The Innovation Engine Podcast

Marianne Johnson is the Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Cox Automotive, where she oversees a team of roughly 5000 people across 700 Scrum teams. She’s responsible for an $8 billion dollar portfolio that includes a number of products that are household names, including Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. On this episode, Scott Varho and Bernie Doone talk with Mariannne about buil...

Sejal Amin is the newly-named Chief Technology Officer at Shutterstock where she has a broad mandate to drive Shutterstock’s digital transformation into a full-service creative platform for hundreds of thousands of creative professionals around the world. She talks with 3Pillar’s Scott Varho and Elisabeth Beller about moving from software project to product on this episode of The Innovation Engine...

When you think of financial services and healthcare, ease of transformation likely isn’t the first to come to mind. There are privacy concerns, compliance issues, and security responsibilities. So how does a company that sits at the intersection of those two tackle radical digital transformation—all while already sitting at the top of its field? For this episode, we speak with Cory Gundberg about...

In this special episode of The Innovation Engine , we’re joined by Jessica Hall, VP of Design at CoStar Group, alongside 3Pillar Global CEO David DeWolf. Three years ago we spoke with them both about their book, The Product Mindset: Succeed in the Digital Economy by Changing the Way Your Organization Thinks . This time around, we take a look at what they’ve both learned in the years since, how Jes...

Bloomberg Industry Group CEO Josh Eastright talks with us about putting CX innovation into practice for this episode of the podcast. We discuss why when you’re running a digital business a product is never done, why providing your customers with answers at their point of need is a sign of an evolved customer experience, and why AI and machine learning are still heavily reliant on the human compone...

What do you do when changes in competition and customer expectations necessitate a radical change to your business model? Kevin Turpin is President of The National Journal, where he’s seen a complete overhaul of the company’s business model—from a traditional media advertising model to an advisory and information services company with an ever-growing number of digital products and services. He joi...

It’s undeniable that Apple is at the top of its game—yet despite its overwhelming success, Apple has also fundamentally changed in the last decade without the innovative leadership of Steve Jobs. For this episode of the podcast, we speak with Tripp Mickle, a reporter with The New York Times and the author of ' After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul .' Tri...

The pandemic forced a lot of innovation on corporations but didn’t give us much time to carefully consider how to best implement those changes. Now that it feels like we can take a step back, what can we do to utilize the recent digital transformations to their fullest potential? Ben Chodor is the president of Notified and host of the Insights with Ben Chodor podcast. He’s been guiding corporation...

The cloud is the future, that much is clear. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with some bumps in the road along the way. Yun Freund is the Senior Vice President of Platform and Product at Equinix. Yun’s career has been spent bridging the gap between corporate physical infrastructure and its digital future. As a seasoned industry executive, she’s ushered in the cloud renovation of her engineer...

Ian Wright is Chief Insights Officer at Equifax. But what does that actually mean and what insights can he give us into the current (and future) state of the marketplace? Do you wish there was an easy way to access data and see insights into what it means all in one go? That’s one of Ian’s main roles along with keeping track of the market and its trends. When it comes to innovation, you have to kn...

We’ve assembled some of the sharpest minds from 3Pillar Global for a discussion of everything to expect in the marketplace in 2022. What trends are we currently watching and what should we be looking out for as the year rolls on? Making up our panel are Scott Varho (Vice President of Product Development), Margaret Irons (Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications), Jamie Whitacre (Chief...

Almost any stat you can find on the subject suggests that Americans are worryingly lacking in financial literacy. Only about 6% of the nation’s employees are positioned to prepare for retirement on their own and only half of those will succeed in doing so. That leaves 97% in need of help.  Financial education isn’t a new concept, but it’s only now that it’s finally starting to gain traction as a l...

One of the biggest, most visible impacts of the pandemic was the massive disruption of supply chains across the globe. It led to shipment delays and product shortages across multiple industries. The problem is that this data can be hard to visualize when you’re trying to solve complicated disruptions. We’re sitting down with a dynamic woman leading a dynamic company doing incredibly relevant work...

How do you take your disruptive ideas and quickly turn them into products consumers want?   Bob Moesta is a one-man innovation engine. He’s the principal architect of the jobs-to-be-done theory along with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. He’s Founder, President, and CEO of the Rewired Group, a consulting firm dedicated to helping companies innovate better, cheaper, and faster...

Few retail industries were disrupted by COVID as much as the fashion industry. And yet, many of the biggest brands out there have managed to weather the storm and create digital transformations that kept them agile and relevant. Joanne Joliet is currently Head of Worldwide Fashion and Apparel at Amazon Web Services and has had a long career in research and analytics in the retail industry. Previou...

We’ve seen rapid digital transformation over just a few short years, from digital being an afterthought to becoming the primary way customers engage with brands. With the shift to digital comes the opportunity to craft better storytelling and customer experiences. So what do we do to win customers in a digital age? Howard Tiersky provides perspectives on the digital media landscape and the critica...

COVID-19 has caused disruption like we’ve rarely seen. Media companies have had to adapt fast in our changing environment. Edwin Wong provides a unique perspective on the media landscape. He’s led research and data-driven B2B strategies for various companies over the past 20 years, working with the likes of Pinterest, Yahoo!, Buzzfeed, Nielsen, and now Vox Media as their Senior Vice President of I...

Insurance is one of those things that customers don’t really like to think about buying. They know they need it, but they don’t really want to pay for it and that leads to a fractured experience. How can digital transformation be used to create stronger customer relationships and engagement? Monica Caldas has spent much of her career creating digital solutions and influencing innovation at one of...

If there’s one positive thing to come out of this pandemic, it’s that technological advancements that were expected to take years to adopt happened in a matter of months. Is that trend going to continue? Will that be the expectation, or will innovation slow back down? Eileen Mahoney has been leading digital innovation in the retail industry for decades. She’s the Chief Information Officer at PVH,...

Technology can solve nearly every business problem; we just need to know how to use it. It’s up to leaders to keep up with that technology and take advantage of what’s available — to see around corners to how they can apply the latest innovations to their business. Joining us is Sheila Jordan, Chief Digital Technology Officer at Honeywell. She is an IT executive who excels at solving complex busin...

Our guest today is Riddhi Gupta. She is an agile transformation leader focused on people, products, and organizations, and she’s held senior roles at Wells Fargo, AIG, and Bank of America. She's also done a lot for the community as a founding board member of Agile Week Charlotte and a leader in Women in Agile, Charlotte Metro. Hear Riddhi talk about the importance of the human factor in succes...

What role does security play in the growth of a business? Sam Curry is a podcaster, the Chief Security Officer of Cybereason, and a visiting fellow at the National Security Institute. Sam has been through a lot of growth in his career, working for two startups in the 90’s, one of which sold to security giant McAfee. Hear Sam talk about the importance of breaking out of your box and becoming a life...

Productivity is one of the keys to growth, but it can be hard to remain productive when processes are rapidly evolving and changing. Joining us is Andy Glover, the Director of Productivity Engineering at Netflix. Hear what it means to operate in an organization undergoing constant change and get the inside scoop on whether the Netflix culture deck is real. We discuss the importance of productivity...

You’re about to hear about the challenge of getting calorie counts into digital menus, and what it’s like to live between a fast-moving non-digital business and a digital transformation challenge. Joining us is Rob Tedesco, a digital strategist who spearheaded the digital transformation of Subway, the world’s largest restaurant chain. We discuss how a franchise business went on to prioritize its d...

We discuss customer development in existing markets versus new markets, how those journeys are different, the potential dangers of data in consumer insight, and some fun stories from Silicon Valley along the way. Joining us is the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, Steve Blank, who is credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. Most of you listening are probably already familiar with Steve’...