NextGen Foundry

**This Is Why the World Needs More Intrapreneurs** Is there any group of people more fetishized than ultra-wealthy entrepreneurs? Think of Elon Musk. The late Steve Jobs. Or former Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. We place them on dizzyingly high pedestals. We study their careers as a blueprint for success. Their personal and professional lives are dissected in endless documentaries and thought pieces. And they’re idolized by scores of ambitious young people. The thing is, to save the planet and solve the climate crises we’re in, we don’t just need more entrepreneurs. What we’re really in need of is more intrapreneurs. Intrapreneurship applies all the principles of entrepreneurism - boldness, innovativeness, agility, to name but a few - and applies them within the framework of an established organization. Intrapreneurs leverage the existing resources, capabilities, and support they can access and use to roll out new ideas, products, or services, often at a massive scale. We desperately need that growth mindset driving corporate sustainability. Think about it. Just 100 companies worldwide are responsible for 71% of all corporate GHG emissions. And one of our biggest opportunities for steering corporate behemoths toward a more sustainable way of doing business? The intrapreneurs within their ranks. A few forward-thinking organizations are already extremely good at unlocking the benefits of intrapreneurism. Others are starting to follow suit. At 3M, for example, they deploy a ‘15% rule’ that encourages employees to dedicate 15% of their time to developing new ideas for the business. That policy led to the creation of Post-it Notes, no less. Amazon’s ‘Just Do It’ ethos, with its nod to Nike, is another example of cultivating an innovation-supporting culture.  And at Airbus, the team has developed an open innovation platform on which all employees can collaborate and share ideas. It takes really hard work by senior management to create the type of environment in which intrapreneurs can thrive.  The C-Suite must fully embrace questioning the status quo and reward those who do. Companies need to think about allocating capital and resources to driving innovation, designing structured programs aimed at intrapreneurs, and finding ways to acknowledge their input, too. Jeff Bezos even created a ‘Just Do It’ award. Yes, the award includes a Nike shoe. At a more granular level, it can also be helpful to align the work of intrapreneurs with the focus of internal VC groups, when they exist, to create a more robust corporate innovation support framework. The bottom line is that we need to start putting great intrapreneurs on pedestals right next to traditional founders. That’s how we can change the world for the better. #cleantech #climatechange #sutainability #climateaction #greeneconomy Jayshree Seth Angela Baker Molly Wood University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business Sustain SoCal Consumer Technology Association

The Largest and Most Important Investment Opportunity…Ever. Full stop. -What if we reframed climate change as opportunity rather than risk or pesky compliance?  -What if some of the world's biggest companies set their sights on the extraordinary business opportunity to gain a slice of the $9trn it will cost annually to transition to a global greener economy?   -What if they stopped fiddling around the edges and started trying to change the world? I believe the impact would be transformative, and it's why I felt compelled to put pen to paper—figuratively speaking—and share why I believe the current corporate approach to climate change, as one of risk management rather than a platform for innovation, is fundamentally flawed.    We need executives at small and large companies to think differently if we're to get where we need to be on carbon pollution. I'd love it if you could have a read. #cleantech #climatechange #sutainability #climateaction #greeneconomy Unilever Microsoft Brookfield Renewable Siemens Energy Panasonic North America Paul Polman Barbara Humpton Megan Myungwon Lee Molly Wood Shannon Houde, MBA, PCC David Kirsch University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business