The topics.

Strategy, Leadership & Organization | Governance & Portfolio Management | Foresight & Business Design | Incubation, Venture Building & Scaling | Open Innovation | Climate/SDG | Culture & Capabilities | Talent & Teams

As always, this series of 8 Learning Labs explores the best and latest in corporate innovation. Here's an overview of the topics we'll cover and questions we'll aim to answer.

  • If your company is plagued by HiPPO decision-making and Innovation Theatre, a carefully crafted Innovation Mandate might just be the piece your company is missing.
  • We all know it takes many new ideas to create one decent innovation that actually delivers revenue and impact. So how do you manage it when every project is so wildly uncertain?
  • There is an urgent need to examine and optimize approaches to Horizon 1 for repeatability, given resource allocation as well as a faster commercial payoff for the organization. What are common challenges and keys to success for Horizon 1 innovation?  And what is the experience in practice with this, at lululemon?
  • How does the DB SCHENKER STARTup terminal Venture Client Unit work, and what can you learn from that?
  • Most employees lack the time and energy to innovate meaningfully, yet workplace practices ‘steal’ 13 years from an average career. What are practical approaches for innovation professionals to restore the personal and collective innovation capacity that their organizations urgently need?
  • Innovation Management is moving into the realm of becoming a corporate profession, with new job titles appearing every day. We know more about the work to be done but don’t know how to staff it. How might we codify the work so that job descriptions and career paths can be formalized? How do we select, develop and retain innovation professionals?

Dive into these topics, and much more at our Q1-series of Learning Labs.

APPLY TO JOIN

The schedule.

This series consists of 8 Learning Labs. Each Learning Lab is a 2-hour online workshop, covering one key pillar of corporate innovation, typically with 2 speaker sessions per workshop.

You'll get a detailed agenda and further instructions after registration.

Wednesday 12 February, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST

Governance & Portfolio Management


16:00-16:15 CET/10:00am-10:15am EST/7:00am-7:15am PST

Introduction & Peer Pod

17:45-18:00 CET/11:45am-12:00pm EST/8:45am-9:00am PST

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

16:15-17:00 CET/10:15am-11:00am EST/7:15am-8:00am PST

Can’t Innovate Without a Mandate

In this session, the corporate gloves come off as Stephen reveals the heart-breaking reasons why most companies fail to produce meaningful innovation with any regularity. A chronic lack of courage, transparency and imagination is the bland but toxic cocktail that leads to company-wide confusion and half-hearted attempts at value creation.

However, as we’ll see, a carefully crafted Innovation Mandate might just be the piece your company is missing – an explicit, internal delegation of authority, one that aligns investments with strategy, clarifies people’s responsibilities and empowers innovation professionals to do the job they were hired to do.

If your company is plagued by HiPPO decision-making and Innovation Theatre... If leaders struggle to define progress, allocate innovation budgets, or even agree on the rules of engagement, well you'll feel at home in this discussion.

What you’ll take away from this learning lab:

  • A painfully honest exploration of the root causes of why most corporate innovation labs fail to produce value
  •  A template for centralising all of the difficult but strategic choices around investing in an innovation portfolio
  • (Hopefully) a sense of optimism around keeping innovation aligned to corporate strategy and preventing good innovators from burning out from frustration.

Stephen Parkins

Founder & Chief Innovation Officer at Culturedge

17:00-17:45 CET/11:00am-11:45am EST/8:00am-8:45am PST

Innovation Portfolios: Comparing and Betting on Uncertainty

We all know it takes many new ideas to create one decent innovation that actually delivers revenue and impact. So how do you manage it when every project is so wildly uncertain?

We know each project's business plan is a wild guess, but our management team isn't going to accept ""I don't know"" as an answer. We need to show that our portfolio will produce returns.

Without a clear portfolio, individual investment decisions that look correct, can add up to an unbalanced portfolio. We may have overinvestment in one area and blank spaces in the product portfolio. Strategy and portfolio management need to work together to help guide both investors and entrepreneurs to the most profitable areas and measure progress.

This talk focuses on how to implement innovation accounting at the portfolio level.

Tristan Kromer

Founder and CEO at Kromatic
Wednesday 19 February, 19:00-21:00 CET/1pm-3pm EST/10am-12pm PST

Strategy, Leadership & Organization


19:00-19:15 CET/1:00pm-1:15pm EST/10:00am-10:15am PST

Introduction & Peer Pod

20:45-21:00 CET/2:45pm-3:00pm EST/11:45am-12:00pm PST

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

19:15-20:00 CET/1:15pm-2:00pm EST/10:15am-11:00am PST

Future Focused Leadership

Companies, institutions and even governments fail when they miss the future. That’s not because we’re not smart or hard working. The problem is that most of us are psychologically wired to focus on the present. Our brains play tricks on us. But we can change how we think. How we act. How we lead.

In this session, you’ll learn...

  • Why some organizations thrive over time when others fail
  • Why only a small fraction of people are psychologically future-focused
  • The practices that future-focused leaders embody
  • Meaningful changes that you can put to work right away to rewire your brain, your team and your organization

Dev Patnaik

CEO at Jump Associates

20:00-20:45 CET/2:00pm-2:45pm EST/11:00am-11:45am PST

Efficiency Innovation is Innovation - Principles and Practices from Lululemon

When corporates list out their funding breakdown for innovation, 70% of resources are allocated to “Horizon 1” - core businesses that are profitable and sustainable. The focus is on improving the performance of these businesses to maximize their value.

Nevertheless, as innovation specialists, we tend to gravitate toward Horizons 2 and 3 because they seem more alluring. There is an urgent need to examine and optimize approaches to Horizon 1 for repeatability, given resource allocation as well as a faster commercial payoff for the organization.

This session will be split in two parts: the first will address common challenges and keys to success for Horizon 1 innovation. The second part will build on those themes, providing concrete examples of how Horizon 1 innovation is structured and approached at Lululemon.

Rachel Gordon & Chantelle Murnaghan

Founder at Triple Agent | Vice President of Research and Product Innovation at lululemon
Wednesday 26 February, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST

Foresight & Business Design


16:00-16:15 CET/10:00am-10:15am EST/7:00am-7:15am PST

Introduction & Peer Pod

17:45-18:00 CET/11:45am-12:00pm EST/8:45am-9:00am PST

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

16:15-17:00 CET/10:15am-11:00am EST/7:15am-8:00am PST

Real-World Lessons from Designing "Advantaged" Businesses with Greater Chances at Success

More information coming soon...

Matthew Brady

GM at High Alpha Innovation

17:00-17:45 CET/11:00am-11:45am EST/8:00am-8:45am PST

European Intrapreneurship Study 2024

After the first edition of the intrapreneurship barometer carried out in 2021, the Yumana team is back for the 2nd edition, 3 years later. Our goal ? To study the evolution of intrapreneurship programs and anticipate their future prospects in light of the rapid growth of AI and the major upheavals of recent years, such as environmental and social issues.

In this session, you will discover the latest results and emerging trends in intrapreneurship to boost your innovation strategy.

Céline Degreef

Co-founder & CEO at Yumana
Wednesday 5 March, 12:00-14:00 CET/6am-8am EST/7pm-9pm SGT

Incubation, Venture Building & Scaling


12:00-12:15 CET/6:00am-6:15am EST/7:00pm-7:15pm SGT

Introduction & Peer Pod

13:45-14:00 CET/7:45am-8:00am EST/8:45pm-9:00pm SGT

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

12:15-13:00 CET/6:15am-7:00am EST/7:15pm-8:00pm SGT

Partners in crime: How Multiple Corporates can Co-Build Successful Ventures

While traditionally corporate venture building was mostly the domain of one corporate building new ventures leveraging their resources and building for strategic fit, in the last years we have seen the emergence of co-build models.

This can make a lot of sense under the right circumstance and lead to superior results for all involved parties.

In this session we'll share the model, our observations, several case studies and recommendations for how to get started.

Sebastian Mueller

Founding Partner, Strategy and Ventures at MING Labs

13:00-13:45 CET/7:00am-7:45am EST/8:00pm-8:45pm SGT

Creating New Growth Outside of Core - Avoiding the Pitfalls

8 out of 10 companies have new growth beyond Core as a top-5 priority.
But it is hard. Only few attempts create a sizable new business.

In this Learning Lab, you will meet
Arto Kauppila (Team Lead, Incubation Management, at Amadeus Nexwave) and
Frank Mattes (Advisor to Corporate Innovation units and serial author on new growth).

They will highlight typical pitfalls and provide guidance on the critical success factors.
Topics will include:

  • Ensure fit with the corporate context in the journey from search filed to scale business
  • How to establish and maintain C-suite support
  • How to provide evidence for scale-worthiness and scale-readiness
  • Ensure operational alignment with Core prior to Scaling-Up

What you will get:

  • Checkpoints to remove impediments to your 2025 innovation goals

Frank Mattes & Arto Kauppila

Founder and CEO at Lean Scaleup | Head of Incubation Management at Amadeus Nexwave
Wednesday 12 March, 16:00-18:00 CET/11am-1pm EDT/8am-10am PDT

Open Innovation


16:00-16:15 CET/11:00am-11:15am EDT/8:00am-8:15am PDT

Introduction & Peer Pod

17:45-18:00 CET/12:45pm-1:00pm EDT/9:45am-10:00am PDT

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

16:15-17:00 CET/11:15am-12:00pm EDT/8:15am-9:00am PDT

Buy versus Build: Co-Development Strategies for Accelerating Innovation

In the rapidly evolving world of corporate innovation, the classic ""buy versus build"" debate has a powerful new dimension: collaboration through co-development. As R&D teams are increasingly asked to do more with less, companies are grappling with how to best integrate external capabilities with internal expertise. Co-development is a new framework that reflects the future of innovation - co-creating solutions with external partners to deliver transformative results, faster and better than ever before.

In this session, VentureFuel’s Founder & CEO, Fred Schonenberg, will dive into co-development as the answer for accelerating innovation, including actionable strategies to:

  • Accelerate time-to-market with cutting-edge technologies
  • Reduce risk while delivering measurable ROI
  • Build creative ecosystems that future-proof your enterprise

If you’re ready to leave outdated R&D strategies behind, join Fred to learn how co-development can position your enterprise as an unstoppable innovation leader.

Frederick Schonenberg

Founder & CEO at VentureFuel

17:00-17:45 CET/12:00pm-12:45pm EDT/9:00am-9:45am PDT

Do's and Don'ts in Venture Clienting

In this session we reflect on the impactful journey of the DB SCHENKER STARTup terminal Venture Client Unit. Co-Lead Ronja Stoffregen reflects on the various pilots, the implementation of an impact-driven target operating model, incl process, governance model, brand and leadership in tumultuous times.

Ronja Stoffregen

Head of Global Startup Management at Schenker
Thursday 20 March, 16:00-18:00 CET/11am-1pm EDT/8am-10am PDT

Climate/SDG


16:00-16:15 CET/11:00am-11:15am EDT/8:00am-8:15am PDT

Introduction & Peer Pod

17:45-18:00 CET/12:45pm-1:00pm EDT/9:45am-10:00am PDT

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

16:15-17:00 CET/11:15am-12:00pm EDT/8:15am-9:00am PDT

Innovating for the Post-Carbon Future: Corporate Strategies for Sustainable Success

Sustainability isn’t just the right thing to do—it’s the commercially smart thing to do. Join us for this dynamic session where we’ll break down the seismic shifts shaking up markets, from consumer desire to game-changing regulation. Discover why clinging to old playbooks is a one-way ticket to irrelevance and how embracing sustainable innovation can make your business a ""Gigacorn"" instead of a ""Zombie Company.""

Using cutting-edge frameworks like ""Demand Switching"" this session will show you how to rewire products, services, and mindsets to thrive in a post-carbon world. Roll up your sleeves and start to craft practical solutions for commercializing sustainability in your role. Walk away not just inspired, but armed with the tools to play your part in the great transition.

Leo Rayman

CEO and Founder at EdenLab

17:00-17:45 CET/12:00pm-12:45pm EDT/9:00am-9:45am PDT

Coming soon

More information coming soon...

Wednesday 26 March, 18:00-20:00 CET/1pm-3pm EDT/10am-12pm PDT

Culture & Capabilities


18:00-18:15 CET/1:00pm-1:15pm EDT/10:00am-10:15am PDT

Introduction & Peer Pod

19:45-20:00 CET/2:45pm-3:00pm EDT/11:45am-12:00pm PDT

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

18:15-19:00 CET/1:15pm-2:00pm EDT/10:15am-11:00am PDT

The Next Era of Innovation - How Companies Can Be Successful in the Next 10 Years

In an era where innovation is accelerating under the transformative power of AI, staying competitive requires more than just adaptation—it calls for bold strategies and future-focused thinking.

This session will draw from Disruptive Edge’s extensive experience with clients and groundbreaking projects to offer actionable insights into how organizations can thrive in the next 5 to 10 years.

Tyler Anderson & June Barrage

CEO at Disruptive Edge | Associate Partner at Disruptive Edge

19:00-19:45 CET/2:00pm-2:45pm EDT/11:00am-11:45am PDT

Leadership’s Critical Role in Shaping Culture For Innovation

More information coming soon...

Cris Beswick

Strategic Advisor on Innovation Strategy, Leadership & Culture
Wednesday 2 April, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT

Talent & Teams


16:00-16:15 CEST/10:00am-10:15am EDT/7:00am-7:15am PDT

Introduction & Peer Pod

17:45-18:00 CEST/11:45am-12:00pm EDT/8:45am-9:00am PDT

Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up

Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs

16:15-17:00 CEST/10:15am-11:00am EDT/7:15am-8:00am PDT

More Time, More Energy, More Focus

Most employees lack the time and energy to innovate meaningfully, yet workplace practices ‘steal’ 13 years from an average career.

In this Learning Lab, innovation culture expert Elvin Turner shares practical approaches for innovation professionals to restore the personal and collective innovation capacity that their organizations urgently need.

Elvin Turner

Innovation Culture Advisor, MBA Associate Professor, and Best-selling Author of “Be Less Zombie"

17:00-17:45 CEST/11:00am-11:45am EDT/8:00am-8:45am PDT

Talent Management for Strategic Innovation: Progress!

With the introduction of the ISO 56000 set of standards on Innovation Management, increased attention is being paid to talent management. Innovation Management is moving into the realm of becoming a corporate profession, with new job titles appearing every day. We know more about the work to be done but don’t know how to staff it.

  • How might we codify the work so that job descriptions and career paths can be formalized?
  • How do we select, develop and retain innovation professionals?

We find that, while there are many innovation jobs or assignments, there are virtually no career pathways for those interested in creating the new streams of growth for their companies that allow them to stay in the innovation context, and that allows the company to develop an expertise in strategic innovation that strengthens over time.

In this session we will discuss these issues and describe two tools that innovation leaders can use to assess their team, and that those in innovation roles or aspiring to occupy them can use to discern their best fit with the work to be done.

Gina O'Connor

Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College

These are not your typical boring webinars. You’ll get to work with peers and experts in interactive small group sessions, so you actually learn something.

Whatever your challenges are, and regardless of industry and innovation maturity, you'll leave with new, practical insights and an upgraded toolbox, to implement right away.

APPLY TO JOIN

All Learning Labs follow the same structure:

  • 15 min: introduction and speed networking
  • 45 min: First speaker session with Q&A
  • 45 min: Second speaker session with Q&A
  • 15 min: Capturing takeaways and next steps

With each Learning Lab comes access to session recordings plus relevant content and resources from the "Netflix of Corporate Innovation"

Also, you'll be able to engage with other participants through our community platform before, during and after the session.

You're in great company.

Membership is available only to individuals and teams, working in roles like
• Chief Innovation Officer / VP of Innovation
• Head of Innovation, Innovation Program Director, Innovation Lab/Centre Director, Innovation Team Lead
• Venture Lead, Individual Intrapreneur, Innovation Team Member
• Leader/professional in general business role or other functions like Strategy, IT/Transformation, R&D/Product, Marketing, HR/Change

Connect and collaborate with other corporate innovators from brands like

Trusted by brands. Loved by peers.

"This is my tribe of lifelong learners and do-ers.

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 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 intrapreneurship 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."

"I'm amazed by the format, how open, honest and authentic it was.

What a great event! You rarely ever get that with these types of events - well done!"

"This was a refreshing reminder that we're not alone.

Sometimes working at the front-end of innovation can be a lonely place, especially in a large 100-year-old company. Connecting with so many other innovation professionals acted as a shot of adrenaline reigniting my drive to transform our organization."

"I understand how difficult these events are to run in the best of times.

This is hands down the best virtual event I have attended."

"For me, the Innov8rs Unconference is one of the few intrapreneurship conferences that is worth paying for.

The ability to connect with such a high quality speakers, ask questions, and get great insights is just invaluable!"

"I have already used some of the ideas presented. It is also influencing my thoughts on many other areas related to innovation.

The value of the Unconference has far exceeded the cost."

"The conference was great – it was a perfect mixture of networking and practical learning with a group of high-caliber, highly involved and dedicated participants.

It's a rarity to attend an event like this!"

Ready to dive in?

This series consists of 8 Learning Labs; 2-hour workshops each covering one key pillar of corporate innovation.

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.

FREE

ABOUT INNOV8RS COMMUNITY

Individual Pass


1 Seat


1 seat for all 8 Learning Labs

€95

Team Pass


5 seats


5 seats for all 8 Learning Labs

€395

10 seats


10 seats for all 8 Learning Labs

€695

20 seats


20 seats for all 8 Learning Labs

€995

As a first step, apply to join via the button below.

APPLY TO JOIN

Are you a member of Innov8rs Community already?

As a member, you are automatically enrolled onto every Learning Lab, so no need for you to purchase a pass separately. Want to become a member? As a first step, apply here.

Need some help?

If you'd like to understand better how participating in Innov8rs Learning Labs would support you and your team in achieving your objectives, or if you have questions about registration, email Theo via theo@innov8rs.co