Innovators Inside

Who is Jesper Frederiksen?

Jesper Fredrickson was president of research and development for Danaher. Since then Jesper has served as Chief Innovation Officer at Banfield Pet Hospital, at Mars company, and then at Mars Veterinary health care. Today he is VP and Digital Executive for Velux, a Danish manufacturing company. Jesper attended INSEAD at the Syed School of Business at the University of Oxford. And now, AXII! 

You're going to love this one!

Who is Alan Boehme?

For‌ ‌about‌ ‌a‌ ‌dozen‌ ‌years‌ ‌corporate‌ ‌Innovation‌ ‌in‌ ‌Silicon‌ ‌Valley‌ ‌has‌ ‌been‌ ‌synonymous‌ ‌with‌ ‌Alan‌ ‌Boehme.‌ ‌From‌ ‌stints‌‌ ‌‌at‌ ‌DHL,‌ ‌General‌ ‌Electric,‌ and  ‌ING‌ , ‌Alan‌ ‌went‌ ‌on‌ ‌to‌ ‌a‌ ‌spectacular‌ ‌career‌ ‌at‌ ‌Coca-Cola‌ ‌rising‌ ‌and‌ ‌rising‌ ‌through‌ ‌that‌ ‌company‌ ‌to‌ ‌become‌ ‌Global‌ ‌CTO,‌ ‌Chief‌ ‌Innovation‌ ‌officer‌ ‌and‌ ‌head‌ ‌of‌ ‌Enterprise‌ ‌Architecture.‌ ‌After‌ ‌leaving‌ ‌Coca-Cola,‌ ‌he‌ ‌advised‌ ‌all‌ ‌kinds‌ ‌of‌ ‌infrastructure‌ ‌startup‌ ‌companies‌ ‌from‌ ‌Netskope‌ ‌to‌ ‌VeloCloud.‌ ‌Then‌ ‌he‌ ‌took‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌Chief‌ ‌Innovation‌ ‌Officer‌ ‌role‌ ‌at‌ ‌Procter‌ ‌&‌ ‌Gamble.‌‌ ‌‌Today,‌ ‌he’s‌ ‌CTO‌ ‌for‌ ‌H&M‌ ‌group.‌‌ ‌‌But‌ ‌a‌ ‌recitation‌ ‌of‌ ‌his‌ ‌titles‌ ‌doesn't‌ ‌do‌ ‌justice‌ ‌to‌ ‌Alan‌ ‌and‌ ‌his‌ ‌impact.‌‌ ‌‌He‌ ‌knows‌ ‌everyone‌ ‌and‌ ‌is‌ ‌endlessly‌ ‌generous‌ ‌with‌ ‌his‌ ‌time‌ ‌and‌ ‌insight.‌‌ ‌‌He‌ ‌is‌ ‌a‌ ‌pioneer‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Innovation‌ ‌model‌ ‌in‌ ‌which‌ ‌a‌ ‌large‌ ‌corporation‌ ‌has‌ ‌eyes‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌ears‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌ground‌ ‌here‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌valley.‌‌ ‌‌It's‌ ‌hard‌ ‌to‌ ‌imagine‌ ‌anyone‌ ‌better‌ ‌qualified‌ ‌to‌ ‌talk‌ ‌about‌ ‌why‌ ‌corporate‌ ‌Innovation‌ ‌is‌ ‌hard.‌ 

Enjoy this talk as much as we did!

Who is Cindy Alvarez?

Cindy is the author of Lean Customer Development and the Director of Customer Research for Github where she works to understand what helps developers collaborate to build effective solutions and drive change within their organizations. She came to GitHub and Microsoft from Yammer where she was Director of User Experience. Cindy's passionate about diversity and inclusion; supporting women, black, Latino, and girls in tech.

We're so glad to share her talk with us!

Who is Sam Ramji?

Sam's currently the Chief Strategy Officer for DataStax. In his 25 year Silicon Valley career he's been instrumental in creating two, billion dollar markets. The Enterprise Service Bus during his time at BA systems and API management when he was at Apigee. Notably, Sam laid the foundation for open source at Microsoft back in the aughts. When to do this was next to unthinkable. Now, of course Microsoft owns GitHub and is a titan thought leader in free software. Thanks in no small part to Sam's work. 

He's also done time at Google and Autodesk and is a prolific adviser to everyone from early stage startups to massive enterprises. He has a degree in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego and still plays around with machine learning and AI just for fun. 

We're so glad to share Sam's story with you all!

Who is Christi Zuber?

Christi is the founder and managing director of Aspen Labs and holds a Doctorate in Design and Innovation from Coventry University. She's also on the faculty of Northwestern, and has served as Fellowship faculty for Arizona State. This all is the culmination of a distinguished career in Corporate Innovation that included founding and directing The Innovation Consultancy for Kaiser Permanente. 

We're so happy to share our wonderful conversation with you!

Who is Corbett Gilliam?

Corbett Gilliam is the corporate development manager for the world-renowned Advanced Technology Development Center. The ATDC is a science and business incubator that's part of the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech. 

We're so glad to share Corbett's story with you all!

Who is Louis Stewart?

Louis is currently the Head of Strategic Initiatives for NVIDIA's developer ecosystem. NVIDIA of course being the maker of legendary GPU’s and the enabler of our current golden age of video games. Prior to NVIDIA, Lewis was the city of Sacramento's first Chief Innovation Officer, charged with promoting and driving long-term economic growth and job creation through Innovation. Before that he spent seven years as California’s Deputy Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development.

He grew up in France and Italy, played professional basketball in Peru and Belgium, and has a degree from Santa Clara University. 

And with that, we would love for you to Meet Mr. Stewart!

Who is Jeanne Morain?

Our friend Jeanne began her career in startups and made her first big splash when BMC Software acquired Marimba.

Marimba was the company founded by Kim Polese, the original product manager for the Java programming language. It was a precursor to basically, everything we take for granted today: containers, orchestration, device management, patch management. It ended up being sold to Samsung and it’s still in use at Starbucks powering everything from cars to fridges. Without it there’s no continuous delivery, there’s no DevOps.

In working to integrate Marimba’s software, Jeanne became a pioneer in the development of business service management, the foundation for what we now call digital transformation. From BMC Jeanne moved to executive roles with Thinstall, which was acquired by VMware, InstallFree and Flexera. In the middle of all this she also wrote the definitive books on desktop virtualization: Client4Cloud; and digital transformation: Visible Ops Private Cloud. She’s a highly sought-after advisor to executive boards and CEOs and is now working on a digital transformation startup of her own.

So join Jeanne and Rachel as they try to get to the bottom of why corporate innovation is hard.

Who is Mike Dolbec?

Well, Mike has had a tremendously distinguished career across both institutional and corporate VC, including stints at Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, 3Com, and Orange. From 2012, he is the executive managing director of GE Ventures. He's been on the boards of a bunch of deep tech companies as well! He's currently a science and innovation council member for BHP, one of the world's biggest mining companies.  

And now you have the chance to join Mike and Rachel as they try to get to the bottom of why corporate innovation is hard.