The conference that isn't really a conference.
We’ve all been there… that conference where you were forced to listen to talking heads on stage all day long and you can barely stay awake, longing for the day to end…
That’s NOT what you’ll experience with Innov8rs. At our conferences, you'll actively engage and actually learn, so you'll leave with actionable insights to implement.
Our conferences are designed for you to tackle whatever tops your to-do list.
You’ll spend most of your time in deep dive breakout sessions, engaging workshops, focused conversations and targeted networking opportunities. In fact, from the 35+ sessions on the agenda, only 3 are hosted in a plenary setting…
- Before the conference, you’ll share your goals. What are the challenges you would like to address, what topics do you want to dive into, and whom are you looking to connect with? We’ll already offer you resources and connections before the conference, supported by our AI-powered companion K8.
- During the conference, you'll follow a personalized agenda, suggesting which (breakout) sessions to join, and whom to meet during the dedicated networking slots and social breaks.
- After the conference, beyond the session recordings and presentation slides, you will get access to additional resources as well- all for you to get the best possible return on your investment in time.
Join a curated group of 250+ corporate innovators from across industries and from all over the Americas for two full days of in-depth conversations, relevant connections and quality content.
✅ You'll dive into best and next practices on strategy and governance, culture and capabilites, intrapreneurship, venture building and open innovation and much more.
✅ Also, you'll hear from 20+ cross-industry innovation leaders the ins and outs of their approach (and lessons learned along the way). Plus, you'll meet and mingle with local innovators during field trips exploring the local ecosystem.
✅ You'll have in-depth conversations with a select group of other innovation leaders and do-ers who speak the same language, and establish relevant connections that you actually want to follow up with after the conference.
If you have innovation in your title, this is your tribe.
Loved by participants, trusted by brands.
Bringing innovators together since 2011... We've hosted more than 35 conferences in global innovation hubs from San Francisco to Stockholm to Shanghai to Singapore to Sydney.
Looking back at our last US conference, SoCal 2024...
Beyond the high-quality sessions and diversity of speakers, past participants valued most meeting people in jobs like them, who operate in similar environments and speaking the same language. Many stay connected long after the conference, always just a phone call away.
To create the best possible experience for you, we curate the group of participants. You'll meet cross-industry corporate innovators of all trades, all chasing similar objectives and facing similar challenges, across companies and industries:
- Chief Innovation Officers, VP's of Innovation, Innovation Leaders
- Intrapreneurs or Corporate Entrepreneurs
- Innovation (program) Directors
- Heads of Labs, Incubators and Accelerators
- Corporate Venturing, Strategy and Corporate Development Managers
- R&D and Product Development Professionals
- HR and Organizational Transformation Leaders
working at companies like
You'll connect, collaborate and co-create with peers. That's how we design the event. That's why we limit the number of participants. And past participants loved it.
Here's what your peers said about their experience.
"That was a terrific event! Thank you for all of your hard work organizing + curating a terrific group of people to attend. I just kept having great conversations over both days."
"All the sessions I participated in were amazing. Honestly, it’s very rare to attend a conference with so much enthusiasm and also the fact that it’s truly peer 2 peer."
"Hands down the best conference I’ve had the luxury of attending. I have so many more great people in my world now and have a brain bursting with new ideas and concepts to explore."
Work with the best.
A first overview of innovation leaders and experts confirmed. More coming soon... stay tuned!
Seyi Fabode
Director, Cleantech Innovation at RWE
Alexa Dembek
Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer at DuPont
Jayshree Seth
Corporate Scientist and Chief Science Advocate at 3M
Mark Gravebliss
Senior Director, Enterprise Innovation at Travelers
Gina O'Connor
Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College
Jonathan Livescault & Christopher Goehl
Managing Director at ITONICS US | Senior Solution Engineer at ITONICS US
Susan Lindner
Founder & CEO at Innovation Storytellers
Doug Williams
Associate Director, Innovation at SmartOrg, Inc.
Vlora Muslimi
Senior Manager, iD8 Program and Colleague Innovation at TD Bank
Anil Achyuta
Managing Director at TDK Ventures
Tristan Kromer
Founder & CEO at Kromatic
Rachel Gordon
Founder at Triple Agent
Elliott Parker
CEO at High Alpha Innovation
Nancy Yaklich
Head of Innovation and Incubation at Caterpillar
Alexis Rollof
Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer at GEHA Health
Lisa Besserman
Managing Director, Head of Innovation & Product Strategy, CCB Operations at JPMorgan Chase
Bill Roschek
Director -Strategic Innovation at Nestlé Purina PetCare
The agenda.
Get a glimpse of what your two days will look like... No worries, you'll get a detailed agenda and instructions for RSVPing of the sessions of your choice in due time.
Tuesday, April 8th
9:00-10:30am
Opening / Peer Pods
Connect with other participants and talk about relevant trends and topics... A great way to meet others with similar interests.
10:30am-12:30pm
Trending Topic Talks
Hear from subject matter experts what's working now and what's coming next for corporate innovators across industries.
Finding Your Goldline: Turning Uncertainty Into Opportunity
We all face moments of profound uncertainty—whether launching new ventures, transforming organizations, or reinventing careers. While we can't eliminate uncertainty, we can learn to navigate it with purpose and confidence. Through captivating stories from the frontlines, this keynote reveals a powerful approach to turning uncertainty from an obstacle into an opportunity for growth.
You'll leave with:
- A clear understanding of your Goldline - the unique truth that anchors and propels you to explore
- The ability to make confident decisions in ambiguous situations while staying true to your core purpose
- A proven method for converting uncertainty into innovation, growth, and competitive edge
Jeremiah Gardner
Bestselling Author
Alexa Dembek
Chief Technology and Sustainability Officer at DuPont
Jayshree Seth
Corporate Scientist and Chief Science Advocate at 3M
More coming soon... stay tuned!
12:30-2pm
Networking Lunch
Good food, great conversations... or maybe a short stroll outside?
2-4pm
Innovators Insights
Ready for some stories from the trenches? Hear first-hand from cross-industry innovation leaders about their approach and lessons learned, so you can compare notes and benchmark your performance.
Of course, there's ample time for Q&A and discussions so you can understand what you might consider tweaking in your approach.
Innovating Within A Company That 'Believes' It Is Innovative
Innovation is the name of the game in the renewable energy sector - new battery chemistries, new technological advances, working with the hyperscalers in the tech industry, etc - and, consequently, the companies in the sector believe they are inherently innovative.
But if innovation is about failure, learning and iterative loops to get to a successful outcome, then renewable energy companies that are more utility-like are still resistant to true innovation.
This session will discuss how to truly build innovation into the culture of utility companies that need to be innovative to stay competitive.
Seyi Fabode
Director, Cleantech Innovation at RWE
The Caterpillar Conundrum: How a Construction Giant Tests New Waters
Picture this: You're sitting in Caterpillar's headquarters, surrounded by images of the iconic yellow machines that have built the world's infrastructure for generations. Your team has just developed a revolutionary concept that could disrupt the construction industry. But there's a catch – testing it in the market under the Caterpillar name could risk the brand's hard-earned reputation if things go wrong. What Caterpillar developed next was nothing short of brilliant – a systematic approach to market testing that protected their brand while allowing for rapid experimentation.
In this session, you'll learn how established brands like Caterpillar manage the tension between innovation and safeguarding their reputation. Key insights include practical ways to overcome a legacy brand’s innovation challenge:
- The Shadow Brand Solution
- Digital Innovation Labs Framework
- Implementation Strategies
- Risk Management Benefits
Nancy Yaklich
Head of Innovation and Incubation at Caterpillar
Design, Execution, and Scaling of ExxonMobil's Global Open Innovation Program
In this session, Kyle will provide an overview of ExxonMobil's Open Innovation program from inception through the current focus on scaling.
Participants will be given practical advice on how to create and/or manage a successful open innovation program, including:
- Definition of four key stages all open innovation programs go through
- Detailed implementation plans for each stage with suggested key performance metrics
- Practical advice on how to overcome the most common objections and how to be successful
- Current plans for how to scale the program to meet growing demand
Kyle Basler-Reeder
Global Open Innovation Lead at ExxonMobil
Developing a Strategic Open Innovation team in a large R&D organization
Open Innovation has been interpreted many ways. By focusing on its core and original meaning and applying it in an strategic end-to-end way within R&D, organizations will have better ROI on product and process development.
Open Innovation is complementary and enabler to core and non-core innovation development and provides better acceleration opportunities within R&D, regardless of commercialization success.
Bill Roschek Jr
Director, Strategic Innovation at Nestlé Purina PetCare
Darren Adams
Managing Director Unilever Foundry at Unilever
Peter Roeber
Global Strategic Growth & Innovation Leader, Fabrics Division at W.L. Gore & Associates
Alexis Rollof
Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer at GEHA Health
Elizabeth Gaeta
Vice President, US Innovation at Haleon
Vlora Muslimi
Senior Manager, iD8 Program and Colleague Innovation at TD Bank
More coming soon... stay tuned!
4:30-6pm
Enlightening Exchanges
Pick from several un-conference style sessions. Prefer an in-depth discussion, more active co-creation session or an inspiring talk? You choose the topic and format for a energizing end of day 1.
Innovation Storytelling: How to Bridge Divides & Win Support For Your Breakthrough Ideas
Discover how to overcome barriers to innovation, or resistance to change, by using the Innovation Storytelling method to create organizational alignment in this three-part innovation workshop series. Participants will learn how to tell better stories that engage and align key stakeholders, get audiences on board with their vision, and deliver maximum impact.
This session is perfect for innovation leaders who:
- Are under pressure to create new market opportunities
- Need to communicate their breakthrough ideas in a way that is easily understood by the C-Suite, shareholders and stakeholders at home and around the world
- Need others to support and champion their work
You will leave with:
- A clear understanding of how to get other people on board with their breakthrough ideas
- A blueprint for creating stories that inspire any audience into action
- A process that empowers them to communicate with confidence
Susan Lindner
Founder and CEO at Innovation Storytellers
Ed Essey
Director of Business Value, Microsoft Garage at Microsoft
Ryan Leveille
Global Product Transformation Executive
More coming soon... stay tuned!
6-8pm
Networking Drinks
After the sessions is when the real talk starts typically... Join for drinks and mingle with other participants.
Wednesday, April 9th
8-9am
Peer Pods
Connect with other participants in similar roles/from the same industry over breakfast to talk about relevant trends and topics.
9-10am
Enlightening Exchanges
Pick from several un-conference style sessions. Prefer an in-depth discussion, more active co-creation session or an inspiring talk? You choose the topic and format for a fresh start of day 2.
Reclaiming your Inner Innovator in an AI-Obsessed world
Join innovation and AI thought leader Mohan Nair for a groundbreaking keynote that explores the balance between leveraging artificial intelligence and maintaining your unique human cognitive capabilities. Drawing from decades of research and experience, Mohan Nair reveals how AI-obsession can lead to cognitive decay while offering practical strategies to reclaim your inner innovator. This thought-provoking session challenges the audience to move beyond merely adapting to AI and achieve sustainable new recipe of skills to develop within you.
This session helps you
1. Identify signs of cognitive decay from over-reliance on AI and develop countermeasures.
2. Master techniques to cultivate deep insight that transcends AI capabilities,
3. Create a personal framework for cocreating with AI while strengthening rather than compromising human cognitive abilities.
Mohan Nair
CEO at Emerge® USA
Luis Arevalo
Innovation / Product & Packaging R&D Executive / Sustainability Strategist & Author
More coming soon... stay tuned!
11:30am-3:30pm
Workshops
Roll up your sleeves and get to work in these interactive sessions focused mostly on application and implementation. You pick the sessions covering the topic you're keen to dive into.
Innovation Success: Developing a Performance Framework beyond Transparency and Collaboration
Transparency and Collaboration are key success factors to break silos, leverage past experience, and share best practices across your organization.
But it won't be enough to earn trust from your Management. You need to deliver performance, like any other Function.
During this session we will guide you to implement a solid framework and benchmark your performance at every stage of your innovation lifecycle in order to build a systematic innovation engine that generates sustainable growth.
Jonathan Livescault & Christopher Goehl
Managing Director at ITONICS US | Senior Solution Engineer at ITONICS US
Using AI to Predict Innovation Outcomes - Dos and Don'ts
Innovators are famously reluctant to predict whether or not an idea will have impact. But CEO and CFO demand realistic projections of financial returns, lives saved, or positive environmental impact. If we can't give a prediction, we can't get funding.
Modern approaches to impact modeling like Innovation Accounting use statistical models to generate predictions. These predictions represent the uncertainty of innovation by outputting a range of potential outcomes and estimating the probability of success.
The clever use of AI can enhance and accelerate our ability to make real impact models.
Tristan Kromer
CEO & Founder at Kromatic
Innovation for Impact: Strategies to Thrive in a Transformative Era
As we enter a transformative era defined by groundbreaking technologies, shifting consumer expectations, and global challenges, innovation is no longer just about invention—it's about resilience, agility, and impact.
This session will cover what the next wave of innovation will look like and the strategies organizations must adopt to succeed.
From leveraging AI and sustainability to fostering diverse talent and creative partnerships, discover the critical drivers shaping the future and how to stay ahead in an ever-evolving landscape.
Tyler Anderson, June Barrage & Vincent Atallah
CEO at Disruptive Edge | Associate Partner at Disruptive Edge | President at Aucctus
Getting Ideas Isn’t the Problem… or Is It? Counterintuitive Aspects of Discovery
Issuing a call for innovative new product ideas can open the floodgates from eager employees who want to take initiative and exercise their creativity. Unfortunately, most of these ideas are not pursued.
Many are too small to make a difference, others are too far-fetched to be relevant, and others, while interesting, simply cannot be supported given limited resources. These well-meaning initiatives result in cynicism and a dampened innovation culture, rather than the opposite.
This workshop will address ways to harness the collective energy of organizational associates to further the strategic innovation intentions of the company.
We will describe practices to implement and those to avoid in the pursuit of the organization’s Domains of Innovation Intent.
Gina O'Connor
Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College
No De-Risk? No Reward!
Incubation is hard. How do you turn an actionable yet uncertain idea into a big opportunity a skeptical CFO will fund? Failure rates are high and personal reputations are often on the line.
Join this interactive, chocolate-fueled workshop to try out a new approach for navigating this difficult journey.
- You'll learn how to:
Focus on issues related to your innovation projects to win over skeptical stakeholders; - Adopt methods to drive upside potential and resolve downside risk; and
- Prioritize across projects within the innovation portfolio to put the best proposals and experiments forward.
Doug Williams & David Matheson
Associate Director, Innovation at SmartOrg, Inc. | CEO at SmartOrg, Inc.
More coming soon... stay tuned!
1-2pm
Networking Lunch
Good food, great conversations... or maybe a short stroll outside?
3:30-4:30pm
Peer Pods
We'll meet again in small groups of peers to reflect on learnings from the conference, identify next steps and align on actions.
4:30-7pm
Field Trips
Finally, here's your chance to explore the booming Phoenix ecosystem. Hop on the bus to various innovation hubs and innovative places in and around the city, and meet with local innovators sharing their stories.
Why join?
Gain insights on trending topics and cross-industry best practices from (inter)national thought leaders.
Benchmark your approach and performance with innovators from other companies, sharing their successes, failures and everything in between.
Work on your actual challenges, guided by experts and learning from peers.
Go out and explore the local innovation ecosystem, meeting with movers and shakers and seeing innovation in action.
Leave with an updated toolbox to implement for immediate impact once back in the office.
Feel refreshed and re-energized, having met so many other inspiring innovators, committed to making things happen at your organization.
"What a great event! I learned as much from the attendees as I did from the speakers and hardly ever do speakers stay around to network after their session. I'm amazed by the format, how open, honest and authentic it was. You rarely ever get that with these types of events - well done!"
"This conference was the best in terms of content- carefully curated and very complimentary."
"It was the most useful conference/event that I’ve ever been to. I walked out of every single session having learned something useful."
"What a conference! It's now the 3rd time that I am attending an Innov8rs conference and as usual I have been amazed by the insights, the learning, the energy in the room and the amazing people I have met!"
Everything corporate innovation from A to Z
Regardless of where you are on your innovation journey, and no matter what industry you're in, we've got you covered.
From strategy and governance, to culture and capabilites, and from intrapreneurship and incubation program to venture building and open innovation- you'll dive into the most important themes crucial for innovators across industries.
With 35+ sessions in different tracks on the agenda, you'll pick the sessions that are most relevant and interesting to you. Besides the live sessions, you will get access to content and community online before, during and after the conference, to support with implementation once you're back in the office.
Boost your impact? Bring your team...
Find it hard to choose from all those value-packed sessions on the schedule?
Bring your team to gather insights from all speakers and sessions, and receive additional guidance or exclusive 1:1s with speakers to maximize outcomes. As a team, you can focus on one key topic and get to the bottom of it. Or, you can divide and conquer to catch the best and latest on all key themes and trends.
Our team packages get you a great deal on tickets- but even greater outcomes.
"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 try to attend as many as possible. This is my tribe of lifelong learners and do-ers."
"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 itrapreneurship 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."
"Connecting with so many other innovation professionals acted as a shot of adrenaline reigniting my drive to transform our organization. Sometimes working at the front-end of innovation can be a lonely place, especially in a large 100-year-old company. Last week was a refreshing reminder that we're not alone."
Apply to join
If you have innovation in your title, this is your tribe. Join Innov8rs Phoenix for in-depth conversations, relevant connections and quality content.
Would you like to receive the conference brochure to share internally? Need help in making the business case for attending this conference? Any other questions?
As a first step, apply via the buttons below. In your application, just check the boxes for receiving the brochure, a 1-pager "convince my manager doc" or to schedule a call at your earliest convenience. We're here to help you making an informed decision about joining.
Secure your seat at Fast Movers discount until March 7th, EOD
What's included?
• Your personalized journey offering support, resources and connections to address your top 3 challenges, before, during and after the conference for 8 weeks in total
• Join 35+ peer to peer sharing sessions and speaker sessions with experts and innovation leaders, covering everything corporate innovation A-Z, as well as field trips to explore the local ecosystem
• Access to session recordings and additional resources for three months
• Connect and network with other participants during the conference dinner and several social events prior, during and after the conference, as well as via the conference app
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.
$495
per seat / max 5 passes
The options above are available for corporate innovation leaders and professionals only.
We are not offering seats to consultants, coaches, software firms or otherwise service providers. Only Expert Partners and members of Innov8rs Community with an Expert Pass are eligible to join this Conference.
Are you a member of Innov8rs Community already?
As a member, you can register for this conference at a members-only discount of $495 per seat. Log in to the community platform or ask our team for further info and instructions.
Need some help?
If you'd like to understand better how participating in Innov8rs Phoenix would support you and your team in achieving your objectives, or if you have questions about registration, email hans@innov8rs.co
Venue Information
The conference is hosted at the ASU - W.P. Carey School of Business campus.
Further information and instructions re the venue, available hotels and other logistics will be sent to you after registration.
If you have any questions, just email conference@innov8rs.co and we'll get back to you asap.
