Innovation Insights from 60 Global Leaders

THE 22 QUESTIONS

1. What makes a company innovative?

Answered by: Enrique Dans, Jesse Nieminen, Brian Kennedy, Dr. Marily Nika, Steven O'Kennedy, Andrea Kates, Sofia Fernandes

Innovative companies combine diversity of thought with a discovery mindset. They see the necessity to change at the right time, follow through without delay, and measure impact. Key traits include customer obsession, tolerance for experimentation, and the ability to attract creative talent who challenge the status quo.

2. Do companies need a Chief Innovation Officer?

Answered by: Tom Goodwin, Vincent Pirenne, François Candelon, Alex Adamopoulos, Warwick Peel, Frederic Laluyaux, Patrick Van der Pijl, Daniel Burrus, Scott D. Anthony

Not every company needs one, but most benefit from having someone accountable for innovation outcomes. The CINO's role is to champion change, signal commitment to innovation, and connect exploration activities with execution. Success requires real authority, budget, and a team — not just a title.

3. What is the role of the C-Suite in empowering innovation?

Answered by: Rosemarie Diegnan, François Candelon, Lisa Seacat DeLuca, Tom Goodwin, Mark Settle, Marica Labrou, Scott D. Anthony, Alex Adamopoulos, Frederic Laluyaux, Warwick Peel

Leadership must define what innovation means for the organization, protect funding from daily business pressures, and create a culture where experimentation is safe. The C-Suite sets the tone — if executives don't model curiosity and reward intelligent failure, innovation won't happen.

4. What are the essential roles and skills in a truly innovative environment?

Answered by: Scott D. Anthony, Mark Settle, Eric Martin, Patrick Van der Pijl, Davide Matteo Falasconi, Carlos Oliveira

Innovation requires curiosity, customer obsession, collaboration, comfort with ambiguity, and bias toward action. Organizations need people who see differently, generate many ideas, identify promising concepts, and execute relentlessly. These skills should be distributed across the organization, not siloed in an innovation team.

5. How is innovation different in the startup world?

Answered by: Niko Bonatsos, Maria Paula Oliveira, Dr. Marily Nika, Steven O'Kennedy, Jesse Nieminen, Enrique Dans, Andrea Kates

Startups are forced to innovate to survive — they have no reserves to buy time. Their advantage is focus, speed, and lack of legacy. However, startups often innovate once; sustaining innovation through growth is a different challenge. Large companies can learn from startup hunger and 10x thinking.

6. How do you spot innovation opportunities?

Answered by: Dr. Diane Hamilton, Lisa Seacat DeLuca, Misha de Sterke

Opportunities emerge from curiosity and customer proximity. Leaders must empower employees to question the status quo and reward input. Ideas surface naturally through everyday work — solving real problems yields higher-value innovation than scheduled brainstorming.

7. Does corporate innovation need a methodology?

Answered by: Eric Martin, Erik Schumb, Mathew (Mat) Hughes, Evangelos Simoudis, Kelly Dawson, Richard Turrin, Anthony Mills, Alex Farcet, Vincent Pirenne

Yes — but lightweight and adaptive. Methodologies like Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile provide structure for navigating uncertainty. The key is combining customer discovery, rapid experimentation, and clear stage gates without killing creativity through rigid processes.

8. What are the essential digital tools for innovation?

Answered by: Erik Schumb, Gijs Van Wulfen, Alf Rehn, Pedro Costa, Adi Mazor Kario

Tools for ideation and collaboration, prototyping and visualization, customer feedback collection, and portfolio management. The specific tools matter less than having a transparent platform where problems, ideas, successes, and failures are visible across the organization.

9. How do you measure innovation output and impact?

Answered by: François Candelon, Alf Rehn, Mathew (Mat) Hughes, Davide Matteo Falasconi

Move beyond vanity metrics like "ideas submitted" to indicators of genuine capability: validation velocity, concept-to-MVP cycle time, portfolio balance, and percentage of revenue from new products. 3M's New Product Viability Index — measuring sales from products that didn't exist five years ago — exemplifies this approach.

10. How important is culture for corporate innovation?

Answered by: Anthony Mills, Cris Beswick, Enrico Gentili, Dr. Diane Hamilton, Tony Ulwick, Michael Stephen Crickmore

Critical. Culture determines whether people feel safe to experiment, share ideas, and fail intelligently. Leadership must build trust, recognize risk-taking, and avoid creating separate "innovation tribes" that make others feel excluded. Innovation culture isn't declared — it's demonstrated daily.

11. What are the most frequent innovation blockers?

Answered by: Ger Perdisatt, Gijs Van Wulfen, Marica Labrou, Davide Matteo Falasconi, Charlie Widdows

Risk aversion, short-term focus, organizational silos, lack of resources, and resistance to change. The most damaging blocker is when leadership says the right things about innovation but doesn't back it with budget, authority, or personal engagement.

12. How would you establish an experimentation mindset?

Answered by: Tony Ulwick, Carlos Oliveira, Carlo Rivis, Misha de Sterke, Narjeet Singh Soni

Normalize intelligent failure by celebrating learning, not just success. Companies like Tata give "Dare to Try" awards for well-designed experiments that didn't work. Create space for small experiments, provide air cover for teams, and ask discovery questions like "what experiment are you running next week?"

13. Do companies need a community of innovators?

Answered by: Jonne Kuyt, Adrián Heredia Iglesias, Warwick Peel, Vincent Pirenne, Patrick Van der Pijl, Charlie Widdows

Yes — innovation is a team sport that benefits from diverse perspectives colliding. Communities create momentum, share learnings, and provide support. The key is ensuring the community connects to execution rather than becoming an isolated club.

14. How does innovation blend with agile development?

Answered by: Isaac Sacolick, Rosemarie Diegnan, Fabrizio Ferrandina, Adi Mazor Kario, Johanna Rothman

Agile provides the iterative feedback loops innovation requires — build, test, learn, adapt. DevOps practices accelerate innovation by enabling rapid deployment and continuous improvement. The challenge is scaling agile beyond software teams to the broader organization.

15. How would you define a truly agile organization?

Answered by: Frederic Laluyaux, Tony Ulwick, Johanna Rothman, Adrián Heredia Iglesias, Isaac Sacolick, David Blake

One that can sense change, decide quickly, and act without excessive bureaucracy. Truly agile organizations flatten hierarchy for idea exchange, bias toward action over analysis, and iterate constantly. Agility is about adaptability, not just speed.

16. Do public-sector companies innovate?

Answered by: Steven O'Kennedy, Enrique Dans, Jesse Nieminen

Yes, though with different constraints. Public sector innovation often focuses on service delivery, citizen experience, and operational efficiency. Success requires navigating regulatory requirements, political cycles, and risk-averse cultures — but the potential impact on society makes it worthwhile.

17. Digital Transformation – what is it all about?

Answered by: Daniel Burrus, Tom Goodwin, Ger Perdisatt, Erik Schumb, Jonne Kuyt, Dimitris Livas, Jonathan Rose

Digital transformation is using technology to fundamentally change how organizations operate and deliver value — not just digitizing existing processes. It requires transforming business models, customer experiences, and organizational culture, with technology as the enabler rather than the goal.

18. What is Open Innovation?

Answered by: Ralf Wilden, Lisa Seacat DeLuca, Pedro Costa, Dermot Roche, Sofia Fernandes

Open Innovation means sourcing ideas and capabilities from outside the organization — through partnerships, acquisitions, crowdsourcing, or collaboration with startups and academia. It accelerates innovation by combining internal expertise with external perspectives.

19. To patent or not to patent? Do I need an IP strategy?

Answered by: Peter Hoeller, Dermot Roche, Joe Doyle

Intellectual property strategy should align with business strategy. Patents protect competitive advantage but require investment and disclosure. Consider whether defensive protection, licensing revenue, or freedom to operate matters most. Not every innovation needs a patent — speed to market can be more valuable.

20. What are the top three technologies that will drive innovation in the next few years?

Answered by: Lisa Seacat DeLuca, Jonathan Rose, Fabrizio Ferrandina

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, which transform decision-making and automation; cloud and edge computing, which enable scale and real-time processing; and advanced connectivity (5G/6G), which unlocks new applications in IoT, autonomous systems, and immersive experiences.

21. How could innovation solve the most pressing global problems?

Answered by: Dragana Vukasinovic, Anthony Mills, Daniel Burrus, David Blake, Michael Stephen Crickmore, Christos Dimas

Innovation is essential for addressing climate change, healthcare access, food security, and inequality. Success requires combining technological innovation with business model innovation and systemic change. The biggest opportunities often lie at the intersection of profit and purpose.

22. What is the future of work?

Answered by: Fabrizio Ferrandina, Christos Dimas, Dragana Vukasinovic

Work is becoming more distributed, automated, and human-centric. AI will augment rather than replace most knowledge work. Success requires continuous learning, adaptability, and skills that complement machines. Organizations must redesign for flexibility while maintaining culture and collaboration.

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