Interim Head of Innovation

A $5 billion technology company was looking to diversify revenue and develop its next billion-dollar business. With the departure of the company’s SVP of Innovation—and multiple product delays on the horizon—the SVP of Strategy recognized that he did not have the right internal resource to manage and lead the initiative. Could the company look at out-of-the-box ideas in a measured and cost-effective way? What resources would be needed to make those ideas a reality?

We provided a serial entrepreneur and tech pioneer to serve as interim head of innovation and lead an internal task force to uncover the best opportunities. As he began working, this executive soon realized that there were no real innovation practices or processes in place to generate ideas or make them real. What began as a conceptual project thus quickly grew to include implementation.

Within three months, the interim executive provided the company with an overview of the competitive landscape, developed an innovation framework through which to evaluate options, and supplied three strategic recommendations. After choosing to move forward with one of those recommendations, the client re-engaged the executive in an advisory capacity to help with implementation.