How To Build and Run an Internal Community of Practice-IHB23

Miikka Leinonen, Sabrina Weymiens, Miki Ion & Suzanne Balima

Business Design Method Creator & Community Builder | Head of Commercial Innovation at Svitzer | Innovation Community manager at ING | Open Innovation at Vale

as recorded on 23 September 2021 as part of Innov8rs Connect on Strategy, Leadership & Organization

There are many different in ways in which the innovation function can be structured and organized. In most organizations, there are innovation teams at corporate and business unit level; at HQ and at regoinal hubs; and also, different types of innovation each have their own dedicated team. Thse different teams often aren't that well connected and operate in silos. How can we, beyond the org chart, build a company-wide community of practice, connecting innovators across the business for sharing experiences, create a more consistent and coherent approach, and ultimately, increase our impact? In this roundtable, we discussed principles and practices for building a innovation community of practice in your organization.

About the speaker

For the past few years Miikka has focused more of his time into understanding how human communities work. As visual storytelling is the backbone of his way of working he has been able to turn his passion for communities, purpose and innovation into simple visualized theories, frameworks and tools. His latest toolbook Redesigning Companies as Communities will be published this autumn.


Sabrina recently joined Svitzer as Head of Commercial Innovation, with the mission to build the processes, structure and culture for validating and building new and innovative businesses. Previously, she held the position of Innovation Program Manager in Maersk Growth where she started the Maersk Innovation Community, a change movement that grew from 15 to 50 employees in six months with the purpose to run small-scale experiments. Sabrina started her career in social innovation – helping corporations innovate with impact by crowdsourcing social entrepreneurs. Thirteen years later, she drove the implementation of a new business model for Johnson & Johnson Spain and helped large international corporations, such as Arla, Lego, Telenor, TDC, Novozymes, Disneyland Paris etc., build their innovation culture and structure as Engagement Manager in Implement Consulting Group.


Miki is an innovation community manager at ING. Driven by an ambition to add verve & youthfulness to the banking industry, over the past +5 years she has done so in areas such as corporate communication, employee engagement, innovation management & methodology. She is currently helping a global community grow & glow.


Suzanne’s mission is to help people and organizations transform and reinvent themselves by harnessing their unique gift of creativity to generate value. She draws from her diverse experiences in engineering, management consulting, technology implementation, digital transformation, implementing innovation, as well as leading corporate diversity initiatives. In her Open Innovation role at Vale, she helps build and develop relationships between Vale and the innovation ecosystem globally, and plays a role in strengthening partnerships with the start-up community through open innovation projects. With her diverse corporate innovation experiences, she understands that a company’s culture plays a fundamental role in the adoption and dissemination of innovation. Her interest in launching a community of practice within her organization is fueled by her interest in democratizing innovation methods, tools and learnings beyond the innovation team.

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