The topics.
The best and latest in corporate innovation in 8 topical workshops.
Strategy, Leadership & Organization | Governance & Portfolio Management | Foresight & Business Design | Incubation, Venture Building & Scaling | Open Innovation | Climate/SDG | Culture & Capabilities | Talent & Teams
Innovation is a collaborative activity. How can we build alliances with colleagues from other key functions in the organization?
To unlock growth and generate sustainable ROI, it takes institutional-grade governance and portfolio strategies. How can you take decisive actions to eliminate value-destroying assets, scale high-potential ventures, and align business objectives for maximum returns?
How to balance building ventures internally vs. externally? What has logistics giant DB Schenker gained from their venture clienting approach?
How is dsm-firmenich (active in Health and Nutrition) connecting innovation with SDG's with their Sustainable Portfolio Steering methodology? How has Microsoft has transformed sustainability from a cost center into a powerful driver of innovation and competitive advantage?
Why does culture change never stick (and what to do instead)? Plus... what is the impact of AI in and on innovation teams so far?
Dive into these topics, and much more at our Q4-series of Learning Labs.
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.
Tuesday 22 October, 16:00-18:00 CEST/10am-12pm EDT/7am-9am PDT
Strategy, Leadership & Organization
16:00 CEST/10am EDT/7am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CEST/11:45am EDT/8:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Rachel Gordon - Founder at Triple Agent
16:15 CEST/10:15am EDT/7:15am PDT
Reboot your Strategy for the Intangible Era
In today’s business, driven by AI, digitalization, and emerging technologies, companies must embrace a new paradigm. Instead of rigid structures, businesses are transforming into dynamic, elastic flows, where products turn into personalized, data-driven services, and processes continuously adapt based on vast data ecosystems. The intangible—ideas, emotions, social interactions, and digital experiences—are now more valuable than the physical assets.
However, many traditional strategies overlook these critical intangible assets. In this keynote, Miikka Leinonen, author of Your Business Strategy for the Intangible Future, will guide you through the new lexicon of strategy for this era.
You will explore how to balance the tangible and intangible forces to unlock innovation, foster creativity, and future-proof your strategy. Discover the tools and mindset shifts necessary to thrive in this age of abundant digital opportunities and immaterial assets.
Miikka Leinonen
Strategy advisor, Author, facilitator at Ghost Community
17:00 CEST/11am EDT/8am PDT
How To Build The Village That Will Help You Innovate
Innovation is a collaborative activity. No one person or group can succeed alone in creating an innovation. And if corporate innovators want to have a repeatable innovation process, then it is critical for them to build alliances with colleagues from other key functions in the organization. In this Learning Lab, we will discuss practical tools and tips on how innovators can build the right relationships to support their innovation work.
Tendayi Viki
Associate Partner at Strategyzer
Wednesday 30 October, 16:00-18:00 CET/11am-1pm EDT/8am-10am PDT
Governance & Portfolio Management
16:00 CET/11am EDT/8am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/12:45pm EDT/9:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CET/11:15am EDT/8:15am PDT
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 Jan Sedlacek, co-founder 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.
Jan Sedlacek
Founder and Managing Partner at Stryber
17:00 CET/12pm EDT/9am PDT
Corporate Finance can Actively Drive Innovation – Here is How
We are thrilled by the effectiveness of modern innovation approaches. Yet, Corporate decision-makers may still require a financial assessment to answer questions like:
- Is it financially justified to accept an innovation initiative?
- How to prioritize the opportunity portfolio for maximum value creation?
- How to right-size the budget of the opportunity portfolio?
The suitable financial capabilities for innovation are known as Real Options. They enable Corporate Finance to answer the above questions and to actively support innovators in their initiatives.
Real Options finance applies to any kind of innovation, including new products & services, new technologies, expanding into new markets, M&A, operational resiliency, organizational transformation, and more.
By combining modern innovation approaches with Real Options finance, companies know how to invest today for uncertain future gains; they capture opportunities that would have been missed otherwise.
This session walks you through a real-life use case of Real Options finance and demonstrates how the above questions are answered.
Claus Hirzmann
Co-Founder and CEO at Strategic-Finance
Thursday 31 October, 16:00-18:00 CET/11am-1pm EDT/8am-10am PDT
Foresight & Business Design
16:00 CET/11am EDT/8am PDT
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/12:45pm EDT/9:45am PDT
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CET/11:15am EDT/8:15am PDT
From Exploration to Scalable Business: New Business Building at Siemens Digital Industries
Given accelerating industry disruption, technological change, emerging sustainability goals and decreasing business life cycles, companies expect half of their revenues five years from now to come from businesses and offerings that do not yet exist. As a consequence, building new businesses that aim to reach beyond a company’s existing core business has become one of the top strategic priorities at those organizations – double the share of recent years.
Siemens Digital Industries has fully realized the need to become ambidextrous and develop its exploratory business building capabilities. Explorers are seen as those burning the money, while Exploiters earn the money. Therefore, a decisive question to be addressed to build new businesses in a corporate environment is: How can exploratory innovation be accomplished in a capital-efficient, bold and successful way?
Tackling inherent uncertainty and increasing the yield of exploratory ventures in corporate innovation requires maximizing the number of business experiments through a portfolio approach, keeping their cost as low as possible and following a structured approach that scrutinizes the very questions above. Or as Jeff Bezos put it: If you can increase the number of experiments you try from a hundred to a thousand, you dramatically increase the number of innovations you produce.
In essence, this logic provides the basis of Siemens Digital Industries’ modern innovation framework, which aims at building exploratory capabilities in addition to existing core business strengths and, thereby, turning Siemens Digital Industries into an Ambidextrous Organization.
Dr. Fabian Rhein
Senior Consultant Innovation at Siemens
17:00 CET/12pm EDT/9am PDT
The Future of Creator Brands & New Mechanics for Disruptive Growth
Creator brands are emerging as powerful engines for innovation and growth. Learn how these brands are transforming traditional business models and engaging audiences in unique ways. Attendees will learn about the latest trends, tools, and strategies that drive the success of creator brands and how to apply these insights for disruptive growth in their own businesses.
Why attend
- Understand the latest trends in the creator economy.
- Learn how to leverage creator partnerships to deliver new new business models and growth strategies.
- Gain practical insights from successful creator brands.
Jon Corshen
Managing Partner & Co-Founder at Pilot44
Wednesday 6 November, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST
Incubation, Venture Building & Scaling
16:00 CET/10am EST/7am PST
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/11:45am EST/8:45am PST
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CET/10:15am EST/7:15am PST
Core Growth & Innovation: How to Understand and Leverage the Innovation Power of your Core Business to Grow 10x
Corporate innovation as it has been practiced is dead.
In this session the speakers will elaborate and explain on how companies can future-proof themselves by building a portfolio strategy that focuses on protecting, growing and transforming its core business. Stop putting time, money and resources in non-scalable innovations, instead the speakers give you a powerful 5 step approach that focuses on delivering growth at scale.
With 10xGrowth methods, corporate innovators can re-position themselves as growth partners for the business in the short-mid and long term, combining strategic competence with entrepreneurial pragmatism.
It empowers them to position innovation as a critical function towards senior management with the right narrative, argumentation and methods to align corporate innovation with business objectives.
Misha de Sterke & Jeroen Tjepkema
Founder & CEO at 10xGrowth | Partner 10x Growth
17:00 CET/11am EST/8am PST
Most Venture Studios Fail: Secrets from a Decade of Studio Operations
Venture studios have emerged on the scene as a way to create a portfolio of fast-scaling startups from scratch.
In recent years, corporations have begun adopting the model to lower the cost and time of innovation cycles while (hopefully) increasing impact.
Since 2014, High Alpha and High Alpha Innovation have pioneered the venture studio space.
In this session Elliott Parker, Founder and CEO of High Alpha Innovation, will reveal the insights from a decade of studio operations and the creation of over 70 venture backed startups.
Learn how corporations are using the model to transform their core business and win.
Elliott Parker
CEO at High Alpha Innovation
Tuesday 12 November, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST
Open Innovation
16:00 CET/10am EST/7am PST
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/11:45am EST/8:45am PST
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Vannett Li - Principal, Brand & Innovation Strategist at Comet Chaser
16:15 CET/10:15am EST/7:15am PST
Navigating the Choice: Building Ventures Internally vs. Externally for Sustainable Growth
As corporations evolve their innovation strategies, a fundamental decision they face is whether to build ventures internally, leveraging in-house capabilities, or to partner with external ecosystems for venture creation. Both approaches offer distinct advantages, but each comes with its own set of challenges and considerations.
In this session, we will explore the strategic, operational, and cultural factors that drive the success or failure of ventures, both within and outside a company. Drawing on real-world examples from successful corporate venture studios and external partnerships, the discussion will focus on key elements such as resource allocation, leadership alignment, speed of execution, and risk manageme
George Wu
Head of Venture Studio at Disruptive Edge
17:00 CET/11am EST/8am PST
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
Wednesday 13 November, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST
Climate/SDG
16:00 CET/10am EST/7am PST
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/11:45am EST/8:45am PST
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Melody Rolph - Community Lead at Innov8rs
16:15 CET/10:15am EST/7:15am PST
Towards a Sustainable Innovation Portfolio – Connecting Innovation with SDG's
Steering your innovation portfolio based on financial metrics is rather common practice.
But what if you want to make sustainability and SDGs a strategic driver? How can you reflect the wide sustainability impact, including health, nature and social aspects in your process?
In this session Martijn will share his experiences in developing a Sustainable Portfolio Steering methodology.
Martijn Antonisse
Group Sustainable Director Portfolio Steering at dsm-firmenich
17:00 CET/11am EST/8am PST
The Regenerative Future: Using Sustainability to Drive Innovation
During this session, JoAnn Garbin, leader of Microsoft's 'Regenerative Datacenter of the Future' program, will demonstrate how to transform sustainability from a cost center into a powerful driver of innovation and competitive advantage.
Attendees will gain actionable insights on:
- Shifting left: Integrating environmental and social needs as core design constraints alongside technical and financial requirements.
- Maximizing influence: Leveraging all positions of influence - customer, supplier, investor, employer, policy advocate, and innovation partner - to create positive impact.
- Strategic stepping stones: Identifying and capitalizing on early opportunities that create immediate value while aligning with long-term sustainability vision.
The session will showcase Microsoft's innovative approach, including extensive stakeholder engagement, rapid design and development cycles, and the formulation of guiding principles for regenerative sustainability.
Attendees will learn how to apply these strategies to drive innovation, enhance brand value, and create sustainable competitive advantages in their own organizations.
JoAnn Garbin
Founder, Regenerous Labs and Co-author of The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft
Tuesday 19 November, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST
Culture & Capabilities
16:00 CET/10am EST/7am PST
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/11:45am EST/8:45am PST
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Sandra Nešić - External Advisor and Senior Innovation Consultant at ICT Hub
16:15 CET/10:15am EST/7:15am PST
Why Culture Change Never Sticks (and what to do instead)
Let’s face it, we suck at changing behaviour and culture.
We invest time and effort in initiatives that sometimes create short-term momentum, but rarely long-term change.
The impact? Senior leaders don’t believe you can change culture. Budgets and resource are cut.
But it doesn’t need to be this way.
In this interactive session, Matt shares a new way to shift behaviour and culture, based on over 650+ studies from behavioural science. With this approach, you can create longer lasting impact for less money, time, and effort.
Matt Furness
Founder at Click Culture
17:00 CET/11am EST/8am PST
Building a Culture of Innovation
Explore how to cultivate innovation within a large organization.
This session will cover practical strategies such as hackathons to spark new ideas, innovation awards to recognize and motivate creative efforts, and structured playbooks to guide teams in experimenting and learning.
By creating a culture that supports creativity and embraces learning from failure, organizations can unlock their full potential and drive sustainable growth.
Hiroshi Maeda
Global Innovation Manager at SHV Energy
Wednesday 20 November, 16:00-18:00 CET/10am-12pm EST/7am-9am PST
Talent & Teams
16:00 CET/10am EST/7am PST
Introduction & Peer Pod
17:45 CET/11:45am EST/8:45am PST
Capturing Takeaways & Wrap Up
Jan-Jaap Oosterwijk - Former Global Head of Innovation at Irdeto
16:15 CET/10:15am EST/7:15am PST
Fueling Innovation: Drive Impact and Articulate Your Value
Innovation thrives on individuals who can drive change and make an impact.
In this workshop, we'll explore how to identify these key players within your organization and why they are crucial for accelerating innovation, even with limited resources.
Attendees will also gain practical tools to articulate their own unique value, ensuring they can either strengthen their current roles or transition into positions that better utilize their strengths.
Leave with the confidence to fuel innovation and prove your worth in any environment.
Shannon Lucas
Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Catalyst Constellations
17:00 CET/11am EST/8am PST
The Impact of AI in/on Innovation Teams
If we increasingly use AI for things like discovery and validation, do we need less FTE and/or will that require different skillsets to oversee or check AI-powered activities?
Yet... will using AI in eg discovery/validation eventually lead to a sea of same-ness?
And also... How do we deal with compliance etc if/when AI takes up quite a piece of work, eg in some companies it's not allowed to use AI but innovators use personal accounts to get things done?
So... whilst we start to see the fruits of embedding AI in our innovation processes, there's still lots of open items- especially when it comes to the impact in and on innovation teams. Join this fishbowl conversation to hear what's happening in companies in different industries (and add your perspectives too).
Natasha Nair, Jan Beranek, Vincent Atallah & Rachel Gordon
Associate Director at Board of Innovation | CEO of U+ Digital Ventures and FifthRow | President of Aucctus | Founder at Triple Agent
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.
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.
Bring your team. Boost your impact.
Innovation is a team sport, don't you agree?
Bring your team to focus on one key topic and get to the bottom of it. Or, you can divide and conquer to capture all of what's being discussed..
With our team packages you get 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.
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?
Join Innov8rs Learning Labs to upgrade your skill-, tool- and mindset, and increase your impact as innovation professional.
This series consists of 8 Learning Labs; 2-hour workshops each covering one key pillar of corporate innovation.
As a first step, select your pass and complete registration via the buttons below.
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
Individual Pass
Team Pass
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