The best & latest in corporate innovation

Your list of to-do’s might feel endless. What if you can get some help in tackling your challenges, from others who have ‘been there, done that’?

Of course, you're busy. But it does help to take a step back from the busyness of your day-to-day, in order to reflect, refocus and re-energize. You're invited to join 800+ cross-industry innovation leaders and professionals for the Innov8rs Connect series between September 2021 and April 2022.

Each of the 8 events in this series covers one key pillar for success. You'll dive into the most important themes crucial for innovators across industries, giving you a unique opportunity to engage with and learn from experts and peers.

You will
✓ Understand what’s working in other companies
✓ Benchmark your approach and performance
✓ Explore new approaches and develop new skills

We've just released the first agendas for the first events in this series, focusing on Strategy, Leadership & Organization (21-23 Sept) and on Governance, Portfolio Management & Program Management (28-30 Sept), as you can see below.

Beyond the live sessions happening in the main week of the event, participants also get access to selected content from our library, as well as to out community platform to ask questions, share experiences and discuss any topic with others. Innov8rs Connect is NOT your typical event: you'll actually learn and do stuff.

Strategy, Leadership & Organization

We start this Innov8rs Connect 2021/2022 series by looking at the fundamentals for any innovation team to get right first and foremost: Strategy, Leadership and Organization.

Here’s a summary of the many themes and questions we’ll be addressing in the live sessions, and through the selected content items.

Strategy
How do we set our innovation strategy, supporting our company strategy? How do we better align with the Strategy function for a more iterative approach? How do we then put this strategy into action, and deliver upon the promise we’ve made?

Leadership
What makes for effective leadership, for our function, our teams and ourselves? How do we lead change to prepare our organizations for times of growing complexity, uncertainty, and volatility? But also, how do we engage with company leadership and business management in the right way, to gain support and secure resources, and to avoid politics to kill our efforts?

Organization
Given our innovation strategy, what’s the best way to organize our operations? What’s being done at corporate versus in the business, or in the regions? What’s the proper distance from the many innovation vehicles to the core business; does ambidexterity really work? How do we collaborate across silos, and streamline our efforts for the biggest impact?

If you are working on and interested in themes and questions like this, join other cross-industry innovation leaders and professionals for 20+ in-depth conversations and interactive sessions, featuring experts such as Andrea Kates, Frank Mattes, Jennifer Riel, Vanessa Akhtar and Robert Haines, as well as innovation leaders from companies such as Manulife, Audi, Corbion and Maersk.

Live sessions on the agenda:

Governance, Portfolio Management & Program Management

During this second event in the Innov8rs Connect 2021/2022 series, we’ll focus at principles and practices for managing innovation consistently across the company, to ensure delivery of strategic objectives.

Here’s a summary of the many themes and questions we’ll be addressing in the live sessions, and through the selected content items.

Governance
How do we fund our innovation efforts? What is an effective governance structure for innovation - who decides what and when, company-wide as well as per business unit, per program and per venture? How do we measure our outcomes: are we getting better at showing our impact, tangible and intangible?

Portfolio Management
How to manage the overall innovation portfolio - and what would make for a "well balanced" portfolio? What can we learn from VC’s how they are placing their bets? How do we make the most out of investments in innovation, and make data-driven decisions about what to continue and what to stop?

Program Management
What are best practices for running large-scale innovation programs, typically in close collaboration with business leaders? What are key leverage points when managing multiple programs? How do we align the many different stakeholders, and create a shared understanding about key innovation metrics?

If you are working on and interested in themes and questions like this, join other cross-industry innovation leaders and professionals for 20+ in-depth conversations and interactive sessions, featuring experts such as Rita McGrath, Dan Toma & Esther Gons, Noel Sobelman and Tristan Kromer, as well as innovation leaders from companies such as SAP, Siemens, Cisco and Aflac.

Live sessions on the agenda: