Your 2-day corporate innovation intensive.

If you have innovation in your title, this is your tribe.

Join a curated group of 250+ corporate innovators from across industries and all over Europe at the buzzing campus of Politecnico di Milano for two full days of in-depth conversations, relevant connections and quality content.

✅ You'll dive into best and next practices on innovation strategy, measuring innovation and improving ROI, venture building, open innovation, innovation ecosystems, high-performing innovation teams, AI-powered innovation, leadership alignment and more.
.

✅ Also, you'll hear from 20+ cross-industry innovation leaders the ins and outs of their approach (and lessons learned along the way). Plus, you'll meet and mingle with local innovators during field trips exploring the local ecosystem.

✅ Most importantly, the program is designed for you to work on any topic or get feedback on any challenge that's on top of your list, guided by experts and supported by peers. You'll have in-depth conversations with a select group of other innovation leaders and do-ers who speak the same language, and establish relevant connections that you actually want to follow up with after the conference.

This is not just another conference, where you'll be forced to listen to talking heads on stage all day long. At Innov8rs conferences, you'll actively engage and actually learn, so you'll leave with actionable insights to implement.

APPLY TO JOIN

Work with the best.

A first overview of innovation leaders and experts confirmed. More coming soon... stay tuned!

The agenda.


Get a glimpse of what your two days will look like... No worries, you'll get a detailed agenda and instructions for RSVPing of the sessions of your choice in due time.

Wednesday 12 June

9:00-10:30 CEST

Opening / Peer Pods


Connect with other participants and talk about relevant trends and topics... A great way to meet others with similar interests.

10:30-12:30 CEST

Trending Topic Talks


Hear from subject matter experts what's working now and what's coming next for corporate innovators across industries.

It Takes A Village To Innovate

It is impossible for a single individual or team to drive an innovation from idea to launch. The task requires collaboration with key functions within the company.

From this talk you will learn how innovators can work collaboratively with important key functions such as finance, human resources, legal and compliance.

The goal is to go beyond working on innovations as one-off projects. We want to co-create an innovation process supported by other key functions.


Tendayi Viki

Associate Partner at Strategyzer / Author of Pirates In The Navy

Open Innovation: the Age of Hybridization and Results

Open innovation doesn’t sound like 2015 anymore.

Since then, corporations have gained substantial experience in working with startups, and best practices have begun to solidify. Open Innovation is no longer a black box.

However, the landscape continues to evolve. New tools are appearing, with Venture Builders emerging as a significant new approach, despite some setbacks, while other models like Corporate Accelerators are on the decline. We're also seeing a trend of hybridization in these models, adding complexity to the Open Innovation landscape.

As Open Innovation matures, the pressure to deliver tangible results increases. CEOs are less swayed by the 'cool' aspect of startups and are demanding real impact. This shift to an 'Age of Results' brings its own challenges, as the benefits of collaborating with startups – like strategic market insights, cultural influence, and branding – are often intangible and hard to measure in the short to medium term.


Alberto Onetti

Chairman & President at Mind the Bridge

The Emerging and Evolving Role of the Chief Innovation Officer

The role of a Chief Innovation Officer is emerging in innovative companies, but it is still a new role for many. There are still many questions regarding the role both for the company as well as the individual.

In this session Marika and Jacob aim to answer some of the most important questions for this role including:
- What should companies expect of such a role? What does success look like?
- How do personally set your self up to become a successful Chief Innovation officer? What are the prerequisites of such a role? What are the things you should look out for when you are offered such a role?
- How does the interaction with other C-level executives look like and where are the potential pit falls?
- What are the forward looking challenges that a Chief innovation Officer or any innovation professional should be aware of in the next coming years?


Marika Reis & Jacob Dutton

Corporate Intrapreneur & Chief Innovation Officer | Co-Founder & CEO at Future Foundry

12:30 - 14:30 CEST

Networking Lunch


Good food, great conversations... or maybe a short stroll outside?

14:30 - 16:30 CEST

Innovators Insights


Ready for some stories from the trenches? Hear first-hand from cross-industry innovation leaders about their approach and lessons learned, so you can compare notes and benchmark your performance.

Of course, there's ample time for Q&A and discussions so you can understand what you might consider tweaking in your approach.

Theme - AI in Corporate Innovation


The Wow and Hype of Generative AI

In this thought provoking, human-generated, interactive presentation Emanuele Colonnella dives beyond the hype of Generative AI into the transformative impact of these technologies on the insurance industry and beyond, offering a glimpse into a future where innovation meets efficiency.

Through practical examples and forward-looking insights, this presentation not only demystifies generative AI but also charts a course for its strategic integration into business models, making it an indispensable resource for companies seeking to harness the next wave of technological innovation.


Emanuele Colonnella
Innovation Lead at Generali

Getting Ready for the Human & AI Innovator Team

What do we need to do today to be ready for tomorrow's Innovation process? Anna-Lena will explore what it takes to innovate successfully, what she always thought were the unique traits of an innovator, and how we can best support innovators with AI.

As we dive into the Innovation process and explore in which areas AI can best be leveraged to innovate even better and faster, she will showcase some learnings from their work at ABN Amro, based on which to make assumptions of the future Innovation process, serving a collaborative human & AI innovator team.

Anna-Lena Lourenz
Head of Innovation Process at ABN Amro Bank

From Theory to Practice: AI Applied to Innovation Processes

In this session, Susana will offer a pragmatic overview of Telefónica's application of AI within its early-stage innovation unit, exploring the extent to which AI can be trusted to automate and expedite innovation.SheI will describe the specific AI tools and methods that have been implemented to streamline the innovation process, discussing both the successes and the limitations encountered.

Susana will share the results from various tests and the current uses of AI, providing attendees with lessons learned and practical insights into the effectiveness of AI in enhancing innovation efficiency and will leave with actionable knowledge and valuable tips for those looking to leverage AI in their own innovation processes.


Susana Jurado
Head of Telefónica Venture Builder at Telefónica

Theme - Open Innovation


The Zebra Story - Transformation from Corporate Accelerator to Venture Client

From building innovation awareness at Zurich Insurance Group to embedding an innovation strategy into 30 country divisions in 4 continents...

Joel will present a case study on how to launch and implement a global corporate startup accelerator, and how they transformed it into a key strategic asset. He will share how their corporate-startup program is constantly fueling their innovation pipeline and supports their goal to future-proof our company.

The program involves +60’000 expert workers, startups, customers and communities... an open innovation program on steroids.


Joel Agard
Group Head of Innovation at Zurich Insurance Company

Challenging the Status Quo: A Peak Inside Maersk's CVC and Strategic Partnership Unit

In this talk, explore Maersk's exciting transformation journey, highlighting how the company has embraced innovation to become a leader in the supply chain industry.

Alex will delve into the evolution of Maersk's innovation strategy, showcasing the critical role of the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) unit and the strategic partnership model, in order to identify cutting-edge technologies and forge strategic partnerships with startups.

Alex Smout
Investment Director at Maersk Growth

CampX by Volvo Group - Balancing Focus and Flexibility in Corp-Startup Collaboration

What have 100 startup projects in four years' time taught Volvo Group about accelerating innovation through collaborating with startups? What are the challenges that the large corporate and the startups have run into? How does a structured framework support in overcoming these challenges? What are the learnings and how do you make sure to continuously improve?

Vishnu Rajanikanth is the owner of the CampX by Volvo Group concept. He leads a global team that delivers a portfolio of startup collaborations and new ventures. During his session, Vishnu will tell the story of CampX by Volvo Group, a balancing act between focus and flexibility.


Vishnu Rajanikanth
Head of CampX Concept & Hub Lead Sweden at Volvo Group

Theme - Sustainability & Impact


Driving the Shift Towards a Sustainable Transport System Through the Power of Intrapreneurship

How can we unlock the creativity necessary to drive the shift towards a sustainable transport system?

At Scania, innovation is largely focused on advancing low-carbon transport solutions. It's time to be a part of the solution rather than the problem when it comes to building a sustainable society.

Linda Fragner leads Scania's intrapreneurship program, the Scania Innovation Factory. She will share the do's and don'ts from her journey in trying to unleash the creativity from potential intrapreneurs using sustainability as a catalyst for growth and innovation.


Linda Fragner
Innovation Lead at Scania

Innovation and Social Impact: the Future of Insurance

Innovation and sustainability go increasingly hand in hand.

Thus far, corporates have adopted a passive approach to combining innovation with positive social and environmental impact: in other words, they have paid attention to mitigating possible negative externalities of their innovation projects.

Now, however, the time has come to take a more proactive approach: innovation will be more and more about creating new business opportunities that combine profitable models with a specific and well-designed positive social impact.

This session will explore why it should be so, and how it will be possible.

Danilo Raponi
Group Head of Innovation at Generali

Climate Lab - Building an Ecosystem for Cross-Corporate-Collaboration to Foster Climate Neutrality

Based on the experiences of building a climate innovation ecosystem in Vienna, in this talk Peter will address why cross-sector collaboration is necessary to achieve climate neutrality.

What necessary governance and framework conditions must be in place for cross-company collaboration to be successful? What industries and focus areas must be addressed to achieve climate neutrality? How can the commitment and support of the business units be gained?

How can we identify the right partners and what do they need to bring with them? What is success for us and how do we measure it?


Peter Schließelberger
Team Lead Innovation and Grants at Wien Energie

Theme - Internal Alignment/Collaboration


Building the bridge: How We Work Towards Creating an Ambidextrous Organization Housing Both Exploit and Explore Innovations

In this session Lisa will look back at the challenges they faced and how they were addressed, while slowly creating an ambidextrous organization.

She will provide insights gathered over the last years illustrating what measures they have taken and what learnings they have gathered.


Lisa Kuttner
Senior Innovation Manager at Raiffeisen Bank International

The Emergence of Corporate Antihistamine

Innovation in larger corporations is difficult. The corporate immune system, by its nature, prevents innovation just because it is too different, too small, or too risky from the perspective of the corporation.

During her time at SAP, Tatjana developed a toolbox that not only keeps the corporate immune system in check, but also holds innovators accountable for results.

Learn from her how innovators and corporate functions develop mutual respect for each other so that innovation can thrive.

Tatjana Trujillo
Senior Business Innovation Consultant & Diversity & Inclusion Lead at SAP New Ventures & Technologies

Washpass: Servitization in Consumer Electronics

Andrea will share a real-life case study on what it takes to go from selling washing machines to providing laundry-as-a-service to families.

Discover the realities of working across functional silos to introduce a new business model in an established company: from opportunity sizing and consumer validation, to advanced R&D (in topics as diverse as fluid dynamics and IoT), to marketing subscription services via digital D2C channels – by way of IT, finance, HR and more.

Find out about the soft skills required to weather the lifecycle of a transformative corporate venture: inspiring team members with an intrapreneurial vision; facing the emotional rollercoaster of hype and failure; staying persistent and maintaining an iterative mindset.


Andrea Contri
Major Domestic Appliances Innovation Director at Haier Europe

17:00-18:00 CEST

Enlightening Exchanges


Pick from several un-conference style sessions. Prefer an in-depth discussion, more active co-creation session or an inspiring talk? You choose the topic and format for a energizing end of day 1.

Corporate Exploring in the Age of AI: Building New Ventures in Established Companies

Get an insider’s look at how to convert customer insights into thriving, profitable ventures in the age of AI. Strategy advisor Dan Kolodziej will share insights from the book “Corporate Explorer Fieldbook” and lead a discussion with the innovators that are making this happen inside corporations today.

You will learn:
• How to develop scalable business ideas that open new areas of growth
• How to overcome internal resistance to build a coalition of support inside the enterprise
• How to navigate the pain points and pitfalls of corporate venturing
• How innovators are building value propositions based on AI


Dan Kolodziej, Ellie Amirnasr & Timo Muelhausen

Principal EMEA at Change Logic | Director, Digital Ventures at MANN+HUMMEL | Director of Data Driven X Factory Automation at Siemens

Setting Goals for Innovation Investment

Setting goals for the innovation investment is critical if your company treats innovation as a business imperative activity and not just a nice to have that happens on the sideline. This said, setting goals for innovation becomes even more critical in times when resources are scarce and the company needs to reshuffle its priorities.

Joining this session will equip you with the know-how needed to become pragmatic about your investment in innovation.


Dan Toma

Co-Author Innovation Accounting & The Corproate Startup, Partner at OUTCOME

From Lean Startup to Lean Scaleup: Upgrading New-Business Building

In this session, Amadeus Nexwave's Steve Kopp and Lean Scaleup's Frank Mattes provide you with a deep-dive on the WHY, WHAT and HOW Nexwave upgraded its new-business building.

Like many companies, Nexwave was not satisfied with the business impact from business model incubation. Steve and Frank designed a step-by-step upgrade program to take new-business building at Amadeus to the next level.

Topics will include:
- assessing your company's new-business building set-up
- getting pre-Scaling right
- an effective business graduation scheme
- assessing "ready to be scaled" for a corporate startup
- feeding the funnel with "meaningful ideas"


Frank Mattes & Steve Kopp

Founder and CEO at Lean Scaleup | Director, Nexwave Incubation Office at Amadeus

GenAI for Innovation Managers

In this session Elisa Farri and Gabriele Rosani will present ManagementGPT, prototypes of “AI co-thinkers”, that engage managers in human-machine conversations on complex managerial issues.

Participants will have the opportunity to test the “AI co-thinkers” applied to innovation cases.

The session will include time for Q&A and feedback sharing on the experiment, as well as tips and pitfalls.


Elisa Farri & Gabriele Rosani

Vice President and Co-lead at Capgemini Invent's Management Lab | Director of Content and Research at Capgemini Invent's Management Lab

How to Innovate When Everyone's Exhausted

The modern era workforce has never felt so overwhelmed. And that’s a big problem for innovation: Creativity, motivation to change, and patience with ambiguous development journeys don’t do well with exhausted, certainty-craving people.

In this session, innovation culture expert Elvin Turner, will share some often-hidden human factors that significantly influence the success of innovation projects.

With insights from neuroscience, psychology, and elite sports coaching, this session will introduce practical, human-centric tools that can help you improve the performance of teams and stakeholders through the innovation process.


Elvin Turner

Innovation Advisor and Author of "Be Less Zombie"

18:00 - 20:00 CEST

Networking Drinks


After the sessions is when the real talk starts typically... Join for drinks and mingle with other participants.

Thursday 13 June

8:00 - 9:00 CEST

Enlightening Exchanges


Pick from several un-conference style sessions. Prefer an in-depth discussion, more active co-creation session or an inspiring talk? You choose the topic and format for a fresh start of day 2.

Oh no... We have a REBEL in our Team!

Rebels make our lives impossible with their endless questions and crazy ideas. But are they really? What if all rebels in your organisation would leave? Would it be as colourful as it is right now?

Rebels are the ones who get the ball rolling. Are you the one to stop them, or will you create the right context so that your rebels will move mountains for you?

In this session, we learn what makes a rebel, discover their superpowers, and explore which existing and non-existing roles would be perfect for rebels. By the end of the session, you have a handful of practical tips to empower the rebels in your team.


Simone van Neerven

Founder at reBella

Artificial Integrity

John McCarthy, a pioneer in computer science, coined the term 'Artificial Intelligence' (AI) in 1955. Although McCarthy's vision was revolutionary, it largely overlooked a crucial aspect without which all intelligence, including that of systems, is an empty shell devoid of meaning: integrity.

The real challenge for leaders in AI development lies not in making AI systems more intelligent, but in recognizing and addressing the inherent places where they would fit in our organizations and our societies to preserve what is core to human values and enhance, not harm, their integrity. At its heart, Artificial Integrity aims to foster a symbiotic relationship between AI and humanity, where technology supports human well-being and societal progress, redefining the interaction between human wit and AI’s capabilities.

The session will offer an exploration into 'Artificial Integrity' as a new AI paradigm, presenting this novel approach in AI development and implementation. You will deepen your understanding of how 'Artificial Integrity' goes beyond traditional AI ethics.

Furthermore, the session will discuss strategies to establish 'Artificial Integrity' to ensure AI system development and deployment serve the broader goal of preserving and enhancing human intelligence.

These insights will allow you to appreciate the relationship between AI advancements and human intelligence, aiming for a more harmonious integration of AI in various societal and organizational contexts while upholding integrity.


Hamilton Mann

Group Vice President Digital at Thales

Innovation Ecosystems Experiences, Obstacles, and Solutions from Practice

Digitalization of healthcare drives opportunities for partnering in ecosystems, both during and after the innovation process. We have applied a number of practices such as Value Blueprints, Value Architectures, Minimal Viable Ecosystems, etc. This had lead to great new insights, but also roadblocks we encountered that needed to be addressed or circumvented.

Join this interactive session to dive into our lessons learned (and share your experiences from the trenches as well).


Rob de Graaf

Internal Innovation & Ecosystems Consultant at Philips

Innovation for Growth: From Traditional R&D to a Strategic Innovation Organization

Traditional industrial companies could historically build on their technical research & development to improve, optimize and complement their products and thus exploit their sustainable competitive advantage. But typical traditional R&D is not set up to address todays faster innovation cycles, digital technologies, volatile customer requirements and changing business model.

Consequentially, future R&D must deliver strategic innovation to continuously develop new competitive advantages in terms of new product and market combinations. This requires not only new processes and governance but also a different organization structure and culture.

This session will dive into the transformation of the R&D at ebm-papst, a global market leader for air and heating technologies. Focusing on the „people“ aspect it will show the need for a more interlinked and cross-functional agile project organization combined with guided autonomy for the project teams to enable strategic value creation.

Bridging theory and practice, the interactive session will be hosted by Dr. Tomas Smetana, CTO at ebm-papst together with Lucas Sauberschwarz from the management consultancy venture.idea.


Prof. Dr. Tomas Smetana & Lucas Sauberschwarz

CTO at ebm-papst Group | CEO at Venture Idea GmbH

From Theory to Practice: Common Struggles and Good Practices to Foster Open Innovation

The session will discuss obstacles to implementing open innovation within companies and feature insights from corporate participants in the Italian Open Innovation Lookout Observatory.

Implementing an open innovation approach within companies often encounters multifaceted barriers. Cultural resistance can hinder collaboration with external partners. Organizational inertia may impede the adoption of new methods, especially in established structures. Intellectual property protection and risk-sharing concerns can also stifle willingness to engage in open innovation ventures.

The session's goal will be to go beyond the front end of Open Innovation, discussing with corporates involved in actual open innovation initiatives how they overcome barriers and focusing on the back end of Open Innovation.


Stefano Mizio

General Manager at Polimi Innovation & Strategy Group

9:15 - 15:00 CEST

Workshops


Roll up your sleeves and get to work in these interactive sessions focused mostly on application and implementation. You pick the sessions covering the topic you're keen to dive into.

Building a Successful B2B Accelerator Program

Many corporate venture building programs install a great journey for innovators from ideation to concept validation. However, the success of these campaigns is often scrutinized by management in tough times due to sub-optimal results.

Resource priorities might shift, idea owners might not be the right profile to lead the development and budgets might not be secured for the full journey.

Discover the building blocks of an ambitious B2B accelerator (case study) to deliver on their promise of value creation.


Stijn Smet

Managing Director at Verhaert Innovation Academy

Human-AI Showdown: Who Is The Better Innovator In The Future?

In this groundbreaking workshop, we delve into the world of ideation like never before. Participants will be divided into groups, pitted against the sophisticated ITONICS AI in a battle of wits and creativity. Based on recent trends, our team will set a series of hot topics as the battleground for this challenge.

All workshop participants, along with AI, will brainstorm and develop ideas in response to these topics, unleashing the full potential of human and artificial intelligence. The twist? All ideas will be judged anonymously. Neither human participants nor AI will know the origin of each idea - was it a product of human or AI's creativity? This adds an important and exciting layer of unbiased evaluation to the process.

As we evaluate each idea based on criteria such as originality, feasibility, and impact, we will find out together: Which ideas will triumph? Will human ingenuity outshine AI's creativity, or will AI set new benchmarks in innovation? Join us for an exploration of the future of innovation, where humans meet AI in a quest to find the ultimate innovator in the future.


Dr. Fabian Reck

Lead Innovation Consultant at ITONICS

European Exclusive: FutureFit 2024 - The Results

In 2023, we began our corporate innovation benchmarking report – FutureFit.

The aim was simple: to conduct the largest-ever study dedicated to understanding what sets the best innovation teams apart from the rest based on insights from diverse geographies, industries and companies and to share the analysis with ambitious changemakers like you.

In this session, we'll give you an in-depth view of how successful innovation teams are run by revealing the latest performance benchmarks, including budget allocation, rewards & compensation, performance metrics and portfolio performance and look at commonalities in the challenges they face, their innovation strategies, top priorities and ways of working.

Join us to be the first to get access to and discuss the results, plus hear from a brilliant lineup of innovation icons taking part in our panel.

By attending, you will find out:
- What percentage of revenues do top-performing companies allocate to their innovation activities?
- How are the world's leading teams recognised and rewarded for their work in building new products and services?
- What significant obstacles have your peers overcome this year, and what do they foresee over the next twelve months?
- What are the key reasons that some companies outperform others when it comes to corporate innovation?
- What KPIs do leading companies use to measure, manage and improve their corporate innovation performance?
- Where are companies focusing their innovation efforts over the next twelve months, and what bets are they making?
- Why do some companies generate higher returns from their innovation investments than others?
- How are companies and teams organizing to drive better outcomes, and what methodologies are they relying on?


Jacob Dutton

Co-Founder & CEO at Future Foundry

What the Rise of Venture Building Means for Innovation Management

Venture Building and Venture Studios are gaining popularity in the innovation and venture capital scene. What’s behind the hype? Is the approach of venture studios effective? What does it mean for corporate innovation management?

In this workshop Stefan and Philippe will discuss these questions and more, based on insights from our recent study with leading corporate venture building units in Europe. They will discuss and challenge venture building setups and approaches and share practical insights from over a decade of corporate innovation and venture building experience.


Stefan Peintner & Philippe Thiltges

Managing Partner at WhatAVenture

Decarbonization Scenarios: Building Future Resilience with Strategic Foresight

Developing concrete decarbonization roadmaps is a strategic imperative for any business that aims to stay competitive over the coming years and thrive in (an) uncertain future(s). Few topics are as complex, uncertain, and urgent—the pressure is building to not only set goals, but actually reach them.

Strategic foresight methodology, with its trend analysis, scenario-building, and back-casting, is a valuable way to move from insights to concrete action. In this session we will explore our decarbonization scenarios for 2030 and leverage our proven foresight-driven innovation methodology to tackle this critical topic.

Participants will:
- Gain a deeper understanding of possible future developments
- Derive implications for your business
- Identify concrete innovation opportunities
- Plot next action steps


Dominik Krabbe & Bram Roosens

Manager Foresight & Innovation at Rohrbeck Heger | Manager Foresight & Strategy at Rohrbeck Heger

How to Integrate Innovation Training into Successful Innovation Ecosystems

If we could only create the right mindset and skill sets in our teams, we would create the next billion dollar business. Sadly, it doesn’t work like that.

Innovation Teams have relied on workshops and culture change to drive outcomes. But skill and mindset training alone won’t achieve results. We must drive data flow through the entire organization to realize the value of these methods.

This interactive workshop focuses on how to map your innovation ecosystem and identify obstacles that are putting the brakes on innovation.


Manuel Guerrera

Corporate Innovation & Lean Startup Coach at Kromatic

Venture Client Masterclass

Join this session to undertand the strategic value of startups and the need for their cutting-edge solutions to drive and foster corporate innovation and competitiveness, as well as to get an indroduction into the Venture Client Model as the most resource efficient corporate venturing vehicle.

You'll learn:

1) Why startups are relevant for your organization - Make the the relevance of startups as a source for corporate innovation palpable with industry examples and a case study.

2) Venture Client Model 101 - Grasp the opportunities and risks of corporate venturing and understand the benefits that Venture Clienting has to offer.

3) The Ins and Outs of Successful Venture Client Units - Explore how Venture Clienting has aided competitiveness for reference companies and infer how venture clienting can benefit your company.


Felix Bellinger

Venture Clienting Lead at 27Pilots

AI-powered Venture Building

Unpacking powerful lessons and insights that we have learned in the past 14+ years of building and launching 100+ new ventures inside large organizations, while delivering $2B in value for Fortune 2000s.

In today's dynamic market, innovation remains the key to growth and market resilience. However, a staggering 95% of innovations fail. Discover how leading-edge companies leverage AI to unlock a 5x larger venture idea funnel and make 2x more astute choices.

Learn how to tackle the common corporate innovation challenges, starting from identifying ideas with the highest ROI and getting the buy in, all the way to bringing the venture to the market and scaling it.

Discover the crucial need to gather a group of initial customers who not only support your product but also become its biggest fans, speeding up the process of finding the right market. Instead of trying to sell, concentrate on finding early users who believe in your idea, giving you important feedback to make sure it's on the right track.


Alain Bindels & Matej Tremko

Managing Partner Europe at U+ | Head of Product at U+

From Emerging Trends to ROI-Driven Growth: How to Select and Prioritize Strategic Opportunities That Will Turn Into Tangible Value

In today's economic landscape, executives are increasingly pressured to make ROI-driven decisions, moving away from innovation theater—where technology investments were often made without clear value addition.

Amidst this shift, the challenge of distinguishing between genuine opportunities and flashy trends has become more relevant, especially when so many solutions fail to deliver value to customers and bottom-line profit.

During this session, we will walk through OneUp's approach to pinpointing strategic opportunities and share how to take them towards tangible outcomes. We will deep dive into a current market-leading case study with one of OneUp's clients, sharing their key learnings from this journey and common traps you can avoid.


Mark Dijksman

CEO & Founder at oneUp

How to Engage your Communities with Certainty

During this workshop you will learn about Yumana's approach and methodology on how to maximize employee engagement in your innovation strategy.

We will first define your program’s framework, explore your cultural and organizational context and identify your employees needs and desired roles with the SCARF model.

We will then discuss and collectively develop strategies around 4 main drivers to assure your employees engagement depending on what they value : social recognition system, access to exclusive information and networks, reward mechanisms and gamification.

By the end of the session, you will have all the keys to engage your specific communities with certainty. Join us for a dynamic session filled with interactive activities tailored to address your needs and uses cases.


Céline Degreef & Maïlys Rebora

CEO at Yumana | CMO at Yumana

Embedding Sustainability in Your Innovation Governance and Portfolio Management Approach

During this workshop, you will learn about how to establish sustainability as a part of your decision-making processes.

You will learn how companies are performing sustainability assessments throughout the product development lifecycle and how they are using such assessments to make better, more informed product
investment decisions.

You will also learn how they view and report their innovation portfolio from a sustainability perspective to demonstrate and validate alignment with company sustainability goals.


Paul Heller

Chief Evangelist at Sopheon

Diversification Dividend - How to Win in Today's Market

In today's fluctuating market, companies like yours are actively searching for strategies that go beyond mere survival to fostering significant growth. Our extensive analysis of 1,092 European-listed companies underscores the importance of diversifying revenue streams as a pivotal strategy for sustainable business expansion.

We invite you to join Felix Christanell, Associate Partner at Stryber, for an enlightening session brimming with research-driven insights and best practices from around the globe. You'll leave equipped with practical, actionable strategies:
1. Outperforming Your Competition: Learn how integrating new revenue streams can dramatically enhance performance, far surpassing traditional business models focused solely on core operations
2. Building a Winning Portfolio: Gain insights into how a carefully managed venture portfolio, featuring innovative approaches such as "venture studios" and "growth equity" investments, can drive profound business impact
3. Designing Your Growth Pathway: Be inspired to craft and initiate a roadmap for growth, leveraging Stryber's global best practices and cutting-edge methodology

This session is tailored for those charged with navigating their company through complex market dynamics and in search of solid, data-supported strategies to bolster resilience and growth. We eagerly anticipate your participation.


Felix Christanell

Associate Partner at Stryber

12:30 - 13:30 CEST

Networking Lunch


Good food, great conversations... or maybe a short stroll outside?

15:00 - 16:00 CEST

Peer Pods


We'll meet again in small groups of peers to reflect on learnings from the conference, identify next steps and align on actions.

16:00-19:00 CEST

Field Trips


Finally, here's your chance to explore the booming Milan ecosystem. Hop on the bus to various innovation hubs and innovative places in and around the city, and meet with local innovators sharing their stories.

Why join?

Gain insights on trending topics and cross-industry best practices from (inter)national thought leaders.

Benchmark your approach and performance with innovators from other companies, sharing their successes, failures and everything in between.

Work on your actual challenges, guided by experts and learning from peers.

Go out and explore the local innovation ecosystem, meeting with movers and shakers and seeing innovation in action.

Leave with an updated toolbox to implement for immediate impact once back in the office.

Feel refreshed and re-energized, having met so many other inspiring innovators, committed to making things happen at your organization.

"What a great event! I learned as much from the attendees as I did from the speakers and hardly ever do speakers stay around to network after their session. I'm amazed by the format, how open, honest and authentic it was. You rarely ever get that with these types of events - well done!"

"This conference was the best in terms of content- carefully curated and very complimentary."

"It was the most useful conference/event that I’ve ever been to. I walked out of every single session having learned something useful."

"What a conference! It's now the 3rd time that I am attending an Innov8rs conference and as usual I have been amazed by the insights, the learning, the energy in the room and the amazing people I have met!"

Everything corporate innovation from A to Z

Regardless of where you are on your innovation journey, and no matter what industry you're in, we've got you covered.

From strategy and governance, to culture and capabilites, and from intrapreneurship and incubation program to venture building and open innovation- you'll dive into the most important themes crucial for innovators across industries.

With more than 30 sessions in different tracks on the agenda, you'll pick the sessions that are most relevant and interesting to you.

Besides the live sessions, you will get access to content and community online before, during and after the conference, to support with implementation once you're back in the office.

Find it hard to choose from all those value-packed sessions on the schedule?

Bring your team to gather insights from all speakers and sessions, and work with experts in dedicated 1:1 sessions to maximize outcomes.

As a team, you can focus on one key topic and get to the bottom of it. Or, you can divide and conquer to catch the best and latest on all key themes and trends. Our team packages get you a great deal on tickets- but even greater outcomes.

With so many issues to tackle and so much change happening so fast, you will benefit from your team  joining too.

APPLY TO JOIN

"Innov8rs is unlike any conference. It’s the only place were corporate innovators and intrapreneurs get vulnerable and real about the challenges facing disruptors today and work together on creating breakthrough opportunities. I try to attend as many as possible. This is my tribe of lifelong learners and do-ers."

"I am blown away with learnings, reflections and new insights. Such an amazing crowd with a true sharing mentality. I have gathered so many cases for best practice on how to run innovation, how to measure it, how to fuel itrapreneurship etc. Further, most people I have met are really down to earth, pragmatic and no-bulshit kind of people that are creating real impact in the companies they work for."

"Connecting with so many other innovation professionals acted as a shot of adrenaline reigniting my drive to transform our organization. Sometimes working at the front-end of innovation can be a lonely place, especially in a large 100-year-old company. Last week was a refreshing reminder that we're not alone."

Loved by participants, trusted by brands.

We're bringing together innovators since 2011. We've hosted more than 25 conferences in global innovation hubs from San Francisco to Stockholm to Shanghai to Singapore to Sydney.

Beyond the high-quality sessions and diversity of speakers, past participants valued most meeting people in jobs like them, for countless and endless conversations. Many stay connected long after the conference, always just a phone call away.

You'll meet cross-industry corporate innovators of all trades, all chasing similar objectives and facing similar challenges, across companies and industries:

  • Chief Innovation Officers, VP's of Innovation, Innovation Leaders
  • Intrapreneurs or Corporate Entrepreneurs
  • Innovation (program) Directors
  • Heads of Labs, Incubators and Accelerators
  • Corporate Venturing, Strategy and Corporate Development Managers
  • R&D and Product Development Professionals
  • HR and Organizational Transformation Leaders

working at companies like

You'll connect, collaborate and co-create with peers. That's how we design the event. That's why we limit the number of participants. And past participants loved it.


Here's what your peers said about their experience.

"That was a terrific event! Thank you for all of your hard work organizing + curating a terrific group of people to attend. I just kept having great conversations over both days."

"All the sessions I participated in were amazing. Honestly, it’s very rare to attend a conference with so much enthusiasm and also the fact that it’s truly peer 2 peer."

"Hands down the best conference I’ve had the luxury of attending. I have so many more great people in my world now and have a brain bursting with new ideas and concepts to explore."

Secure Your Seat

If you have innovation in your title, this is your tribe. Join Innov8rs Milan for in-depth conversations, relevant connections and quality content.

Extended deadline... Secure your seat at Fast Movers discount until 8 May EOD

What's included?

• Join 30+ sessions with experts and innovation leaders, covering everything corporate innovation A-Z, as well as field trips to explore the local ecosystem
Access to session recordings and additional resources for three months
Engage with other participants via our online platform before, during and after the conference
Connect and network with other participants during the conference dinner and several social events prior, during and after the conference

Member Pass

for current members of Innov8rs Community and up to 5 of their colleagues. Not a member yet? More info and apply via the button below.

€495

for 1 seat

ABOUT INNOV8RS COMMUNITY

Individual Pass

€1995

Fast Movers discount until 8 May 2024

€1695

for 1 seat

APPLY TO JOIN

Team Pass - 3 Seats

€4795

Fast Movers discount until 8 May 2024

€3995

for 3 seats

APPLY TO JOIN

Team Pass - 5 Seats

€6995

Fast Movers discount until 8 May 2024

€5995

for 5 seats

APPLY TO JOIN

The options above are available for corporate innovation leaders and professionals only.

We are not offering seats to consultants, coaches, software firms or otherwise service providers. Only Expert Partners and members of Innov8rs Community with an Expert Pass are eligible to join this Conference. 

Are you a member of Innov8rs Community already?

As a member, you can register for this conference at a members-only discount of €495 per seat. Log in to the community platform or ask our team for further info and instructions.

Need some help?

If you'd like to understand better how participating in Innov8rs Milan would support you and your team in achieving your objectives, or if you have questions about registration, start a chat via the blue button bottom right or email hans@innov8rs.co

Venue Information

The conference is hosted at Politecnico di Milano - Milano Bovisa Campus.

Further information and instructions re the venue, available hotels and other logistics will be sent to you after registration.

If you have any questions, just open a chat via the blue button bottom right and we'll get back to you asap.