A conversation on how to think about food innovation from cultural shifts in meal expectations to efficiencies introduced with technology.

Join us for our live Evolve podcast, Exploring Food Innovation, with Mindy Armstrong from Inspire Brands and Meaghan Kennedy from Orange Sparkle Ball.

Mindy Armstrong is the Sr. Director of Product Pipeline for Buffalo Wild Wings. In short, she oversees innovation for the brand. Her passion and experiences lie at the intersection of flavor, food, and culture and have led her here, with stints as a radio producer and personality, an agency leader, a writer, and an entrepreneur along the way. She has been a facilitator, consultant, and client lead for restaurants, manufacturers, and brands and has had the opportunity to work alongside brilliant marketers, chefs, innovators, and thoughtleaders. Lucky, right?

Prior to joining Buffalo Wild Wings and Inspire Brands, Mindy worked with clients to facilitate their innovation pipelines, keep them “in the know” on consumer, flavor, and food trends, guide culinary innovation for brands, manufacturers, and restaurants, lead trend tours to inspire ideas, and moderated loads of ideation sessions. Prior to her time in the innovation space, Mindy worked in a traditional advertising agency.

Mindy holds a BS in Marketing and Advertising and an MBA from Missouri State University.

Meaghan Kennedy, MPH founded Orange Sparkle Ball after graduating from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and conducting HIV research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Orange Sparkle Ball is an innovation and impact consultancy that accelerates initiatives in the private and public sector, as well as works with startups. Meaghan has taught at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has been a guest reviewer at Georgia Tech since 2007, a judge for the Global Social Venture Competition and Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), a mentor for social entrepreneurs and is a frequently invited to sit on innovation and entrepreneurial panels.

A conversation on the need to set up clear, authentic visions for your organization and how to enable others to amplify and activate your vision.

Join us for our live Evolve podcast, Sustaining Innovation Through Transformational Shifts, with Farrell Calabrese from Eastman and Meaghan Kennedy from Orange Sparkle Ball.

As a courageous leader with nearly 17 years of experience, Farrell is deeply passionate about maximizing the potential of the people and organizations that surround her. Farrell is a team leader, communicator and sustainability professional that accelerates the performance of the purpose driven teams that she works with by inspiring visions for a more sustainable future and designing accountability models to ensure success.

By engaging and coaching fellow leaders to see themselves as a part of the solution, she taps into the creativity, knowledge and diverse perspectives of the greater organization to maximize results and celebrate successes – continually advancing the positive collective environmental, social and human impact that individuals can make against stated Sustainability/ESG initiatives and expectations. At her core, Farrell wants to give the people and organizations she works with access to the necessary tools that allow them to thrive - continually unlocking their greatest potential.

When not at work, you can find Farrell adventuring through life with her husband, 3 kids and doodle dog – enjoying any fun activity in the great outdoors with those that she loves. Farrell is an advocate and Ally for all of society and the environment.

Meaghan Kennedy, MPH founded Orange Sparkle Ball after graduating from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and conducting HIV research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Orange Sparkle Ball is an innovation and impact consultancy that accelerates initiatives in the private and public sector, as well as works with startups. Meaghan has taught at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has been a guest reviewer at Georgia Tech since 2007, a judge for the Global Social Venture Competition and Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA), a mentor for social entrepreneurs and is a frequently invited to sit on innovation and entrepreneurial panels.

Join us for our live Evolve podcast, Navigating the Unknown, with Ben Garrett from The Hatchery, Emory Center for Innovation in conversation with Tiffany Murray from Verizon.

Originally aired Thursday October 14th, 12:00-1:30 EST

Panelist

Ben Garrett

Ben Garrett is the Innovation Programming and Operations Manager of The Hatchery, Emory University’s Center for Innovation. Ben’s passion and experiences have centered on the creation and sustainability of nonprofits and social enterprises. He has been a first hire, facilitator, consultant and coach for dozens of social entrepreneurs. These roles have afforded him the opportunity to do everything from lead strategic planning retreats, raise funds from individuals and institutional grantmakers, invent a cryptocurrency, and explore experimental pedagogies.

Prior to The Hatchery, Ben worked with Acumen as a facilitator for their social enterprise accelerator and as a community animator for their global, online Community of Social Innovators. He also worked with The Civic Accelerator (founded as a Points of Light Program and acquired by Acumen), an early player in the social enterprise accelerator and investment industry. Prior to his time in the social impact space, Ben worked with multiple community development nonprofits and churches in both Atlanta and Chicago. He also founded his own consulting firm, Fractal Consulting where he works with changemakers across industries at various stages of their journey.

Ben holds a BA in Philosophy and Religion from Samford University and a Masters of Divinity from the University of Chicago.

Facilitator

Tiffany Murray

Tiffany Murray leads Product Innovation for Verizon Business Group, looking 3-5 years into the future to create strategies across the product portfolio for investment in network-heavy emerging technology areas such as CV2X, Autonomous Mobile Robots, and an XR enabled workforce. A recovering attorney, she relies on her analytical ability to paint a vision for the future that is actionable. Her favorite aspect of the role is connecting inspiring people of varying talents to create what's next! Valuing feedback and connection with like-minded professionals, she is on the Steering Committee for Evolve and a Chapter Lead for Women in Product.

Remote Collaboration and Innovation

Tina Unterlaender from VW Credit in conversation with Isabelle Magnin from Atrium Health and Turi McKinley from Frog Design on how pivoting to remote teams has impacted innovation workflows, which strategies and platforms are proving successful in these difficult times, and what the “new normal” may mean for innovation at large.

Open Innovation In An Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

Building Credibility Through Pilots

Hear Tiffany Murray of Verizon 5G Labs in conversation with Gary Gramajo from Chick-fil-A on how to test cutting edge solutions by utilizing startup technology. A 60 minute discussion with Q&A. 

Developing Healthcare Solutions with External Organizations

Tune in to this Evolve webinar, Forging a Culture of Innovation, with Emory Healthcare’s Drs. Julie Hollberg and Scott Boden in conversation with Elizabeth Sprouse from Double Lantern Informatics on how they have succeed in effecting innovation and are helping external organizations understand what it takes to develop and market solutions to healthcare – themes that can be applied within the healthcare industry and beyond.

Friday April 30, 12:00-1:30 EST

Driving Change in Government

Watch our Evolve: Webinar Launching an Innovation Program with Lorena Molina-Irizarry from the United States Census Bureau in conversation with Ashley Touchton from Orange Sparkle Ball on how to begin when you are tasked with creating a new innovation program.

Thursday February 11, 12:00-1:30 EST

Communicating the Value of Innovation in a Large Corporation

Listen to this Evolve Webinar on Showing the Value of Innovation Teams with John Featherston from Chick-fil-A New Ventures in conversation with  Meaghan Kennedy from Orange Sparkle Ball. They discuss strategies that can be used to demonstrate the value of innovation across different stages of program maturation.

The Value of Innovation Work

In this Evolve webinar on Innovation ROI hear from Tiffany Murray from Verizon 5G Labs and Meaghan Kennedy from Orange Sparkle Ball in conversation with Mark Kaiser an independent M&A consultant on how to calculate return on investment for innovation groups and projects.