The VentureFuel Visionaries

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 creatio...

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 co...

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...

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 Marketi...

Meet the 2022 New York MilkLaunch Champion: SPYLT, a high-protein, low-sugar, creamy, dairy-based chocolate "Energy Drink" loaded naturally with essential nutrients like calcium, B vitamins, potassium, vitamin D, and protein. SPYLT is not only focused on high-quality ingredients but is obsessed with the environment and that is why it comes in an aluminum 12 oz. can because of its environmental ben...

This week we sit down with Silvia Santiago, Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Maestra Ronera, Master Blender at Destilería Serrallés. Besides being responsible for the entire manufacturing process, starting with purchasing sugarcane molasses up to bottling the finished product, blending, and tasting distillates and aged products is part of Silvia’s daily work. Destilería Serrallés is a ru...

Can startups help to end senior poverty and enable dignified aging in place? Paolo Narciso, VP of Product and Program Development and Optimization at AARP Foundation and Nima Roohi Co-Founder and CEO of Blooming Health share their collaboration reduced friction, overcame barriers and drove impressive results such as a 500% increase in enrollment, 82,000 engagements and staff time reduction from 57...

IWSR Drinks Market Analysis is the leading source of global beverage alcohol data and trends across 157 countries. Chief Strategy Officer, Brandy Rand, shares what’s next in the drinks space from substituters to blenders, shared occasions to consumer evolutions, from new behaviors to sub-channels and walks us through the Metaverse, Low/No Alcohol, Cannabis and Sustainability. She is a featured spe...

Join us this week as we sit down to discuss the upcoming NY MilkLaunch Food & Beverage Product Innovation Accelerator Final Pitch Event, scheduled to take place on Thursday, August 25 from 5 to 7 p.m. ET. Fred Schonenberg, our Founder, CEO & Host has the tables turned on him, as he is interviewed by Vanessa Rosado, our Head of Brand Strategy about this year’s innovation program. NY MilkLaunch is a...

Recorded at our most recent Event, What’s Next Now: Beer, Wine & Spirits, we sit down with Gene Song, Chief Revenue Officer, Amass; and Jen & Manuel Aczualdez, Founders & Owners, Drink Good Spirits to get their take on what consumers are looking for, how entrepreneurs can breakthrough the clutter and why differentiation + fundamentals will be key to their continued success.

Recorded at our most recent event: What’s Next Now: Beer, Wine & Spirits, Fred and Vanessa walk us through how the team at VentureFuel evaluates startups; and they share a short list of ventures they’re watching in the alcoholic beverages space.

Recorded at our most recent event, What’s Next Now: Beer, Wine & Spirits, we sit down with Alice Ponti, Senior Director, Front End Innovation, Anheuser-Busch; Seth Yassky, Director of Strategic Alliances and Education, Proximo Spirits; & Ryan Malkin, Malkin LAW P.A. to discuss the areas ripe for innovation and how to overcome industry challenges to driving change.

Natache Volpini is the global head of digital consumer innovation for Heineken, where the team was recently celebrated with a bevy of Cannes Lines for their Metaverse launch of Heineken Silver. She has spent 20 years driving innovation, marketing and digital at multinational companies like Warner Media, Mondelez, Viacom and Ambev. We chat about connecting with new consumers, web3, crypto and the f...

Rachel Weiss is VP of BOLD Ventures, the venture capital fund of L’Oréal, where she invests in new and disruptive business models in BeautyTech. Rachel lives and breathes convergence, embracing all things pop culture, beauty, and technology. Part technologist, part futurist, part investor, part maker and operator she has long been at the forefront of innovation and an early adopter on the value of...

Ilana Grossman, Co-Founder & CMO of Pinktada and Steve Shpilsky, Co-Founder & CEO of STAY OPEN and StayDAO discuss how innovation will reshape hospitality and the role technology plays in addressing legacy challenges. This transformation is being fueled by Web3, NFTs, tokenization, blockchain and DAOs which are creating new products, services and business models to meet the needs of the next gener...

Recorded at our most recent event, What’s Next Now: Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality, we sit down with Kevin Kleist, Emerging Trends Advisor, Southwest Airlines to talk about the trends shaping travel tech, the role of collaboration in their commercialization and the future of flight. As part of the Emerging Trends Team, Kevin explores and brings to life unconventional ideas to encourage change an...

What is corporate upskilling was binge worthy? Circus Street is an on-line school that teaches companies and their employees to do business in our modernizing world. How do you make learning approachable in a world of continues change. Since 2011 Circus Street has upskilled over 600,000 enterprise employees (like Coca-Cola, Lego, Kraft Heinz) in over 150 Countries. purely for enterprise clients li...

During this conversation, recorded at our latest event, What's Next Now: Health & Wellness we speak with three Healthcare Startup Founders about the challenges, opportunities and innovations reshaping the future of Health Tech. Hear from: Philip Fung, Founder & CEO of Kit.com, at-home medical exams, delivered; Shailja Dixit, CEO of Curio Digital Therapeutics, tailor-made cognitive behavioral thera...

During this conversation, recorded at our latest event, What’s Next Now: Health & Wellness we sit down with Dov Shamir, PhD, Head of Elementa Labs, Mount Sinai Innovation Partners & Tracy Dooley, MD, Partner at Avestria VC to discuss the role of collaboration in the commercialization of health & bio tech innovation. Dov leads the Mount Sinai Health Systems newly established Elementa Labs, an incub...

Ted Graham is a Principal with GM Ventures (the venture arm of General Motors) and the Head of Open Innovation. He partners with startups, incubators/accelerators, VCs and academia to accomplish GM’s vision of zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion. GM Ventures is focused on key technologies that can be implemented in GM’s vehicles, manufacturing facilities and operating businesses. The...

Sharon Leite, CEO of The Vitamin Shoppe, talks health & wellness trends, the evolution of retail and the role of innovation in the transformation of the company which is the leading specialty health-and-wellness retailer. The Vitamin Shoppe offers the largest assortment of vitamin, supplement, and sports nutrition products at retail in the U.S.Prior to joining The Vitamin Shoppe, Sharon was the No...

For this episode of the podcast, we feature a panel discussion with AB InBev's Global VP of Sustainability Andre Fourie & LanzaTech's Chief Sustainability Officer Freya Burton about how companies and industry leaders can collaborate to push climate-positive actions; and the role of innovation in solving recurring sustainability issues. AB InBev's portfolio comprises over 500 beer brands and includ...

Hannah Jones the CEO of The Earthshot Prize, a prize and a platform founded by Prince William and the Royal Foundation in 2020 to search, spotlight and scale solutions that can help repair and regenerate the planet in this decade. Five, one million-pound prizes will be awarded each year for ten years, providing at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems by 2030. Previousl...

Thursday April 28 we sat down for a Fireside Chat with Tom Mastrobuoni, Chief Investment Officer of Big Idea Ventures and former Founding Partner & Chief Financial Officer at Tyson Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Tyson Foods. At Tyson, Tom led investments in Beyond Meat, Clear Labs and Tavola, to name a few. Big Idea Ventures is solving the world’s biggest challenges by supporting t...

On today’s show we have the exciting team driving retail innovation at Dick’s Sporting Goods. For anyone that doesn’t know, Dick’s is a fortune 500 company, America’s largest sports retailer and has over 50 thousand employees. Scott Casciato - VP Omni Channel Fulfillment & Athlete Service, Morris Liao – VP of eCommerce, Supply Chain & Marketing Finance, and Miche (pronounced Mike) Dwenger – VP of...