Last fall, retail behemoth Walmart opened a health center at its store in Dallas, GA, the first of a string of clinics designed to offer convenient, affordable healthcare. When Walmart needed help designing the customer experience, it turned to MOFI, a boutique consulting firm based in Cincinnati.
MOFI is headed by CEO and chief disruptor Shawn “Man on Fire” Nason, whose résumé includes stops at Walt Disney Imagineering, Humana, Xavier University, and Healthways. Cincinnati Future caught up with Nason to learn more about MOFI.
Tell us about MOFI.
MOFI really got its start in June 2018 with the goal of working with partners like Walmart Health to improve the human experience through disruption. Earlier this year, we acquired Innovation Excellence, an online community of disruptors, and rebranded it the Disruptor League. Also part of the ecosystem are The Pink Couch, which focuses on issues facing women of color, and Truth Tellers, which “helps men live authentically in the land of bullsh*t.” We also recently launched a podcast called The Combustion Chronicles.
What holds all those elements together?
We believe you can either disrupt or be disrupted. We believe in falling in love with the problem, not the solution. We believe disruptors are everywhere, but too often they’re isolated and lonely and—especially in a corporate setting—beaten down by the status quo. And most of all we believe you have to put humans first in everything you do.
You’ve compared yourself to a traveling evangelist. Explain.
Evangelists would travel into towns and do special revival services. They’d blow in, blow things up (hellfire and brimstone will do that), and then blow out, leaving the church staff to deal with what had taken place. That’s pretty much what I do today as a disruptor.
And companies welcome that?
The ones that want to survive do. Even with all the bureaucracy and corporate sludge, there are people on the inside who know the value of disruption.
You recently launched Disruptor League Plus. What’s that?
It’s a subscription service for Disruptor League members that gives them access to training, exclusive content and, most importantly, other DL+ members.
How’s the podcast going?
Our guests have disrupted everything from real estate to fashion to healthcare. One of our season 2 guests will be fellow Cincy resident Sean Slovenski, who launched Walmart Health and is the new CEO of testing company BioIQ. Our guests make up a really diverse group, united by their willingness to be themselves, think big and fail forward.