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.
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✅ 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.

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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

Technological Scenarios and Main Challenges for Digital Innovation

The digital innovation landscape is increasingly flourishing and characterized by evolving technological scenarios, as seen with the advent of generative AI solutions, the spread of blockchain or augmented reality technologies, the integration of IoT and Big Data.

Innovation, both in its more traditional and digital form, carries a number of old and new challenges with it.

This talk will disentangle the main challenges for crafting and executing innovation endeavors and propose a way forward for both incumbents and startups striving to strategically navigate our evolving digital landscape.


Antonio Ghezzi

Associate Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at Politecnico di Milano & Research Director at Startup Hi-tech Observatory

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

Open Innovation in the Defense Sector

Join this session to learn about the complexity of performing Open Innovation in the Defense Sector, to understand the technology and innovation challenges in such a context.

First, we'll explore the peculiarities of carrying out a development program in the Defense sector, with a focus on the development of a Next Generation Fighter under the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP).

Then, Flavio will share their experience on approaching Open Innovation in such a context and show tools and methodologies applied to the specific case of the GCAP Program.

Flavio Giovanelli
Business Partner at Cefriel

Can Big Corps accelerate? Lessons From the Startup Playbook

Piergiorgio will share his journey of integrating a startup mindset into a banking environment. This talk will highlight how partnering with startups drives innovation, leads to new products and services, and fosters a culture of learning and exploration within the company. He'll also talk about learnings from previous experiences like F1.

How can adopting a startup mentality drive innovation in a corporate environment? What lessons can be learned from small errors and experimentation? Why is it important to involve all levels of the company in the innovation process? How can partnerships with startups lead to the development of new products and services? How does exposure to different mindsets and tools transform organizational culture?


Piergiorgio Grossi
Chief Innovation & Data Officer at Credem Banca

Open Innovation, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Plan for the unexpected, that's Jeroen Bartelse's advise. In this talk, he'll reflect on an open innovation collaboration between an insurance company and a car manufacturer. Working in innovation Jeroen is used to projects not going as planned, but working on this collaboration has led to whole new levels of ‘what could possibly go wrong’.

This session won’t be a marketing talk about the fun of working in innovation but will be about things not going according to plan and what we’ll do differently as a result. Some "what if"’s, are still unanswered, but you might take some extra precautions next time you’ll embark on an open innovation adventure after hearing this story.

Jeroen Bartelse
Sr. Business Innovation Manager at Achmea

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

Breaking Free From the Corporate Gravity

Innovation often faces resistance within large corporations, much like the gravitational force that restrains objects from escaping Earth's atmosphere. Just as a rocket needs a powerful engine to overcome this force, so too do innovators require a toolbox to break free from the corporate gravity.

Tatjana and her team, drawing from extensive experience from 7+ years of enabling speedy while compliant rockets within SAP, have developed strategies and value frameworks that act as a rocket engine, propelling innovation forward and challenging the status quo with AI as the most recent rocket booster

Learn from Tatjana how innovators and corporate functions develop mutual respect for each other so that innovation can thrive and which role AI plays.

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

Theme - People & Culture


Building an Everyone Innovation Culture

Building an everyone innovation culture in a large corporate is not a passion project. It’s a strategic necessity for sustainability and growth. As Zoi will share, at Siemens Energy they take a structured approach around three pillars of action.

First, our innovation platform for crowd-sourcing collects ideas to solve critical business problems, encouraging grassroots innovation.

Second, their innovation tracks provide entrepreneurship programs, including 10-week and 5-week sprints, along with a 3-hour web-based innovation foundations training. These programs build entrepreneurial muscle, shift mindsets, and help shape the future of energy through investments in people and initiatives.

Third, they cultivate employee innovation communities and host events to raise awareness, fostering a culture of paying it forward.

This is how they build an “everyone innovation” culture, one idea and one innovator at a time.


Zoi Gioti
Global Employee Innovation Lead at Siemens Energy

Saint-Gobain Innovation Transformation - Creating a Scaled Impact in a Decentralized & Locally Empowered Company

Since 2019, Saint-Gobain has undergone a significant transformation with the "Transform & Grow" and "Grow & Impact" programs. Innovation, a longstanding asset, now needs to transform to keep pace with the fast-evolving world and company strategy.

The Innovation Development team champions and supports this shift, in particular towards solutions, systems, services, and new business models. We've implemented a Saint-Gobain Innovation Framework to foster a common language and catalyze an innovation culture shift. Our decentralized structure requires a multi-channel effort to address the speed and efficacy of project and business teams, leadership, and central functions.

Embracing "walk the talk," we've devised unique formats to impact various organizational levels and segments, aiming for substantial and nuanced change.

This approach and its formats will serve as inspiration for enriching attendees' programs.

Dominique Labilloy
VP Innovation Development at Saint-Gobain

Learning by Doing: Promoting Innovation in Snam through the Power of Intrapreneurship

In Snam, innovation has several channels, one of which focuses on promoting entrepreneurial ideas in line with our strategic goals from the bottom up in order to involve and harness the know-how of colleagues and stimulate their entrepreneurial spirit.

Eugenia Di Somma is responsible for Snam's open innovation unit and heads the intrapreunership programme. She will share how the topic has developed over the past four years, sharing positive and negative aspects and takeaways.


Eugenia Di Somma
Manager Open Innovation Hub at Snam

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. Expert venture builder Dan Kolodziej will share insights from his firms latest 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 & Aldo Alessandro Negri

Principal EMEA at Change Logic | Director, Digital Ventures at MANN+HUMMEL | Customer Discovery Manager for Data Driven X Business Models 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

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 | Co-founder & Venture 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.


Ilya Filonau

Growth Lead at FifthRow

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

Portfolio Prioritization in Practice

Whether it's an Idea Portfolio, a New Technology Portfolio or a Product Launch Portfolio, companies continuously have to take hard, often painful prioritization decisions, because we never have sufficient resources and capital to do it all.

During this workshop we will discover and discuss the governance framework required to prioritize investments across the different stakeholders. This includes the process, mandates, and how to set the constraints from a strategic perspective. But mostly we will focus on which prioritization criteria make sense, which parameters should be in balance: is “speed to revenue” for example more important than “circular” or “smart” or “competitive”? Is “long term” always an enemy to “short term” interest? How does prioritization adapt to changing economic circumstances or crisis?

The workshop will invite you to share your experiences and thoughts how best to manage an innovation portfolio by means of practical exercises and discussion.


Huub Rutten

VP of Product Research & Design & Co-founder 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 & Jan Sedlacek

Associate Partner at Stryber | Co-founder and Managing Partner at Stryber

Innovation Maturity Model: How to Assess Impacts of Innovation

When it comes to innovation, the goal of organizations can no longer be to act sporadically and randomly. Companies must aim to transform their organizations to make themselves capable of seizing new opportunities in a structured and systematic way.

This is a complex path, which each organization must pursue by looking at its own specifics and proceeding gradually to define the “recipe” best suited to its own characteristics and goals.

First and foremost, it is essential for companies to be aware of their current degree of organizational maturity with respect to innovation issues. Increasingly, it is also becoming essential to understand how to effectively measure the impact of innovation initiatives in the organization, not focusing solely on quantitative business results, but assessing aspects such as the growth of knowledge, skills and innovation culture.

The objective of the session is to provide useful guidelines for understanding how to assess own organizational and operational maturity with respect to innovation issues, and to highlight lines of action and best practices.


Filippo Frangi & Alessandra Luksch

Senior Researcher at Startup Thinking Observatory, Politecnico di Milano | Head of the Startup Thinking Observatories and Digital Transformation Academy at Politecnico di Milano

Shaping the New Products Era: How the Combination of Technology, Information and Materials Define New Products Experiences with Users, and Back

BTS Design Innovation (DI) will deliver a comprehensive session that spans the latest insights from diverse fields such as luxury fashion, consumer goods, medical, cosmetic, and automotive luxury industries, encouraging you to bring forward your unique challenges, engaging directly with how DI's innovative combination and tech transfer tools can offer bespoke solutions.

Participants will gain insights on utilizing technological solutions, products, and case studies of information/data in a way that uncovers fundamental principles of innovation.

DI will share with participants how to merge various elements to pave new innovation paths and provide them with practical tools for maintaining and developing innovation pipelines. Attendees will leave with insights for both short-term and long-term planning, equipped with a framework to integrate new opportunities at the intersection of technology, information, and user experience into their innovation strategies.


Duccio Mauri & Irene Costa

Director of Operations at BTSDI | Consultant, Innovation Process Expert at BTSDI

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.

Kering’s approach to Systemic Innovation Ecosystems in the Luxury Sector

Luxury is an interesting confluence between artisanal craftmanship and innovative practices and materials.

Kering’s innovation ecosystem acts as a mix of acceleration, consulting and corporate funding to foster innovation in one of the most change-proof market sectors, as you'll find out during this field trip


Experience Multi-Dimensional Innovation at the Cisco Co-Innovation Center in Milan

This is a unique opportunity to step into one of the 6 Cisco Innovation Lab across the globe, where cutting-edge technology and collaborative ideation converge. At these centers, Cisco experts showcase how innovation is activated through a multi-dimensional approach, encompassing product innovation, tech acquisitions, open innovation, and cultural change.

Cisco constantly leverages tech acquisitions to integrate new capabilities and expand its portfolio. Open innovation initiatives foster collaboration with external partners, driving creativity and accelerating solution development. Additionally, a culture of innovation is cultivated within Cisco, encouraging employees to embrace change and explore new ideas.

OpenZone Campus Visit

OpenZone is a scientific campus on the doorstep of Milan, entirely dedicated to Health. Conceived to build bridges between different skill sets, languages and industries, today the campus is home to over 34 enterprises. Among them are leading biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and advanced gene therapy companies, all sharing a common commitment to innovation, as you'll witness on this field trip.


Movyon: An Immersive Experience, a Co-Creation Space For New Mobility.

Coming soon...

Several slots during both days

Showcase Sessions


Innovation teams need proper tools and support services to be successful at the speed and scale required. If you're curious to see in action some of the market's best tools/services currently available, join these demo sessions.

Future Foundry: Accelerating, De-Risking and Systematizing Growth

There has probably never been a better time to grow.

A world of emerging customer needs, blurred competitive boundaries, and disruptive new technologies have created an abundance of opportunity. But, while 84% of CEOs say that innovation is critical to their growth strategy, only 6% of them are satisfied with their organisation’s innovation performance.

The most common blockers are:
- Speed: There simply aren’t enough resources dedicated to discovering and validating new ventures, products and services.
- Risk: While Design Thinking, Lean Startup and Agile are understood at a theoretical level - corporate muscle memory snaps back to waterfall.
- Complexity: Navigating convoluted internal systems, policies, and procedures hampers would-be changemakers.

Future Foundry solves this by giving big companies a superpower - the ability to accelerate, de-risk and systematise the development of breakthrough products and services using the discovery and validation methods of Silicon Valley.

Over the last three years, we've launched over 100 ventures, unlocked $15bn in growth and generated a 300x ROI for clients like Hilton, Walgreens, Experian, Reckitt and Microsoft. The key to our success is our Velocity™ method that distils decades’ worth of venture building down into a systematic, scalable and repeatable way to identify, validate and scale new ventures.

Join us for this 45 minute Demo Showcase to find out how Future Foundry is powering innovation at the world’s leading companies and helping them to:
- Inject more pace into their innovation efforts through proven 2-week sprints.
- Manage risk by gradually increasing investment and experiment fidelity as evidence strength increases.
- Achieve a 90% hit rate for new propositions versus a current average of just 10%.


Jacob Dutton

Co-Founder & CEO at Future Foundry & Creator of the Velocity™ Innovation Method.

Understanding the Complexity of Digitizing Your Innovation

There is relentless demand for innovation in every business. Operationalizing innovation is key to success.

You have heard this many times: The right Enterprise Innovation Management system can revolutionize how your organization innovates, streamline processes, improve collaboration, and maximize ROI. But there is more to the story.

The key to success is not (only) about digitizing your innovation and solving your innovation challenges with a tool. It is about reading into the complexity that comes with it.

In this session we will investigate:
- How to put you in control of your innovation efforts and
- Innovation Management best practices

You will walk away with a fundamental idea of the foundation needed to drive collaboration, build a culture of innovation, and make data-driven decisions.


Jean-Pierre Lippini

Regional Director at Sopheon

Why Startup Scouting is the Most Important Step Towards a Corporate Venturing Practice

Startup scouting is the initial step towards embracing new ideas and technologies, finally boosting your corporate innovation process. Novable has pioneered the corporate venturing technology area with an AI-powered startup scouting platform used and loved by some of the largest firms on earth.

The Novable Scouting Platform helps innovation professionals identify and engage with the most relevant innovation partners, and start or renew their innovation practices using our Corporate Venturing Framework, where startup scouting is the first engagement model.

Novable is a proven way to save thousands of hours and predictably find the perfect innovation for your company. In this session, Manuel and Laurent will show you how to do just that with both technology and methodology.


Manuel Hellendorff & Laurent Kinet

Innovation Specialist at Novable | Co-Founder and CEO at Novable

Return-on-Innovation: Delivering the Right Ideas with edison365

Your ideas are only as good as the benefits they deliver.

As brands big and small disrupt their industries with cutting-edge ideas, pressure is on innovation teams to stay ahead of the curve.

This means innovating fast, effectively, and boldly. Businesses must remain below budget, identify high ROI opportunities, and consider the end-to-end picture.

In this exclusive demo, discover how edison365 helps deliver innovative ideas, quantify the benefits, and gain total visibility from concept through to impact.

Witness key features like idea triage, business case optimization, portfolio delivery, and end-to-end reporting. Delivered in a beautiful UI and built on Microsoft for tomorrow’s ideas, today.


Ivan Lloyd

CEO at edison365

Innovate at Scale With Yumana

Corporate innovation is not easy. But if VINCI, L’Oréal and SAFRAN can do it, why not you?

On Thursday, 13th June, discover the platform behind the innovation ecosystems at VINCI, L’Oréal, and so many more.

We will show you how we doubled our clients’ engagement rate and cut in half the time it takes them to select the best ideas. You’ll learn about how from the challenges of industry leaders, we discovered solutions that apply to you too.

But most of all, you’ll find out how we’re leveraging AI to help you get to the business value of your innovation program.


Céline Degreef & Maïlys Rebora

CEO at Yumana | CMO at Yumana

Results From Deploying 100x Faster GenAI Venture Building Process in Fortune500s

Are you ready to take your innovation to the next level?

U+ Digital Ventures is introducing FifthRow, the cutting-edge GenAI Innovation Operations platform backed by 14 years of expertise. Join us for a demo session, and unlock the potential of FifthRow.

Learn how it revolutionizes the process of research, discovery, validation, and market testing for ventures. With FifthRow, you can identify and test top solutions for any company, in any market, all at a remarkable 10x faster pace—from Intent to Viable New Venture.


Ilya Filonau

Growth Lead at FifthRow

Shaping Your Future from Strategy to Execution: AI-driven Innovation with ITONICS

Rapidly evolving and competitive markets call for rapid innovation. Companies that innovate faster are 3 times more likely to outperform their industry peers in growth, 2.5 more likely to achieve their financial performance goals, and 2.1 more likely to increase operational resiliency to unforeseen events.

Artificial intelligence provides a vast potential to accelerate time-to-market across the innovation value chain. Most notably, AI-enhanced tools can help companies tackle key roadblocks toward innovation-at-speed, such as:
- Information overload and limited time for a sufficient analysis of market signals.
- Blind spots and established thought frames limiting human creativity and the company’s vision on new business opportunities.
- Lack of cross-departmental transparency, hindering innovation teams to identify crucial information and blocking effective collaboration.

Despite those potentials, many companies still struggle to employ AI productively in their innovation operations. As the world-leading provider of End-2-End innovation management software, ITONICS has set out to provide our clients with AI solutions that complement human expertise. Working with leading innovators such as Amazon, LEGO, Siemens, Thales, and Johnson & Johnson, we enable augmented intelligence, combining the best of human expertise and AI.

In this demo showcase, we will dive into three key use cases for speeding up innovation with our AI-enhanced tools and solutions:
- Automated environmental monitoring: Seamlessly aggregating relevant news, patents, and publications to surface crucial insights, key events, and emerging drivers of change with our Strong Signals feature.
- AI-enhanced idea generation and validation: Supporting human experts in idea generation, formulation, and evaluation with our GenAI-based Smart Action functionalities.
- 360-degree view on innovation portfolios: Extracting all relevant information from your technology, product, and project portfolios with our InnovationGPT conversational interface.


Dr. Fabian Reck

Lead Innovation Consultant at ITONICS

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.

Secure your seat at Last Call discount until 6 June 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

Last Call discount until 6 June 2024

€1795

for 1 seat

APPLY TO JOIN

Team Pass - 3 Seats

€4795

Last Call discount until 6 June 2024

€4295

for 3 seats

APPLY TO JOIN

Team Pass - 5 Seats

€6995

Last Call discount until 6 June 2024

€6495

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.