INNOVATIVE MINDS #13
Innovation is a CEO mandate
Together with Innovation Thought Leaders from Johnson & Johnson, S-Three and BlueCallom.
In the past 25 years, the vast majority of groundbreaking innovations were delivered by startups. The economic risk for an enterprise getting disrupted is substantial.
WHY?
- It takes on average 5 to 10 years from innovation opportunity discovery to successful scaling in the market. Only a CEO and the board can decide to engage in a long-term innovation strategy.
- It takes more than $1 Billion to bring an innovation to market. The vast majority of the investment is consumed during the execution phase. Only a CEO and the board can decide on investments of that magnitude.
- Innovation is about brilliant ideation and relentless execution. The innovation team competes with the most innovative minds. Such a team must not only create an idea but also bring it to market. Such an internal structure can only be decided by the CEO.
- Innovation is no longer about cool products or services. It’s about the market cap of a company. The number of highly potent market entries like Tesla in the automotive industry, Booking.com in the touristic industry, UpWork in the HR business, or Airbnb in the hospitality industry, to name just a few change their entire industry segment and make former leaders to followers. Only the CEO can navigate an enterprise through those new competitions.
Axel Schultze, CEO, and Founder of BlueCallom joined by Christian Weh, Senior Director Innovation & Global Projects for Johnson & Johnson, and Luuk Houtepen, Director Strategic Partnerships & Innovation at SThree, will discuss what enterprise leaders can do to move from an improvement paradigm to an innovation paradigm and avoid getting disruption through others. Also, they will explore how to upskill your teams and what a professional innovation team needs to do and know to deliver groundbreaking innovation? Moreover, what does the executive bench need to know about capital requirements, market preparation, and organizational adjustments to become genuinely innovative?
Innovation is rarely just a new product; it is always connected to different experiences, business models, and customer interaction models.
AMERICAS
EMEA/ASIA
SPEAKERS
Christian Weh,
Senior Director Innovation & Global Projects at Johnson & Johnson
Christian Weh considers himself to be a serial entrepreneur, curious and people-focused. He has 25 years of experience working for Johnson & Johnson in many different roles including Head of Global Procurement and Research & Development. He has led global programs such as agile and change management in manufacturing. Currently, he works on implementing global innovation processes across J&J. Before that, Christian was co-founder of GloboVita, a nutrition company that offers healthy products to create a balanced and varied diet.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Luuk Houtepen,
Director Strategic Partnerships & Innovation at SThree
Luuk Houtepen started his career at SThree in 2007 with several positions at home and abroad. As Director of Business Development for SThree DACH, which he held for eight years, Luuk Houtepen played a key role in building up the key client and business development strategy of SThree for the DACH region. Since 2018 he has also been responsible for the topic of “Investments & M&A” as BD & Investment Director for the DACH region, as well as the topic of “Innovation”. In January 2021 he was appointed Director Strategic Partnerships & Innovation. In addition, since February 2017 he has been honorary chairman of the board of APSCo Germany – The Association of Professional Staffing Companies – and represents SThree in a seat at the Federal Association for Independent Knowledge Work eV In addition, Luuk Houtepen has been a senator at the IWS, the International Economic Senate, since March 2020.
Axel Schultze,
CEO and Founder of BlueCallom Corp.
Axel Schultze, founder and CEO of BlueCallom Corp, and Chairman of the World Innovations Forum Foundation, lived the majority of his business life in Silicon Valley. Between 2016 and 2020 he was on a quest to find out how the brain is creating and processing ideas and how some of those ideas could become disruptive to an entire industry segment. After learning about the latest discoveries from the neuroscience space he formed the “Deep Innovation Design Model” and developed methods and tools to make innovation a repeatable process.
Before that, Axel Schultze started and successfully exited 4 companies, the biggest reaching $5 Billion in revenue, the second close to $1 Billion. Axel is a published author, patent holder, 2015 listed in the global 100 most influential startup accelerators, 2008 won the SF Entrepreneur Award, 2006 chaired the SaaS Channel Committee at the SIIA, 2003 early adviser of LinkedIn.