Innovation strategist Ellen Di Resta exposes a common career myth: “If I do good work, it will be recognized.” In this episode, host Cathyrine “Lilo” Armandie explores how metrics, measurement, and management culture often overlook the invisible value that drives real innovation.

In this episode:

Who is Ellen Di Resta?
Ellen Di Resta is an innovation and entrepreneurship strategist with a background in engineering and design. She’s a partner at Pearl Partners and founder of The Idea Builders Guild on Substack. Her clients include Procter & Gamble, Clorox, MIT, Boston University, and AstraZeneca.

What key insight does she share about value and measurement?
Ellen explains that intangible assets—ideas, empathy, design thinking, and collaboration—drive most business value. For example, about 91% of Apple’s $1 trillion valuation comes from intangible assets, not hardware. Companies that only reward measurable metrics risk overlooking their biggest sources of innovation.

What framework does Ellen use to make intangible value measurable?
She introduces the Four Pillars Framework:

Perception – What the customer believes and feels.
Interaction – How people experience the product or idea.
Access – How easily they can engage with it.
Function – How well it performs the intended job.
This helps teams translate human motivations into measurable design and innovation criteria.

Why do 70–90% of new ventures and R&D projects fail?
Most teams rely too early on reliability metrics—the ones used for scaling—before proving validity, or whether they’re building the right thing. Ellen argues that innovators must create new metrics that track confidence and context fit before launch.

What does Ellen teach innovators and entrepreneurs?

Measure progress through understanding, not just output.
Use small “stimulus tests” to validate motivation before prototypes.
Build organizational confidence step by step.
Recognize that success comes from making invisible value visible.

Visit pearl-partners.com to explore Ellen’s innovation programs or liesmyego.com for more resources.

For more resources: liesmyego.com

James Kirk Paulding

The AI-powered Podcast Player