 small ideas coming together to change the world'. Over the last two decades he has achieved that, building the world's largest retailer.

The opportunities for change are all around us, what it takes is people. People who are prepared to do things differently, to put their hands up and say they believe there is a better way, and to start making it happen.