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In this IM Channel One Roundtable Discussion the expert panel discusses the challenges of being a Chief Innovation Officer and provide insights to the different leadership styles and how they can be mastered and blended for maximum effect and ROI.

The average Chief Innovation Officer tenure is scarcely more than 2 years – far less than almost any other C-level role. Yet showcasing return on innovation efforts often has a substantially longer payback period. This means that Chief Innovation Officers must be savvy leaders to gain the staying power necessary to follow through on their mission.

In particular, most Chief Innovation Officers struggle with:

  • Forced into triaging “Hot Buttons” (political axes, pet projects, etc.) rather than building “Hot Spots” (persistent sources of value for their firm)
  • Struggling to gain and retain the attention of employees, manager, customers, etc. to aid and participate in innovation’s mission
  • Successfully introducing “innovation logic” into executive decision-making and resource-allocation dialogues

Key takeaways from the webinar

  • shift focus from Hot Buttons to Hot Spots (see explanation of the terms above)
  • increase the Bump & Connect Rate
  • add a New Strain to the Executive Dialogue

About Imaginatik

Founded in 1996, Imaginatik has two decades’ experience applying consulting, software, and analytics to the pursuit of innovation excellence. We’ve helped some of the world’s largest and most respected organizations build innovation into a scaled, sustainable enterprise discipline – including Goodyear, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, TD Bank, and many others. We can help you too.

About the Experts

Elisa O´Donnel, Global Head of Consulting, leads Imaginatik’s global innovation consulting and advisory practices. With over 20 years of management consulting experience in the field of innovation and change, Elisa has been part of the leadership team at Continuum, a design thinking consultancy, Synecticsworld, an innovation consultancy, and has held other leadership positions at A.T. Kearney and Coopers and Lybrand (PwC). Elisa’s work has spurred innovation with clients such as Fidelity Investments, L’Oreal, American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Merck Pharmaceuticals.

Chris Townsend, Chief Marketing Officer, heads Imaginatik’s global marketing function, and is responsible for all aspects of Imaginatik’s go-to-market strategy and marketing operations. Chris has spent nearly a decade as one of the world’s leading experts on innovation management, having developed deep domain expertise in both innovation consulting and innovation software. Prior to his role at Imaginatik, Chris was lead analyst for innovation management at Forrester Research, after which he led global marketing for innovation vendor Inova Software, based in France. Chris has an undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University, and speaks (near-) fluent French and German in addition to his native English