The VentureFuel Visionaries

On Wednesday, December 7th we sat down with leaders driving transformation within their organizations and reshaping industry in the process.They shared their take on the role of Innovation in 2022, learnings and lessons; plus made some predictions for 2023: what’s coming on the horizon in terms of consumer trends, customer needs, and business transformation. Featuring: Christina DeJesus, Chief Innovation Officer, InHouse Physicians, Jelena Joffe Weil, Worldwide Venture Innovation Lead at Amazon Web Services & Dion Lisle, Director of Corporate Ventures at Huntington National Bank. Moderated by Vanessa Rosado, Head of Brand Strategy, VentureFuel

Why CVC? Why accelerators? Why startup collaboration in any form when you are a $79Bn a year company ahead of the pack? Daniel Grubbs breaks down the piece of the puzzle that corporate venturing plays in keeping your business ahead of the core, beyond the bottle, closer to consumers, and ahead of trends. We talk about the balance of strategic and financial goals, the value of tip-of-the-spear insights, and how unlocking growth can also fuel employee engagement.

David Olivencia gives us an inside preview into his upcoming book NetWORKING Excellence with an actionable framework for the most important skill for career acceleration, community building and accomplishing goals. David is the CEO of Angeles Investors, has held executive roles at Verizon, Oracle, Ford, and Accenture; is an active Board Member of Chicago PBS, the National Museum of Mexican Art and has invested in over 70 startups, including 2 unicorns and 10 companies with valuations over $100M. We talk about how to network to meet investors, to improve deal flow of the right startups and how to jump up the corporate ladder to the future you envision.

“Games will become the creations of their players.” Chris shares how his company has built the business engine for creators to accelerate video game commerce globally. What can large organizations learn from gaming as they think about the metaverse and web 3? How to embrace emerging technologies like distributed development and Generative AI and how the continued improvement in tools and automation will forever change how content is created, enjoyed and monetized.

What does the world’s largest aerospace company and leading provider of commercial airplanes, defense, space and security systems, and global services think about innovation? Bobby Niehaus is on the Applied Innovation team, which is the corporate ventures group that brings outside innovation into Boeing, essentially the bridge between Boeing's internal technology strategy and external innovation partners. We talk about outside-in innovation, the value of Corporate Venture Capital, the dual mandates of corporate venturing, overcoming NIH (Not Invented Here) Bias and portfolio development to trigger strategic transitions.

How do you innovate on one of the world’s largest and most iconic consumer brand portfolios? We ask Anton Vincent, President of Mars Wrigley - North America, which is the largest subsidiary of Mars Inc. which is one of the world’s largest privately held companies. We talk about fostering growth in various macro-economic situations, how to set the table for tomorrow and why the most difficult challenges are often the ones that demand the most innovation. Of course, we also talk about M&Ms and candy.

From Light Fields to 10G, how will we connect together in the future? The confluence and convergence of multiple technologies will change how we consume media – by applying the art of the possible with limitless thinking, Anju Ahuja and CableLabs are helping the cable industry go from vision to implementation. We discuss Co-Innovation, extended realities, the venture capital view of market creation, and the need for always developing the business case for what’s next.

Abhijit Ganguly is the Managing Director of Goodyear Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. We talk about going beyond the tire and the evolution from traditional R&D and M&A to inside-out + outside-in innovation. We talk about the balance between strategic and financial and the importance of continuous innovation, especially at an iconic 125-year-old company that is intent on accelerating the future of mobility. From electrification, to autonomy, from delivery robots to airplanes we explore how Goodyear will thrive at the intersection of convenient, accessible, sustainable, efficient, and safe.

Everyone loves transformation but hates change. How do we walk from the future back into today’s challenges and build a sustainable innovation strategy? Tove Chevalley leads an international team that challenges conventional thinking around the way we cook and eat, care for our clothes and the wellbeing of our homes, all for a better and more sustainable future. She is responsible for Electrolux’s future outlook, innovation strategy and incubation of new products, services and business model. Electrolux is a leading global appliance company with brands, like Electrolux, AEG and Frigidaire, they sell approximately 60 million household products in approximately 120 markets every year with sales 116 billion and employ 48,000 people around the world. We dive into the specifics of Gro – Electrolux’s big initiative around redesigning the concept of what a kitchen is and how it can become an enabler of a more sustainable food ecosystem.

Steven Wolfe Pereira, the CEO and Co-Founder of Encantos, and award-winning bi-lingual edtech company (which I invested in). Encantos is rethinking education through a mix of physical and digital tools grounded in play. Steven is one of the top rated voices on LinkedIn, named by Adweek as one of the "50 Most Indispensable Executives in Marketing, Media and Tech". He has served as the Chief Marketing Officer of Datalogix (acquired by Oracle), Neustar (acquired by Golden Gate Capital) and Quantcast. We talk about storyteaching, inclusion, innovation as well as how to unscale and subscribe.