In this episode, Aaron Eden (MTN Co-Founder and COO) and I interview Neal Cross, the Chief Innovation Officer of DBS. DBS is a bang headquartered in Singapore that generated $11 billion in revenue and $4.5 billion in profit last year. They know the finance landscape is changing rapidly, and as a result are on a inspiring journey towards not only creating an innovation group within the bank, but turning the entire bank itself into an innovation group.   In this episode we discuss:

• How this year they’re on route to have put about 5000 people through the lean startup and design thinking training.
• How valuable it’s been to have a CEO who doesn’t just talk about innovation, but backs it up with a deep understanding, money and KPI’s that revolve around human centered design and experimentation.
• How Neal focuses on increasing the ambition of employees along with providing protection, education, and freedom.
• How he was able to get the bank to run 1000 lean startup experiments in 2015 by matching up a broad internal PR play with the guidance needed to enable practitioners to actually deliver.
• How Neal manages a healthy balance between PR and execution.
• Some of the challenges Neal still faces despite having support from key executives and the CEO.