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

Discover the art of adept resource management to cement the foundations for enduring success within your organization.

In this interactive session, we will delve into the intricacies of various financial and human resources, critical to sparking innovation. We'll explore how strategic investments and the harnessing of talent synergize to actuate your company's innovative potential.

Join this session to master the allocation of these pivotal resources.

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

Could it be that communication is one of the biggest obstacles to innovation?

The innovation team and the leadership team often speak different languages. The leadership team, and with them the CFO, is looking at long-term financial forecasts, EBITDA, and other finance-driven KPIs, but innovation team can't be (and shouldn't be) measuring their activities against those. To bridge the gap, "innovation" needs to better speak the language of "finance", to gain support and secure budget.

Join this session with experts in innovation accounting, governance and portfolio management, to learn how that can be done. It's a fishbowl conversation- that means that anyone with relevant experiences can also join the panel, all to bring even more perspectives to the mix.

15:15-16:00 CEST/9:15am-10am EDT

In an era punctuated by rapid technological advancements, the corporate venture ecosystem is increasingly seduced by the allure of the next big thing. Buzzwords such as Blockchain, AI, Metaverse, and NFTs dominate the discourse, promising to revolutionize industries overnight. Yet, amidst this cacophony of technological enthusiasm, a critical insight often goes unnoticed: not all innovations address genuine market needs or solve real problems.

Take, for instance, the meteoric rise and subsequent challenges of numerous blockchain projects. Launched with fanfare, many such initiatives struggled to find practical applications beyond the speculative frenzy of cryptocurrencies, underscoring a disconnect between technological capability and market necessity. This example epitomizes a broader trend in the corporate venture landscape — a tendency to chase after hypes, seduced by the potential of emerging technologies, yet failing to anchor these innovations in solving tangible problems.

In this session, Sebastian posits a fundamental reorientation of priorities in the corporate venture space. It argues for a disciplined approach that places problem-solving at the forefront of venture building, relegating technology to a supporting role. By prioritizing the identification and understanding of real-world problems, ventures can develop solutions that not only captivate but also deliver meaningful value to their target audiences. Sebastian will explore the pitfalls of the hype trap, advocate for a return to basics, outline a framework for problem-solving ventures, and ultimately, call for a renewed focus on creating impactful solutions over merely leveraging the latest technologies.

16:00-16:45 CEST/10-10:45am EDT/7-7:45am PDT

While the success of corporate venture building is clearly visible, it has a significant shortcoming: Founders have no guidance or framework for the later scaling stage. The heavy use of templates and straightforward methodology made corporate venture building easy to use for everyone but also left founders alone when entering scaling.

To overcome this issue Kilian Veer took all of his experience in various venture building, founder, and board member roles and summarized it into a unique and simple approach to successfully scale any venture. His book "Successful Venture Scaling" received amazing reviews since being released beginning of this year.

This session gives a comprehensive introduction to the learnings presented in his book.

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

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

Innovation culture doesn’t just happen. It takes strategy, discipline and intentionality.

In this session, discover what the eight key building blocks for a thriving culture of innovation, and assess each of the eight building blocks to determine how well your organization is doing currently in each area.

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

People commonly take a risk-based approach to Sustainability, but what if you looked at Sustainability with an entrepreneurial or opportunity-based lens.

Positioning meaningful and quantifiable progress can create new white space for businesses to establish a comptetive advantage by systematically driving sustainability into how they operate.

This fireside chat will explore that process and to build a consistent approach that transforms outcome to deliver on sustainability commitments.

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

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

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

They say that timing is one of the most important things in business. But how do you figure out if your timing is right?

This talk will introduce drivers of good timing, why business model impact is essential, and how to apply those factors to your own situation. Through a “Why Now Session” walkthrough, this talk will introduce a methodology for your organization to use a timing assessment to evaluate opportunities.

Based on research into market entrance advantages and studies of product failures and successes, this talk will leave you with a process to step through your own timing considerations.

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

In this interactive talk, bestselling author and Columbia Business School professor David Rogers will discuss his recent HBR article on “The Missing Link Between Strategy and Innovation.”

He argues that for corporate innovation to succeed, it must be bounded by a clear set of strategic priorities that matter to the business. And it needs to play to the unique strengths of the firm—whether data, customer relationships, or supply chains—that will enable it to outcompete others attempting the same idea.

David will share practical advice, based on 20 years researching digital strategy and advising dozens of F500 companies, on the essential steps to help embed strategy into the innovation process.

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

The external market will continue to throw things at you, and new shocks and opportunities mean people across all levels of the organization will find themselves in situations where they must exercise independent thinking and action.

They can only do so if the organization has provided them with the information they need to make decisions without fear of consequences, so they know how to react and how others will as well. This occurs in companies with internal predictability.

Join this session with Rebecca Homkes to learn how you can build internal predictability within your innovation function, so you can move fast.

17:45-18:30 CEST/11:45am-12:30pm EDT/8:45-9:30am PDT

You have heard it, you’ve seen it. As corporate innovators, we are asked to do more. More support for the core, more topics (think AI and Sustainability), more short-term, more outcomes. But we are provided with less. Less budgets, less patience, less support from the core.

How do you solve this dilemma?

And most important: How do you solve it in a way that is feasible, given your demanding workload?

Renowned innovation experts Dennis Boecker and Frank Mattes will present a solution. You will learn how to find the leverage points for improvement in your innovation management system, and how to translate them into a meaningful, doable program so that they can improve innovation throughput step-by-step, without “boiling the ocean.”

The session also leads into an Innov8rs CoLab program to be launched later this year. This program will help you to create a set-up for success:
- Deep-dive into best-in-class frameworks for innovation excellence and find your leverage points for improvement.
- Work with peers to discuss what works and what doesn’t to improve in those leverage points.
- Work with the experts to craft your improvement program in 30/90/180-days increments.

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

Recently, The Oxford Handbook of Open Innovation was launched: 4 editors, 75 reviewers, and 136 contributors collaboratively developed 57 chapter handbook chapters. These present the current state of the art featuring academic theory and managerial practice as well as the outlook for how open innovation should be further developed.

Join this session to hear (and discuss) Marisols' reflections on the state of Open Innovation in practice today. As the Global Head of Open Innovation at BBVA, she developed the Open Innovation practice since its beginning, growing it to be a global function across all countries connecting, strategy, organization and ecosystem towards innovation.

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

Venture Studios have been gaining in popularity as a hybrid of seed-stage venture capital firms with startup incubators - A Venture Studio combines both the investment and entrepreneurial resources within the same organization. Corporations have began adopting the Venture Studio model as a way to stimulate innovation and growth outside the core.

The question then remains as to the execution of the Venture Studio, either internal focused through employees and executives or external focused through entrepreneurs and investors, which implies control vs. accounting tradeoffs; both models are viable pending key objectives, as Ricardo will share from first-hand experience.

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

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