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🥳 Well, that was fun, welcoming hundreds of corporate innovators from around the world to The Innovator’s Handbook 2025 Launch Event yesterday... We're excited to share the news that the new handbook is now available. 300+ pages, 100+ contributions... The "bible" for everyone leading and doing innovation in large organizations. As always, we’ve captured the takeaways from the many online and in-person sessions and conversations we’ve hosted over the last twelve months. For this 8th edition, we’ve also added brief summaries of some of the best content from other sources, plus we’re featuring a handful of our members looking back at their achievements in 2024 and reflecting on what’s next in 2025. 👉 It's free, but great value. Get your copy via https://innov8rs.co/ihb25/ #corporateinnovation #innovationmanagement #innovationleadership #innovationstrategy #intrapreneurship #openinnovation #venturebuilding #innovationculture #innovationleader

Many companies celebrate innovation, but few have mastered the art of turning ideas into reality. What if hackathons and innovation programs could be more than symbolic? We can't wait for Ed Essey, creator of Microsoft’s Garage Growth Framework, to reveal the secrets behind transforming short-term experiments into long-term success during his "Enlightening Exchange" session as part of Innov8rs Phoenix this spring. Drawing from coaching Microsoft’s Global Hackathon winners, he shares the playbook for securing sponsorship, aligning with business priorities, and scaling ideas inside large organizations. Whether you’re an intrapreneur or leading an innovation team, this session will help you turn innovation theatre into an unstoppable innovation engine. So... what's stopping you from securing your ticket today? #intrapreneurship #corporateinnovation #microsoftinnovation #hackathon #innovationprogram

What if the most groundbreaking solutions weren’t waiting within your organization’s walls but scattered across industries, continents, and disciplines, just waiting to be tapped? 🎙️ Hear how Susan Lindner and Kyle Basler-Reeder, ExxonMobil’s Global Open Innovation Lead, discuss how Kyle has redefined problem-solving for one of the world’s largest energy companies > https://lnkd.in/eQuW65PA 🫵 Want to learn more? Kyle is one of the many corporate innovation leaders on stage during our upcoming Innov8rs Phoenix conference. He will share how to create and/or manage a successful open innovation program, including: – Definition of four key stages all open innovation programs go through – Detailed implementation plans for each stage with suggested key performance metrics – Practical advice on how to overcome the most common objections and how to be successful For more information about the conference, and to apply to join, go here > https://lnkd.in/ebRrEHs6 #openinnovation #innovationconference #innovationmanagement

🌵 Without senior leadership buy-in and involvement, innovation efforts can feel like trying to grow a cactus in the Arctic, says Tyler Anderson. If the environment around you is not supportive, you won't be successful. To get support, you need to continuously justify further investment by showing evidence. How are you building the required trust with your executives? #corporateinnovation #innovationmanagement #trust #cactus #innovationleadership

Next week Wednesday we'll already gather for the 4th time in the 2025-Q1 series of Learning Labs, exploring the best and latest on Incubation, Venture Building & Scaling. ✳️  While traditionally corporate venture building was mostly the domain of one corporate building new ventures leveraging their resources and building for strategic fit, in the last years we have seen the emergence of co-build models. This can make a lot of sense under the right circumstance and lead to superior results for all involved parties. In the first session, MING Labs' Sebastian Mueller will share the model, their observations, several case studies and recommendations for how to get started. ✴️  8 out of 10 companies have new growth beyond Core as a top-5 priority. But it is hard. Only few attempts create a sizable new business. In the second session, Arto Kauppila & Frank Mattes will highlight typical pitfalls and provide guidance on the critical success factors. They will discuss ao: - how to ensure fit with the corporate context in the journey from search filed to scale business - how to establish and maintain C-suite support - how to provide evidence for scale-worthiness and scale-readiness 👉 For more info about the Learning Labs, and to apply to join, go to https://lnkd.in/dGrYPjky

The rise in new challenges (like sustainability and climate, amongst others) that are impacting enterprise the world over, require a change in the way we innovate, particularly when it comes to collaborations. This new way of working requires the coordination of a multitude of players, with different short-term objectives, but shared long term goals, each contributing their unique capabilities. Like jazz, indeed. Unilever faces a multitude of these challenges, and as one of the largest Consumer Goods companies in the world they are looking to constantly evolve our partnership models in order to innovate at a faster and more impactful pace. This evolution has given rise to the ‘Ecosystem Innovation Model’, as Darren Adams will explore during his talk at Innov8rs Phoenix. 🧐 Curious to know more? Check out the conference website https://lnkd.in/ebRrEHs6 ❇️ Like to join? Apply via https://lnkd.in/eXcaSwdW ⚠️ Conference tickets are available for are available for current corporate innovation leaders and professionals only

One of the biggest hurdles innovators face is securing executive commitment to long-term innovation investments. Many executives hesitate to invest because they don’t see a direct connection between innovation initiatives and business strategy. Others expect immediate financial returns, leading to underinvestment in future-focused projects. To overcome this resistance, innovators must take a step-by-step approach to credibility-building. This means delivering quick wins to demonstrate early success, highlighting real customer insights, and framing innovation in a way that aligns with corporate priorities. Governance also plays a crucial role in securing long-term leadership commitment, suggests Rita McGrath in this snippet from a recent Innov8rs session. “Most companies either have a completely missing or very inadequate innovation governance process. You need a governance body—a Growth Board—that includes decision-makers with real power, not just delegates. These leaders should track innovation projects with metrics that match their stage of maturity, rather than forcing early-stage projects to deliver financial returns prematurely.” Rita recommends designing the right internal incentives. “When innovations transition from the growth board to the core business, all the upside belongs to the business unit manager, while the risk is covered at the corporate level,” she explains. “This creates an incentive structure where business leaders want to pull innovation in, rather than resist it.” 👉 WDYT- how could this type of incentive structure increase the chances of success for innovations at your company? #innovationmanagement #corporateinnovation #optionsvalue #governance #innovationincentives

🎙️ "Most of what corporate innovators are doing doesn't work", argued Elliott Parker in a recent Innov8rs Learning Lab session. "It's almost been 30 years now since Clay Christensen wrote The Innovator’s Dilemma, and most large organizations have set up innovation teams. They've been running, in some cases, for decades now. Yet, when you ask people for examples of successful, real transformation of a corporation by the work done by an innovation team, the examples are very few and far between. That is a sign that most of what we're doing isn't working. If it did work, we'd all have readily available examples to share about transformation in corporations." So... 🥁 (drumrolls please) Curious to hear from you... do you know of examples of innovation teams responsible for real transformation? Share in the comments 👇

Picture this... You’re sitting in Caterpillar’s headquarters, surrounded by images of the iconic yellow machines that have built the world’s infrastructure for generations. Your team has just developed a revolutionary concept that could disrupt the construction industry. But there’s a catch – testing it in the market under the Caterpillar name could risk the brand’s hard-earned reputation if things go wrong. What the innovation team at Caterpillar developed next was nothing short of brilliant – a systematic approach to market testing that protected their brand while allowing for rapid experimentation. Join our upcoming Innov8rs Phoenix conference, to learn from Nancy Yaklich, MBA, CSPO® how established brands like Caterpillar manage the tension between innovation and safeguarding their reputation. She'll share practical ways to overcome a legacy brand’s innovation challenge, such as – The Shadow Brand Solution – Digital Innovation Labs Framework – Implementation Strategies – Risk Management Benefits See you there?! #incubation #businessdesign #innovationgovernance #innovationmanagement

Rather than trying to overhaul a legacy business, successful companies plant new ventures that can thrive independently, suggests Jan Sedlacek. Unicorn breeding is the process of growing billion-dollar businesses within a corporate structure—an antidote to slow-motion failure. Jan describes the process using the garden and forest metaphors. - The Forest is the established core business, where existing revenue and assets provide stability. - The Garden represents adjacent growth opportunities that leverage existing capabilities while exploring new market spaces. - The Desert represents areas utterly detached from the company’s strengths, where ventures lack alignment and corporate support. Hear more from Jan in this snippet from his recent Learning Lab session. #innovationportfolio #venturebuilding #innovationmanagement