The Committed Innovator

McKinsey holds an innovation competition every year; compelling evidence shows that most organizations can benefit from doing same. McKinsey & Company regularly holds an internal competition, the Innovation Olympics, in which our own teams bring their best business ideas to an internal competition. In the most recent cycle over 2,000 McKinsey colleagues competed, with the goal of creating a bottom...

Adopting AI remains a challenge for most, and the fact that the world of AI is advancing so incredibly rapidly doesn’t help. Nathaniel Whittemore aims to make both adoption and keeping up with change a lot easier. He is the founder and CEO of Superintelligent , the AI enablement platform that offers interactive tutorials that provide practical AI education and clear paths to business solutio...

Miro founder and CEO Andrey Khusid discusses the inspiration behind what started as a digital whiteboard and has evolved to become an AI innovation workspace. Of the many challenges of innovation, enabling members of a team to share and capture their new ideas so they can build on them collaboratively, quickly, and easily is a perennial source of drag. The need to do so remotely inspired Miro foun...

The Ocean Cleanup' s Boyan Slat discusses the promise and challenge of technological innovation at planetary scale. The problem of ocean pollution from plastic waste is growing and intractable, and can feel insurmountable to many consumers. For Dutch innovator Boyan Slat , however, not only is the problem solvable, it’s an imperative. In addition to harming habitats and wildlife, improperly...

In this episode of The Committed Innovator, we talk with John McDonald, the founder and CEO of Mercer Street Hospitality, which owns Lure Fishbar in New York City and Chicago, among other restaurants and bars. McDonald spoke with McKinsey Senior Partner and innovation leader Erik Roth about maintaining success and equilibrium in the notoriously difficult hospitality industry. Related insights: Wha...

McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth speaks with Jelena Joffe Weil, the founder and worldwide leader of the Venture Innovation program at AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, about how AWS works to close the gap between innovation and go to market for start-ups and large enterprises. The global hyperscaler is known for helping businesses grow and scale rapidly, but it also helps start-ups and...

In this episode of The Committed Innovator, McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth speaks with the founder, president, and medical director of the Child Mind Institute in New York City, Dr. Harold Koplewicz. At a time of increasing concerns globally about child and adolescent mental health, the institute is working to use advanced imaging technologies and AI to help revolutionize diagnosis and treat...

McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth speaks with Shiprocket cofounder and CEO Saahil Goel about how he built his e-commerce logistics company into a highly successful platform that is helping launch new entrepreneurs all over India.  See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information

Rapid technological innovation heightens opportunity for investors. Serial entrepreneur and investor Wes Nichols shares the factors he looks for in but choosing the right start-ups and entrepreneurs to back. Nichols is best known for starting MarketShare, the marketing resource allocation software solution. Today he is a partner at March Capital, the growth-stage venture capital firm that focuses...

Innovation in online gaming requires keeping up with a broad mix of changes, including digital advances, audience desires, and artistic trends. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, McKinsey innovation expert Erik Roth talks with Mihir Vaidya, the chief strategy officer of Electronic Arts, about these unique aspects of innovating in the gaming industry.   See www.mckinsey.com/privacy...

Innovation in a not-for-profit context involves measuring success in terms of returns on mission, rather than returns to shareholders. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, McKinsey innovation expert Erik Roth talks with Sajit Joseph, the chief innovation officer of the American Red Cross, about how the 142-year-old institution began and carries out its innovation journey. Explore ot...

In this episode of The Committed Innovator , Major League Baseball’s Chief Operating and Strategy Officer Chris Marinak speaks with McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth about how the league is using fan feedback, experimentation, and data to change a game steeped in tradition and culture to reach the next generation of fans. This season, MLB implemented rules changes that fundamentally altered the...

The e-commerce platform’s president, Harley Finkelstein, talks about the changing online retailing landscape. Even e-commerce platforms that help disrupt retail need to keep innovating. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, McKinsey innovation expert Erik Roth talks with Shopify president Harley Finkelstein about how his company keeps the creativity flowing. See www.mckinsey.com/priv...

PepsiCo design chief Mauro Porcini talks about the role of humanity and authenticity in driving innovation. Innovation requires commitment. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, McKinsey innovation expert Erik Roth talks with PepsiCo senior vice president and chief design officer Mauro Porcini about how design thinking can help create that commitment and free people to innovate.  Mau...

Successful innovators tend to follow certain practices. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, McKinsey innovation expert Erik Roth talks with our global Strategy & Corporate Finance Practice communications director, Sean Brown, about the building blocks of innovation and how they help drive sustainable and inclusive growth.  See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy informa...

Corporate innovators often turn to Israel and its vibrant start-up ecosystem to meet their goals. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, we continue our series on Israel, talking with innovators from three large organizations about how they approach their relations with start-ups. Roi Bar-Kat is head of Intel Capital in Israel, Neta-Li Meiri is chief of global tech innovation for the...

Israel’s start-up ecosystem is already a powerhouse—how can the country continue to scale it up? This episode of The Committed Innovator podcast is the second in a series on Israel’s vibrant start-up scene, and a continuation of McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth’s conversation with Avi Hasson and Chemi Peres. Hasson leads a not-for-profit, Startup Nation Central , that promotes Israel’s start-u...

Two leaders of the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem discuss how the tiny Middle Eastern country grows and supports a culture of innovation Despite its small domestic market, Israel has managed to build a vibrant start-up scene that competes with those of much larger countries. In this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast, two leaders of Israel’s innovation culture, Avi Hasson and Che...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 26:47) >   Singapore-based DBS Bank is known for having transformed itself from a local bank to a global leader and winner of multiple “best bank” titles. The bank has continued its evolution by focusing on digital transformation and building new digital products. DBS’s group head of strategy and planning is Han Kwee Juan. In t...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 27:13) >   Pradyumna Agrawal is managing director for blockchain and venture building at Temasek, and as such is very active in searching out new use cases for blockchain and forming partnerships that can help bring products for this to market. In this episode of the Committed Innovator podcast, Prady talks with McKinsey’s inno...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 30:33) >   Disruptive food start-ups have increasingly grabbed headlines and the attention of large consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. The plant-based keto snack company Keho is continuing this trend by offering its savory “real food” bites to a health-conscious market that includes athletes at one end of a spectrum, and...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 49:49) >   Companies looking to bring breakthrough innovations to life need the right organizational structures and incentives in place. In his book Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries (St. Martin’s Press, March 2019), Safi Bahcall, a former biotech CEO who now helps...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 30:02) >   The COVID-19 pandemic forced the National Basketball Association (NBA) to develop new ways to engage with fans. Amy Brooks is the NBA’s first chief innovation officer. She oversees innovation initiatives across four leagues—the NBA, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the NBA G League (minor league),...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 33:21) >   As the global leader of GS Accelerate, Goldman Sachs’ internal incubator that identifies, invests in, and develops new businesses, Tanya Baker has been instrumental in helping the financial services giant establish sustainable innovation capabilities. In this episode of the Committed Innovator series, Baker shares he...

Read more >    Listen to the podcast (duration: 26:15) >   An innovation strategy has to be backed with resources and patient follow-through, says Peter Kjellberg, the guest on this episode of The Committed Innovator podcast. In a conversation with Erik Roth, who leads McKinsey’s innovation work globally, the chief marketing officer for the Swedish maker of products for mobi...