Agents of Innovation with David Knies

Gihan Amarasiriwardena co-founded Ministry of Supply with Aman Advani at MIT in 2012 united by a shared passion for hacking clothes, making more comfortable dress shirts and socks from their favorite athletic gear. For over a decade since launching on Kickstarter, and having some of the most successful fashion campaigns in the platform's history, the Boston-based workleisure company's mission with every product has been to provide a balance of scientifically-backed comfort and convenience. MOS has become known for engineering many of the world's firsts, including their 3D computerized-knit blazer, their intelligent heated jacket with "smart thermostat" and voice control functionality, their first carbon-neutral certified dress shirt and many others.

Gihan has been a Forbes 30 Under 30, set a Guinness Book of World Records mark for the fastest half-marathon in a suit and is the holder of several patents. You'll be fascinated to learn how he manages his time as a co-founder / company president / father and the life hacks he's created in this episode. More about Gihan at www.ministryofsupply.com

Dave's guest on E12 is Scarlet Batchelor, CMO of connected fitness company Liteboxer, often called the "Peloton of Boxing". Scarlet was named to Business Insider's 2021 list of "CMOs To Watch" and is a passionate expert in the sports, fitness, and wellness segments. She approaches the industry as a business leader, yoga instructor, cyclocross racer, enthusiastic consumer, and mother of three. Scarlet has two decades of brand marketing, product, and merchandising experience coupled with dynamic management skills as a leader and coach at Hydrow, New Balance, Ocean Spray, and others. Liteboxer recently raised $20m and announced a partnership with Universal Music Group, seamlessly integrated into its platform designed to make high-intensity workouts feel more like playing a sport than exercising.

Scarlet and Dave talk about the booming connected fitness space, the changing role of the CMO across all industries, the growing movement in female athletes turned executives, and how she has managed to balance the demands of being a mother of three and CMO of a high-growth company.

On E11, Dave's guest is John Rossman, author of The Amazon Way and Think Like Amazon - two bestselling books about the company's culture of innovation that he experienced firsthand as the former head of merchant integration for the Amazon Marketplace business.

Every company now needs to have an Amazon Strategy. Whether you're selling on Amazon, using their services or selling a product / service that Amazon can also offer, Amazon always needs to be on your radar. With over 74% of US consumers beginning their product searches on Amazon, 147m Prime subscribers (nearly half of the US population), and more than half (56%) of consumers say that if they were only able to buy products from a single store, it would be Amazon. The company generated $386 billion revenue in 2020, making it the third largest company in the world by revenue.

In 2002, John was hired as the director of merchant integration to play a key role in scaling the newly-launched Amazon Marketplace business, which now accounts for well over 50% of all orders at Amazon and has over two million sellers. It is an ecosystem that impacts global supply chains and is one of the “dreamy businesses” Bezos talks about. But the success of this business wasn’t preordained — in fact, most thought it would fail.

Dave and John talk about the lessons innovators and change agents can learn from Jeff Bezos and his organization's approach to innovation, management and winning.

In this episode, #10, Dave's guest is Chase Garbarino, Co-Founder and CEO of HQO (www.hqo.co), a Boston-based operating system and tenant experience platform for commercial office buildings.  

Like every other sector of the global innovation economy, commercial real estate is also facing disruption by digital technology, elevated customer expectations and entrepreneurs with startups that create new opportunities. Today, tenant experience technology plays a bigger role than ever before, helping transform properties from a physical space into communities that offer real value to the workforce.

HQO is building technology to create real-world experiences and more meaningful human connections. Within the built environment, the company focuses on the places where people work, within a belief that economic success and opportunity are core drivers of the successful “live, work, play” value proposition that many communities strive for. When communities work well and prosper economically, people usually live and play far better.

HQO recently closed a major Series C funding round of $60m, not long after closing their $35m Series B for a total $107m - all raised around a global pandemic. And shortly after recording, HQO announced that it acquired Office App (www.getofficeapp.com), the leading European tenant and employee engagement platform, valuing HQO at over $500m and making it one of the most significant proptech companies in the world. 

Chase has been a leader of Boston's Innovation Economy for the past 10+ years - first leading the creation of AmericanInno, a digital media and events business targeted at helping bolster the innovation economies of American cities. Bostinno (www.bostinno.com), a new media organization that chronicled Boston's exploding startup and VC scene in a way that legacy media couldn't. After selling to Advanced Publications in 2015, he started on a new adventure, with a company that has pivoted through multiple incarnations to become HQO. With a strong interest in how technology connects people back to the real world around them, the HQO team launched HqO in 2018 and began developing technology that connects people back to their local community and the people around them in a more impactful way.

Dave's guest on E09 is Colin Hunter, the CEO & Founder of Potential Squared - a business created to inspire leaders to think differently about how they engage and develop people. He's also an author, with a new book called BE MORE WRONG - how failure can make you an outstanding leader.

Innovation in sports is about finding new ways to unlocking higher levels of human performance. Like the world of sports, as the world of business continues to become more competitive, leaders are looking to find marginal gains that give them an edge wherever they can. Companies looking to improve their ability to innovate often look to the world of sports for insight and inspiration.

Colin's business was created to inspire leaders by disrupting the way they engage and develop their people, pioneering the concept of "creating playgrounds" to inspire new habits and ways of thinking.

Dave and Colin explore the "executive athlete" archetype, how vulnerability, openness, and emotional intelligence are crucial traits for every leader, and why leaders who look to drive peak performance without a high EQ not only won't succeed - they will fail spectacularly. They also dig into Colin's new book, Be More Wrong, and how it brings together the concepts of the Hero's Journey, Design Thinking methodology, storytelling, personal resilience, psychological safety, strategic presence, and the blended skills of coaching and mentoring into a leadership framework.

Dave’s 3 guests on E08 are co-founders and leaders of startups pioneering the $1 TRILLION FamTech sector - Charlotte Michailidis, CEO of Parenthood Ventures, Jennifer Nadelson, CEO of Scout, and Brittney Barrett, CMO of Kinside.

FamTech is a rapidly growing segment of the Innovation Economy, full of new solutions, products, and services that serve the needs of modern families at every stage of life - reinventing wellness, childcare, fertility, aging, activities, education, conception, parenting and many other areas that create stress and difficulty.

As the world’s leading companies face an escalating war for talent, perks like foosball tables and kombucha on tap are no longer interesting; offering new kinds of benefits that address their “whole employee’s” 24/7 work, life + family needs is a differentiator.

For E07 of Agents of Innovation, Dave's guests are the co-founders of Slate Milk, Manny Lubin, and Josh Belinsky. Recovery has become a pillar of every athlete's training regimen - as important as gear, workouts, nutrition, and data/analytics - and chocolate milk has long been one of the best-kept recovery secrets of serious athletes. Unfortunately, chocolate milk has been considered a kids' drink, not a serious recovery beverage, and not optimized for the nutritional + recovery needs of the athlete. Enter Slate Milk. Founded by Josh + Manny with a vision to create a "clean slate" for chocolate milk by offering an "adult version" - all-natural, lactose-free, with 20g protein, 0g added sugar, and more protein, carbs, electrolytes. In just a few short years, the duo has experienced a successful Kickstarter launch, an appearance on Shark Tank, and successful launches at top retailers, including Wegmans, Whole Foods, Publix, Giant, Harris Teeter and selling in CrossFit boxes, Amazon, and for delivery via GoPuff.  Manny and Josh share the story of their journey, including how they build teams, stay focused, and are creating a fitness brand found in grocery aisles - not the nutrition section - that people consume every day for strength + energy.

On this episode, Dave's guests are Brent Overcash and Greg Shewmaker, co-founders of TeakOrigin, a Boston-based food data company on a mission to help us all make the best possible food decisions. TeakOrigin's proprietary Nutritional Intelligence platform is able to measure nutrition at scale, revealing what is inside of the fruits, vegetables and fresh foods we buy.

In a world where health is the new wealth, apps enable us to do anything with the tap of a button, and data is the new oil, the way we buy fruits and vegetables hasn't changed for decades. We squeeze, sniff and scan them without having any idea of what lies beneath their skin. Did you know that the average apple contains over 5 gigs of data? And that the calories in one avocado can be double those of another, and until now, there's been no way to know the difference. TeakOrigin is changing that for shoppers, retailers and governments, helping solve quality, pricing and food waste problems on a global level. Greg and Brent share learnings from their entrepreneurial journey, including how they build teams, deal with stress and why no one should ever take a first date to an Andrew Dice Clay or Public Enemy show.

In this episode of the Agents of Innovation Podcast, Dave's guest is John Burns, CEO of TB12.

TB12 is a wellness company founded by NFL legend Tom Brady, and his longtime trainer, Alex Guerrero, to make the principles that have helped Tom perform at his best and live pain-free available to everyone. As Tom leads Tampa Bay into his record 10th Super Bowl at age 43, it is safe to say that the TB12 Method works. John explains how the TB12 Method's holistic philosophy isn't just one thing - it's everything, including nutrition, hydration, supplements, conditioning, mindset, and lifestyle. John joined TB12 in 2018 after a successful career in venture capital, leading investments in consumer brands Spartan Race, Yasso, Unreal, Oath Craft Pizza, EverybodyFights, Grillo's Pickles, Petsmart and B&W Audio, and shares his learnings for building and motivating teams, identifying independent thinkers, and his personal approach to entrepreneurship, focus and "ruthless prioritization".

In this episode of the Agents of Innovation Podcast, David Knies is joined by Jessica Anselmi, Head of Marketing at online plant retailer The Sill. Prior to becoming part of the leadership team at The Sill, Jessica led innovation teams at Dunkin' Brands and Panera Bread, and worked in PR with a number of leading agencies focused on corporate social responsibility. They discuss working within big established brands and adjusting to the culture of a high growth, venture-backed start-up. Instead of the big company "culture of no" that can often kill innovation, Jessica prefers the entrepreneurial "Yes, and" culture of The Sill, which is about elevating great ideas and turning them into action with an emphasis on pace, not perfection.