Innovation Storytellers

In this episode of the Innovation Storyteller Show, I sit down with Amy Freeze, a meteorologist, innovator, and public safety advocate who has spent decades helping people understand risk when it truly matters. Everywhere I go lately, conversations circle back to AI, but this one brings it out of the abstract and straight into our homes, our screens, and moments where trust can make all the differ...

My conversation with Elliott Parker, CEO of Alloy Partners and author of The Illusion of Innovation, was one of the most downloaded of 2025. Drawing on decades of experience launching startups with High Alpha and advising Fortune 100 companies at Innosight, Elliott explains why most corporate innovation efforts fall short. He outlines how organizational structures, incentives, and short-term metri...

What if risk management were not about playing defense, but about giving innovation the confidence to move forward? This is a replay of one of the most-listened-to Innovation Storytellers episodes of 2025. I am revisiting my conversation with Rose Hall, a former senior innovation leader at AXA XL, professional engineer, and long-time advocate for rethinking how organizations approach risk, because...

What does it really take to innovate at a global scale when speed, precision, and trust all have to coexist? In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Dr. Paul Schlinkert, Senior Global Innovation Lead at DHL Supply Chain, to unpack how one of the world's most complex logistics organizations turns bold ideas into operational reality. From robotics and AI to transparency...

Have you ever wondered whether your biggest roadblock is not the idea itself, but the way people see you before you ever open your mouth? This week, we take a very human turn on the Innovation Storytellers Show as I sit down with Lirone Glikman, CEO, global business development leader, and the author behind The Super Connectors Playbook .  Lirone has spent two decades helping people understand som...

Why do so many people still picture utilities as dusty infrastructure, monthly bills, and storm alerts, when in reality they sit at the centre of some of the most inventive work happening in our communities today? This question sets the stage for a conversation that opens the door to a world most listeners rarely see. In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I speak with Robb Dussault,...

What happens when innovation is shaping your life in ways you never see? That is the question at the heart of this conversation with Portia Lane Child, Director of Innovation and Strategy Services at BAE Systems.  While most of us recognise the consumer brands that dominate our daily world, far fewer realise how deeply companies like BAE Systems influence the systems that keep us connected, protec...

This week on Innovation Storytellers, I sit down with Robyn Bolton, Founder and Chief Navigator at MileZero, to uncover how one of the most successful household products almost never made it past the boardroom. Before launching her consultancy helping leaders of large companies use innovation to drive consistent growth, Robyn was part of the Procter and Gamble team that created and launched Swiffe...

In this episode of Innovation Storytellers, I sit down with Annalisa Gigante, Vice Chair and Governing Board Member of the Henry Royce Institute, to explore how innovation truly works inside organizations. Annalisa has spent her career turning complex ideas into commercial realities. From helping bring new materials to everyday products like toothbrushes and ski poles to shaping billion-dollar inn...

In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Jesper Kamp, Regional Director for Europe at Atom Computing, to explore how quantum computing is redefining what's possible in innovation. Jesper and I first met at TechBBQ in Copenhagen, surrounded by thousands of entrepreneurs, scientists, and visionaries. Our conversation picks up where that meeting left off, inside the histor...

What happens when music, art, and technology collide in the hands of a true innovator? In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Damian Kulash Jr., frontman and co-founder of OK Go, the Grammy-winning band known for turning creativity into spectacle. From dancing on treadmills to performing in zero gravity, OK Go has redefined what a music video can be, transforming pop...

In this week's special Nordic Visionaries episode on the Innovation Storytellers Show, I enjoyed a conversation that started at TechBBQ in Copenhagen and quickly stretched from refugee camps in Kenya to data centers in Norway and boardrooms in Silicon Valley. I sat down with Soulaima Gourani, a Moroccan-Danish entrepreneur now based in Palo Alto, for this special episode supported by the EU Nordic...

In this episode of Nordic Visionaries, I had the chance to sit down with Magnus Egeberg, CEO of Mastercard Payment Services, live at TechBBQ. Magnus shared his journey from consulting and Nets to leading Mastercard's Nordic business, and how he found himself at the center of one of the company's most significant acquisitions. He walked me through what it meant to migrate national payment infrastru...

In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with John Rossman, the former Amazon executive who helped launch the Amazon Marketplace and is a co-author of Big Bet Leadership: Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the Hyper-Digital Era. Our title says it all: How to Continue, Kill, or Pivot Your Pilots with Clarity and Confidence.  John and I get practical about the moments...

I sat down with Lukas N. P. Egger, VP of Product Strategy and Innovation at SAP Signavio, to explore how storytelling derisks significant transformation and AI programs. We begin with his path from Austrian startup life to leading innovation within a global enterprise, and why early "peacocking" demos are only the first step.  Lukas demonstrates how he and his team transform messy narratives and S...

Mandates, metrics, and momentum decide whether great ideas ever reach the boardroom. In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Jonathan Livescault, Managing Director at Itonics, to unpack how enterprise innovators move from hunches to hard results.  Jonathan shares the origin of Itonics' "Big Picture" framework, built to give leaders a clear mandate, shared governance, a...

I sit down with two innovation leaders from one of America's oldest and most trusted consumer brands. Leah Fischman Hunter, Director of the Innovation Lab, and Ginny Fahs, Director of Product R&D at Consumer Reports, join me to unpack how a 90-year-old nonprofit is building modern tools for an online world filled with AI hype, dark patterns, and data brokers. I share a personal connection at the t...

In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Thai Nguyen, Managing Director of Diverge, the corporate venture and innovation arm of Hensel Phelps. With more than 20 years of experience in architecture and construction, Thai is charting a bold new path for the built environment by reimagining how disruptive solutions are discovered, tested, and scaled. From laser scanning an...

This week, I sat down with Naftali "Naf" Jaman, a man whose career has stretched from engineering roles in the U.S. Air Force to leading open innovation programs for global giants like GM, Airbus, and LG Electronics. Along the way, he has helped launch startups in automotive safety, advised aviation and space ventures, and worked at the crossroads of academia, government, and industry. Our convers...

On this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Dr. William Pao, physician scientist, former Chief Development Officer at Pfizer, and author of Breakthrough – The Quest for Life-Changing Medicines. His journey into medicine began with the loss of his father to cancer when he was just 13 years old, a moment that shaped his life's mission to develop treatments that change outcom...

In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Mary Beth Cicero, co-founder and CEO of 3Daughters, a clinical development company determined to transform women's healthcare. Mary Beth has spent more than forty years in executive leadership, marketing, and business development, devoting most of her career to contraception, fertility, and the health conditions that affect women...

What does it take for corporate innovators to stop killing startups and start working with them productively? In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Andy Goldstein, Partner at Venture University, to unpack how large companies can finally bridge the gap between venture capital and innovation that delivers results. Andy is a seasoned entrepreneur and investor with over...

This week on The Innovation Storytellers Show, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Gina O'Connor, Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College. If you're in the corporate innovation space and feel like you're spinning your wheels or chasing moonshots that never lift off, this episode is for you. I first heard Gina speak at the Innov8rs conference in Arizona, and I was blow...

What does it take to turn an entire city into a thriving innovation hub? In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Callie Taylor, Vice President of Economic Development at Opportunity Austin, to explore how Austin, Texas, evolved from a creative, music-fueled city into one of the world's fastest-growing innovation ecosystems. This is not just a profile of a single compan...

What if getting your big idea across the finish line wasn't about pitching harder, but about thinking like a storyteller… or a mastermind? In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Ed Essey, Director of Business Value at The Microsoft Garage, to uncover the surprising mechanics behind one of the most successful innovation engines in tech. Ed isn't just helping Microsoft...