Innov8rs Lisbon (2-3 May 2023)

Developing innovation skills requires more than ‘learning on the job’. All too often we get enrolled in training initiatives and we might even get out with good intentions of changing our way of working but the reality is that change is sticky. It requires endured effort but also a context that nurtures you and offers a reflection.

In this session, participants will learn the various aspects of designing a successful L&D program that installs a culture for innovation.

Stijn is an expert in innovation strategy & management. He consults various R&D and C-suite leaders in designing their innovation program and underlying governance structures. As Managing Director at Verhaert Academy, Stijn can build on his pragmatic experience of heading corporate accelerator programs at Fortune500 clients.

With over 12 years of experience in innovation consulting, he has been leading Verhaert’s business innovation team where organizations and intrapreneurs were supported in developing their breakthrough products and services, from ideation all the way to market launch.

Innovation professionals and their teams face unique challenges: they must navigate today’s era of continued disruption, with its technological advances, geopolitical shifts, and unpredictable economic outlook (just to name a few!), while delivering short-term returns on longer-term investments.

The dizzying pace of change, combined with inevitable future uncertainty, means that innovation portfolios must be designed to be as resilient as possible. But how to best do this?

This industry-agnostic workshop will demonstrate the value of applying strategic foresight to shaping future-proof innovation portfolios. Together we’ll work with future scenarios to stress-test opportunity areas and search fields, unlocking insights on how to streamline investments, (re)allocate resources, and ultimately, do more with less.

Tobias is Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at Creative Dock, the largest independent European Venture Builder. Before, he founded and led Rohrbeck Heger, a boutique consultancy focussed on strategic foresight that was acquired by Creative Dock in 2021.

Tobias has a background in foresight, innovation management, and strategy. He continuously advises clients such as Bosch, Deutsche Telekom, Hyundai, LG, Mondelez, Siemens, Tata Group, Webasto, and many more. A futurist by heart, he engages in building up new companies in addition to his day-to-day job. His areas of expertise are:

* Mobility, telecommunications, and digital manufacturing
* Digitalization, servitization, and industry convergence
* Foresight-Driven Innovation and Strategy
* Collaborative and networked co-creation

Before founding Rohrbeck Heger, Tobias was Head of Innovation at EIT Digital Germany, a PPP focusing on strengthening European competitiveness in the digital domain. During this period he has worked with clients from multiple industries with a focus on the future perspective, digital businesses, and the application areas of information technology.

Parallel to consulting, Tobias is also an active researcher, lecturer, and business angel. He completed a PhD on foresight at University of Potsdam, Hasso Plattner Institute and his research was published in leading international journals and on conferences such as Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Futures, ISPIM, and the R&D Management Conference. Through his investment company, Tobias advises founders, with a particular focus on IT, logistics, and mobility.

Sebastian Knab is Director of Foresight & Strategy at Creative Dock, Europe and MENA’s largest independent corporate venture builder. He is also Deputy Managing Director at Rohrbeck Heger, a foresight consultancy that was acquired by Creative Dock in 2021.

Sebastian has 15 years of experience in foresight, strategy, innovation and sustainability and holds a Doctoral (Ph.D.) degree in Management from Universität Hamburg and a Diploma (M.Sc.) degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from TU Berlin.

His areas of expertise include:
+ Innovation, technology and business field exploration/radars
+ Scenario-based strategizing and business modeling
+ Business model innovation and collaborative business modeling
+ Socio-technical/sustainability transitions and systemic innovation
+ Selected sectors: Energy, Mobility, Telco/ICT/Digital, Industrial, Public-private partnerships

Before joining Rohrbeck Heger, Sebastian led foresight and innovation activities at the EICT, Berlin, a partnership of Deutsche Telekom, Daimler, Siemens, Opera Software, Fraunhofer, and Technische Universität Berlin. At the EICT, he established the future energy business group and led projects on strategic foresight, business modeling and innovation planning. Sebastian also established and co-led the smart energy systems and business modeling activities at the EIT Digital, a leading European digital innovation, entrepreneurship and education organization driving Europe’s digital transformation.

Previously, Sebastian worked for the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in the department of Energy, Transportation and Environment and for Prognos in the area of Energy Economics and Policy. He also gained international industry experience at Total, France, Elektral, Turkey, Daimler and Aurubis, both Germany.

We all innovate to make what life needs next, so businesses can grow, customers can access better products and services and to address the important problems our society faces today. But the ways we innovate are evolving rapidly because of breakthroughs in science + technology and better global networking and collaboration.

At Board of Innovation, we have been analyzing howChatGPT, DALL-2 E, Rationale and other generative AI models have the potential to dramatically change how we innovate and how fast. Join us as we explore 4 important ways that generative AI will impact what we all do to make what life needs next and host a hands-on workshop experimenting with creative AI as a starting point for innovation.

With over a decade of experience in building healthcare & consumer goods strategies for the most ambitious organizations, Vincent is one of Board of Innovations global partners. He fulfils a key role as leader of global partnerships of the firm after founding the activities of Board of Innovation In NY. His position as Business Model Innovation Lead at Philips is one of the highlights of his track-record at our firm.

Passionate about realizing new growth opportunities for clients, and making things happen, Vincent has supported leading businesses including Nestlé, Roche, Takeda, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and GE Healthcare in making what life needs next.

Want to see how your corporate innovation capability compares to the world’s most successful change-makers?

This is the only workshop designed to assess your performance, benchmark it against the planet’s fastest-growing companies and transform your approach forever.

If you’re struggling to build a systematic, repeatable and predictable way to identify, validate and scale new ideas, this is for you.

Our comprehensive assessment process evaluates every component of your innovation function and provides valuable insights on how you stack up against the best. You’ll also get a personalized action plan so that you can implement critical recommendations back at work.

Jacob has spent the last 15 years helping today’s biggest companies like Hilton, NBC, Walgreens, HSBC and Microsoft to overcome innovation inertia and invent the ventures, products, and services of tomorrow. His deep-rooted belief is that innovation is a learned skill, not an innate talent and that with the right people, processes and platforms – every corporate on the planet can innovate with more speed, focus and impact.

Catalysts tend not to conform to the cultural norms of the organizations they work in. They see things differently; are driven and energized; want to make things better and see a way to do that. They ask questions no one else is asking. They might be a bit annoying.

If you think you fit this description, or you’re managing someone who does, this session is for you. As a Catalyst, we’ll explore how to stay sane in a world that perceives us as the crazy ones. How can we stay match-fit when the organizational antibodies come for us? As a leader of Catalysts, you’ll learn how to identify, guide and support this rare breed of individual, so that they can flourish and, in so doing, enable your business to flourish too.

You will learn how to
– Recognise Catalyst traits and understand the benefits they bring to our organizations
– As a Catalyst, identify emotional triggers and learn how to avoid burnout
– As a leader, learn how to spot and support Catalysts to enable them, and your business, to thrive

Susie Braam is an innovation leader and coach. Former Head of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the UK National Security arena, Susie now coaches innovators, executives and executive teams on innovation and transformation. Susie writes about innovation, leadership and strategy, and speaks at corporate events and conferences.

We have a successful digital and data team, but when we want to build a platform or business model on top of that it simply doesn’t fly.

We already have enough projects; we do not need any more.

Understanding that your company has different options for achieving innovation is the first step toward creating a healthy innovation ecosystem. In this workshop, we will look at how to identify the different types and goals of innovation, and discuss the various options for managing and governing innovation for a healthy ‘innovation mix’ to match your company’s vision and ambitions.

Esther Gons is the co-author of The Corporate Startup, winner of the 2019 Golden Axiom Business Book Award and the 2018 Management Book Of The Year Award. The co-author of the recently released book Innovation Accounting, winner of the 2022 Golden Axiom Business Book Award. And the founder and CEO of GroundControl.

GroundControl is innovation software to manage, measure and report on your innovation ecosystem. The platform focuses on  innovation accounting  and helps corporate startup teams with  the de-risking process of new business models. GroundControl works with clients such as Euler Hermes, DHL, and ABN Amro.

Esther is an international speaker on topics of corporate innovation, innovation accounting, portfolio management, and startups. She has a background in technology and has been an entrepreneur for over 20 years. She has mentored over several hundred startups, among others as an investor at NEXT Startup Ventures, lead mentor in the Rockstart Accelerator programs and Lean Startup Machine weekends. That passion for pioneering is what still drives her to make change happen.

In this session, we will discuss what sustainable innovation entails and, just like some argue that entrepreneurship should always be “social” entrepreneurship, we think that innovation should always be “sustainable” innovation.

Through hand-on activities and a design thinking approach, we will invite participants to explore what sustainable innovation might look like in their organizations and we will provide them with tools to start embracing sustainable innovation from the start in all their projects.

Anne-Laure Fayard is Chaired Professor in Social Innovation at Nova School of Business and Economics, visiting research faculty at NYU, and coordinator of the Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability Lab. Anne-Laure was also faculty at NYU and INSEAD. She held visiting positions at Imperial College Business School, London School of Economics and Ecole des Mines.

Her research focuses on cross-sector collaboration, open social innovation and the future of work. It has been published in leading academic journals, Harvard Business Review, and mentioned in major newspapers such as New York Times, Financial Times and The Economist.

She holds an MA and an M.Phil. in Philosophy from La Sorbonne, an M.Phil. in Cognitive Science from Ecole Polytechnique and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science from the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

Firestarter. Agent Provocateur. Futurecaster. Rui is a strategist, innovation manager, professor, researcher, public speaker, mentor and entrepreneur.

At Nova School of Business and Economics Rui is the Executive Director of the Innovation Ecosystem, orchestrating an outstanding community of innovators for a better sustainable future. He is also a Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the school.

Building a billion dollar business starts with something deceptively simple: fully understanding customer pain. But where do you start? Who do you talk to? What challenge is your business already well-positioned to solving? In this no-slide hands-on masterclass, Senior Venture Builder Dennis List guides you in outlining unicorn challenges and opportunities. You might just walk away with your own unicorn Challenge Framing and plan of action.

Dennis is a hands-on expert in early stage venture strategy with over 18 years of experience in a variety of roles across tech and consumer products. At Mach49, he contributes strategic expertise that helps clients develop the capabilities to become better leaders and run successful businesses.

Hailing from a family of entrepreneurs, Dennis got his first taste of entrepreneurship on a global scale when he co-founded the music hardware startup, Rocki, in 2013 and later became its CEO. Prior to joining Mach49, he worked as a Program Manager at Techstars, where he was responsible for driving and developing 3 cohort-based accelerator programs in Singapore and Amsterdam. After 5 years in the Singapore startup scene, Dennis became especially in tune with innovation and corporate ventures in Southeast Asia.

Through his extensive international venture experiences, Dennis developed a passion for helping founders navigate the foundational challenges that new companies face. Whether he’s coaching New Venture Teams in how to tell their story, build a customer-centric product, find the right funding strategy, put together an effective team, or leverage networks to bootstrap early stage growth, Dennis has a gift for helping entrepreneurs create and scale disruptive organizations.

Dennis continues to mentor a handful of startups in his spare time, and currently lives in The Hague with his wife and 2 daughters.

Competitors can sometimes be your best innovation partner. While it may seem counterintuitive, partnering with competitors can bring a number of benefits, including:
– Access to new ideas and expertise: Competitors may have different perspectives, knowledge, and experiences that can help you develop new ideas or approaches to a problem.
– Shared resources: By pooling resources with your competitors, you may be able to achieve economies of scale, reduce costs, and access resources that would otherwise be out of reach.
– Increased market awareness: Partnering with competitors can give you insights into the market, including trends, customer needs, and industry developments.
– Improved credibility: Collaborating with competitors can signal to customers, investors, and other stakeholders that you are committed to innovation and collaboration, which can improve your credibility and reputation.

Of course, partnering with competitors also comes with risks, such as the possibility of intellectual property theft, conflicts of interest, and erosion of market share. However, with careful planning, clear communication, and strong agreements, these risks can be mitigated. Ultimately, whether or not competitors are your best innovation partner depends on your specific situation and goals, and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Join this session to learn more.

Passion about scalable breakthrough innovation solutions – technological, business, social and governance. Ana feels energized creating something new out of nothing — be it a new product, service, solution, experience or a new venture.

Her professional experience has been following the economic transition of markets. From the Oil&Gas sector to Energy Transition across several industries and SDG’s achievements, I’m a believer of the power of change management in company strategies towards innovation breakthroughs.

When deploying a collaborative program, organizations are very often faced with the same challenge: how to ensure the engagement of their communities? As the French leader in collective intelligence, Yumana has co-developed a proven methodology with more than fifty companies – such as Orange, VINCI, L’Oréal or Safran – to ensure the success of their collaborative programs.

In this interactive session, participants will discover this methodology, and learn the keys to successfully engage their ecosystems in their innovation programs.

After working 12 years in large corporations and consulting firms, Céline went from intrapreneur to entrepreneur and founded MyCrowdCompany in 2015. She has since co-founded Yumana, a French company helping corporations achieve performance by fostering collective intelligence.

Céline is convinced that an organization’s ability to successfully involve its communities in its innovation strategy will guarantee sustainable results. In order to bring her vision to light, she helps companies build sustainable innovation and intrapreneurship programs and accompanies them throughout the whole process to ensure their success.

“In the last 15 years, 52% of companies on the S&P 500 have disappeared. However, the fastest ones seem to be winning. In 2021 Ethereum did $11.6 trillion in transactions surpassing Visa. What defines the winners and the losers of the innovation race?

This session will discuss the main pillars of the most successful innovation – vision, mindset, process, and skills. You’ll explore the ways to define innovation visions and opportunities that give you a strong advantage. You’ll then practice putting these opportunities into execution. At the end of the workshop, you’ll have a set of tools in hand, that’ll bring your company’s innovation one level up.”

Turning ideas into reality is all about curiosity, experimentation and a touch of discipline. Dafne has over 5 years of experience in the innovation field helping businesses become more innovation-centric.

Today as the Director for Venture Building at oneUp, Dafne helps people and organizations to explore their purpose and bring their transformation dreams into reality with the use of different proven methodologies such as Human Centered Design and Experimentation. That means validating ideas through a process that involves the (real) customer voice and (a lot of) evidence. Throughout this time I have also facilitated conferences, workshops and coaching sessions for over 3000 people from 100+ countries.

Innovating with a financial mindset. Idus has over 7 years of experience helping businesses build innovation strategies and create new business models that tackle the most pressing challenges of today.

As the Managing Director of oneUp, Idus helps large corporations innovate and turn key disruptions such as
technology shifts, climate change and cultural changes into opportunities. It is also his job to ensure that oneUp is the best place to work for over 50 innovators coming from a wide range of backgrounds. Previously he has worked in venture capital, corporate strategy and the renewable energy industry.

Jasper has 10+ years of international experience in strategy and innovation roles within the food industry, both on the retailer side (Ahold Delhaize, PLUS) and the supplier side (AB InBev, pure baby foods, Unilever, Spinn, Cargill).

He has had the opportunity to drive non-incremental innovation within large food and retail organizations, by launching and scaling new products, services and business models. Jasper has built expertise in leading strategy workshops with leadership teams to shape strategic visions and identify opportunity spaces. Today he guides companies to define key opportunities for non-incremental innovation, actively shaping their innovation portfolios and business models.