Innov8rs Connect on Startup Collaboration & Ecosystem Engagement (15-17 February 2022)

Hearing from both sides of the table, this session looks at how both corporates and startups can gain the most from the relationship and what pitfalls can potentially be avoided along the way.

Soren Nielsen is a fintech entrepreneur, who has led several teams, funding rounds, and collaborations between fintechs and corporates. Amongst others with Subaio and Ernit. Many of his insights can be found in his book Death by Innovation Theater – 10 Corporate Innovation Lessons Learned by a Startup. Artem Khlebnikov is Strategic Partnerships Director at Danone Nutricia Research. In his role, he works closely with internal and external investment funds, public & private partners and Danone colleagues to help drive science-based opportunities that activate Danone’s alimentation strategy and enable significant and sustainable growth opportunities aligned with Danone’s #OneHealth.OnePlanet approach. Artem holds an MS degree in Chemical Engineering from the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology, Moscow Russia, has completed his PhD in Biotechnology at the Swiss Federal institute of Technology in Lausanne, and received Post-Doctoral training in Molecular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. Simon Boonen works as Fintech Partnership lead for ING Neo. In this role, Simon explores Fintech partnership opportunities for ING in the areas of Open Banking, Payments, Banking as a Service, and Transaction Services. Prior to joining ING, he has worked in start- and scale-ups and in management consultancy, fulfilling roles in Strategy, Transformation and Innovation.” Neil Soni has built, grown, and created new ventures – both within the world’s largest brands and as an independent entrepreneur. Neil is co-founder of Extovate, which provides customized external innovation research service. He also runs a growth and innovation consulting practice, which helps startups and Fortune 500 companies partner and invest in technology and commercial opportunities. Neil is the author of The Startup Gold Mine: How to Tap the Hidden Innovation Agendas of Large Companies to Fund and Grow Your Business.

What engagement mechanisms work and why? Should you do it yourself, get expert help, or outsource completely? If sourcing out, how do you select a provider? What are the selection criteria?

Ruth Armalé, an electronics engineer from Barcelona, has been active in the Swiss corporate and startup scene for 20 years – ten of them at firms such as McKinsey and in leadership positions in the telecom and insurance industries. She spent another ten years working in the entrepreneurial environment, from a dotcom unicorn to co-founding a global social innovation incubation program and a series of leadership roles at Kickstart Innovation in Zurich. At the House of Insurtech Switzerland (HITS), a subsidiary of Generali (Switzerland) Holding Ltd, she is responsible for open innovation, creating collaboration opportunities with other corporate partners in the ecosystem and working with startups to jointly develop innovative solutions. Ricardo Marvao is Co-founder and Board Member of Beta-i. Based in Lisbon, Beta-i is one of the main entrepreneurship and innovation organizations in Europe. Beta-i helps new and established businesses grow the startup way, by running acceleration and innovation programs, organizing events, promoting investment and creating great workspaces at our hub. Co-founder & CEO of Evolve Space Solutions (Germany and Portugal) since 2004, developing software products for the Aerospace Industry, with clients like ESA, Thales, Astrium, Inmarsat, Eumetsat, Airbus, Boeing, Embraer (acquired by Novabase (NBA) in 2011, Euronext company since 2000, Portugal’s Nr.1 IT company specialized in the Telecommunications sector, with over 3000 employees, offices in Portugal, Spain, Germany, UK, the Middle East, Mozambique Angola, South Africa, and Ghana). Fred Schonenberg is the Founder & CEO of VentureFuel an innovation advisory that has helped over 100 companies from Coca-Cola, Adidas, Hershey’s, AB InBev, to Comcast discover and implement new technologies through startup partnerships that deliver breakthrough results (18.7% sales lift, $148MM ROI). He builds be-spoked innovation programs for these established companies that range from Corporate Accelerators to Innovation-as-a-Service programs that leverage strategic frameworks and deep relationships with the VC, Angel and Startup ecosystem. He is the host of The VentureFuel Visionaries Podcast (Apple, Spotify) with guests ranging from President of Chobani to CEO of Verizon Wireless and is a frequent speaker at industry events (Cannes, SXSW, Nasdaq, Advertising Week, etc.) and an industry thought-leader published in Bloomberg, Crunchbase, Forbes, The Huffington Post, Media Post, The Drum, Tech.co, Creator Magazine, Adweek, Event Marketer, etc. After graduating in Toxicology and Philosophy of Biology at the University of Utrecht, Jan Meiling started off working in Marketing & Sales and Business Development at a Dutch Contract Research Organisation, moving on in 2006 to Innovation management and New Business Development at DSM. From 2009, Jan has been driving Entrepreneurship and Innovation for the Food Valley ecosystem in the Netherlands. Nowadays he is the Managing Director at StartLife, the Startup Accelerator and Business Innovation Centre located at Wageningen campus.

How to find the needle in the haystack? How to solve the paradox of choice? Is AI taking over? How to streamline the processes?

Sailing in international environments, Laurent’s work is at the crossroad of innovation, entrepreneurship, venture capital and corporate finance. He considers himself as a Venture Builder; he likes turning bold ideas into businesses, by contributing with strategy, operational management or money. After 20+ years working in the fields of technology, innovation and startups, he’s now leading Novable, an AI-based innovation & startup scouting technology venture. Fiona van den Brink is part of the new Open Innovation team at Corbion. In her role, Fiona is working with the team to develop the new Open Innovation strategic plan for the company. Fiona’s role is to explore emerging activity in the biotech industry and defining the right opportunities areas for Corbion to focus on. She is collaboratively scouting and vetting new opportunities, finding the right parties to partner with to build out the portfolio of collaborative projects. Bringing in her experience in collaborative innovation and partnerships, Fiona leads the execution of selected prospects, bringing together the external partners with Corbion’s internal diverse teams to bring the collaborations to a successful launch. Before joining Corbion in 2021, Fiona has worked at AkzoNobel in various roles relating to R&D, Sustainability and Open Innovation. Daniel is part if BASF’s corporate innovation team and operates between the digital transformation and innovation communities. He runs the internal ideation platform, manages the greater scouting community, supporting also with methods and tools. Prior to moving into innovation management, he has worked as a (technology) scout and a research scientist.

World-changing inventions have been uncovered by innovators willing to scrap conventional wisdom. But, how do you define the business case if you don’t know what you’re looking for? How do you measure progress along the way? And how to keep stakeholders on all sides happy if you don’t understand yet if you will be delivering real impact? Join Alexandre Bastos, Ilanit Kabessa, Menno van der Zalm and Natascha Eckert to get their perspectives on the questions above, and of course, add your own as well.

Alexandre Bastos’ role leading the Front End Innovation programme at the taste & wellbeing division of Givaudan, is to explore emerging food technologies, business models and adjacent spaces, while bringing new opportunities by connecting with start-ups, entrepreneurs and innovation thought leaders that are disrupting the food and agriculture ecosystem. Alexandre is an active leader in the Givaudan journey to drive a more collaborative and inclusive working model to deliver innovation. From innovation in taste science and technology to broader innovation in agri and foodtech, Givaudan knows what innovation in its broadest sense means. “Our view on innovation is holistic and broad, but we are always focusing on the product, solutions, technology and experience we deliver to our customers and enable the food of the future and the future of our food system,” states Alexandre. Ilanit Kabessa Cohen is an Agri-Food Tech venturing & innovation expert with a proven track record of over 20 years. Her work is focused on building Multinational Corporates (MNC’s) strategic growth engines, collaborations portfolio, investments strategies, ventures teams and processes. To date Ilanit has built 5 Innovation / Venturing activities for 3 Agri-Food MNC’s. Career positions include Venture Partner Novozymes Advanced Proteins (Denmark), Head Dole Ventures, (Singapore) Head of Innovation and Digital Business unit, Nestle and Head of Nestle Open Innovation Hub (Israel / Switzerland). All positions and innovation / venturing related activities were founded and established by Ilanit from strategy to execution, including end-to-end responsibilities. Ilanit developed an innovation and collaboration portfolio for over 20 brands bringing hundreds of products to the global market. Ilanit has been working in the global Agri-Food start-up scene since its nascent days and is an instrumental member as co-founder of the Israeli Agri-Food Tech ecosystem, as well as an active player in the Global Agri-Food Tech scene. Ilanit has developed a vast network of Ag-tech and Food-Tech start-ups, technology partners, academic research centers, VC’s, CVC’s and NGO’s covering Israel, Europe, Asia and US. Ilanit is a public speaker, start-ups mentor, and a great believer in the role of innovation & start-ups in shaping the global economy. Menno van der Zalm is running AkzoNobel’s incubation and venturing team, focusing on internal and external adjacent and transformative innovation. With relevant experience in innovation management consulting, he shaped a ‘fit for AkzoNobel’ organization and governance structure which nurtures a ring-fenced portfolio of collaborative innovation projects and strategic minority investments. Before joining AkzoNobel in 2017, Menno was a business & strategy consultant at Monitor Deloitte, Capgemini Consulting and Altran Technology & Innovation. For more than 20 years Natascha has been active in various leading roles within Corporate Research and Innovation at Siemens and Osram. She has a long-year experience in the University-Industry-Business, currently managing Siemens’ global strategic partner programs with universities and research institutes. Natascha has a long-year history in Siemens’ international technology and innovation management and was responsible for expanding Siemens Corporate Technology’s footprint to Asia and Russia. For many years Natascha has coordinated the company’s engagement in manifold external research and innovation organizations and bodies, e.g. Bayerische Forschungsstiftung, Stifterverband, Forschungsunion, acatech and DAAD. Currently she holds seats in the University Council of University of Passau (DE), TUM Board of Trustees (DE), Bayern Innovative Board of Trustees (DE), University of Nottingham Research Advisory Group (UK), Kutaisi International University Industry Advisory Council (GE) and the Practitioners Committee of UIIN (University Industry Innovation Network). Additionally, Natascha is member or the UIDP (University Industry Partnership Development). Natascha holds a PhD degree in BA / Strategic Management from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and had worked for several years as strategic consultant for various companies.

Historically, companies want to own. And so build and buy decisions dominate. Making partnering decisions with – and especially start-ups is less well understood. How do companies approach the Build vs. Buy vs. Partner trade-off? How to deal with political factors that influence the decision-making process? Hear first-hand from Danilo Raponi (Group Head of Innovation, Generali) and Susana Jurado (Head of Telefónica Open Innovation Campus at Telefonica) as they share personal experiences, and bring your own approach and open questions as well.

Danilo is the Group Head of Innovation at Generali, where he is responsible for driving and scaling innovation throughout the Group, as well as leading the investment and management of Generali’s Innovation Fund. Danilo joined Generali from Munich Re, where he held a number of innovation-related roles, including the Lead of Munich Re’s Global Innovation Framework project. Danilo was also a co-founder of one of Munich Re’s largest innovation initiatives: SaveUp/garden, a behaviour-based personal finance app that aimed to redefine insurance companies’ offering of investment and savings products to young customers. As Senior Manager at Capital Partners, he formulated a comprehensive response to Covid19 challenges. Danilo has extensive experience in both Life and Non-Life (Re)Insurance, having held a number of roles in Swiss Re, Hannover Re, and Ernst & Young over more than 12 years, in addition to advisory roles in several Fintech start-ups. He has taught at the University of Zurich and at the University of Frankfurt, and has also worked as a consultant in the innovation/Insurtech space as well as having entrepreneurial experience. Danilo holds a MSc summa cum laude from Luiss University in Rome, a PhD from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the Bocconi School of Management. Susana Jurado is Head of Open Innovation with Academia at Telefónica, fostering collaboration models that allow to generate impactful innovation together with the academic world, as well as providing a way to address new challenges and opportunities we identify in the company. Previously, until March 2020 and during more than seven years, she was Head of Innovation Portfolio at Core Innovation also at Telefónica, her role there was running and evolving the innovation model, carrying out the internal ventures portfolio analysis and running the intrapreneurship program.

Melvyn Ho, Initiative Leader Open Innovation from Group Innovation & Sustainability at Clariant facilitates and drives the company’s global open innovation activities. His role focus on defining the appropriate open innovation approach for the internal business units and support them to identify the right technology partners for their business needs. These activities include raising internal awareness of emerging technologies and market opportunities, technology scouting as well as developing programs for internal innovation community and external open innovation platforms. Before Clariant, he was a technology consultant at IPI-Singapore supporting enterprises in the healthcare and wellness industry and a research associate at Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in the area of drug discovery. Melvyn holds a Master’s Degree in Synthetic Chemistry and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from the National University of Singapore. Michelle works with entrepreneurs who share ENGIE Factory’s mission to accelerate the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. Through ENGIE’s global presence in over 70 countries, she builds partnerships with aspiring founders and early stage startups to build new climate-tech ventures and help scale their solutions globally. Michelle has worked in the startup ecosystem in Asia for over 10 years. Prior to this, She was an intrapreneur in a real estate company and kickstarted a coworking business. Later, she became the General Manager of Impact Hub (a global coworking community for entrepreneurs) where she helped led sales and operations to scale the business across multiple locations. She later managed the Singapore Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator programme in offering startups access to Oracle’s products and partners, as well as engagement opportunities with customers.

This session with Laurent Guengant & Kevin Ye will discuss how one creates win-win solutions in corporate and startup collaborations. This conversation will be based on the best practices and lessons learned from GTM partnerships with Hitachi.

Laurent is a leader in operational transformation with 20+ years of experience in business strategy, incubation and acceleration. He has a proven record of successfully incubating new businesses and managing global cross-functional teams and initiatives in large companies. His skills and expertise in business unit management, strategy, business development, solution incubation and management, marketing and finance have led to continuous success in the IoT, digital solutions and services sectors. Laurent is currently serving as Global Vice President for Hitachi Global Social Innovation Business (GSIB) – focusing on the establishment and growth of Hitachi’s Corporate Incubation and Acceleration activities. Kevin helps global enterprises more effectively engage the rapidly changing ecosystem within venture. As a Partner in Mach49’s DOI practice, he acts as a trusted advisor for corporates looking to improve their external venturing activities (scouting, partnering, investing, acquiring), guiding them each step of the way to more optimal outcomes. His work and experience span the entire venturing lifecycle, all the way from the design and standup of new venture processes and structures to deal scouting, negotiation, and closing. Kevin’s expertise in corporate venturing started as an early employee at Silicon Foundry, a boutique advisory firm specializing in corporate innovation. While there, he worked with and advised a diverse set of Global2000 corporations to augment their deal sourcing, strategic connectivity, and partnership / investment activities. Toward the end of his tenure he had established himself as the lead venture advisor for a number of enterprises, including the Arizona Commerce Authority, Barrick Gold, DeNA, Southwest Airlines, and UPS Ventures.