The Innovation Brief

The Innovation Brief

By Innovation BriefBusiness
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The Innovation Brief episodes

  • Diplomat, Therapist, Magician, Entrepreneur: What Corporate Venturing Actually Demands, with Patricia Kroondijk

    In this episode of The Innovation Brief Podcast, host Gabi Matic speaks with Patricia Kroondijk, Corporate Venture Director at Canon Marketing Japan, about what 25 years at the intersection of strategy, finance, and corporate venturing actually looks like, and what most people working in this space fundamentally underestimate.

    Patricia leads Canon Marketing Japan's 65 million euro fund across Europe and MENA, builds new business lines from scratch, and founded Venture Leap, a programme helping corporate professionals develop the strategic judgement that AI cannot replace.

    The episode also explores:

    • Why the diplomat is the most underrated of the four roles corporate venturing demands
    • How Patricia compressed pilot timelines from nine months to three, and the structural design choices that made it possible
    • What a week of trust-building in Tokyo actually looks like, and why it can't be done over video calls
    • The "VC as a service" model: what it gets right, what it can't solve, and why the strategic side can never be fully outsourced
    • Why large-scale open innovation challenges often produce excitement but not outcomes, and the focused alternative that works better
    • How to know when to stop fighting for an idea inside a corporate, and the personal test Patricia uses to decide
    • What Japanese corporate foresight — thinking 10–15 years out and backcasting to today — might offer the rest of the world
    • Why judgement is the human capability most worth protecting in an age of AI, and how to train it deliberately



    At its core, this conversation is about what it actually takes to build something inside a large organisation: not the ideas, but the patience and hard-won credibility that let ideas survive long enough to become real.

    So, as corporate venturing grows in scale and ambition: how do we make sure the humans running these programmes are developing the judgement, not just the tools, that the work demands?

    Follow Patricia: linkedin.com/in/patricia-kroondijk
    To Listen Elsewhere: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ppEcvpGYruz6VdXu21A96
    Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-innovation-brief/id1831453913
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InnovationBrief

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    54 min
  • There's No Such Place Called Away: Foresight, Funding, and the Fight for Sustainability, with Maggie Lee

    In this episode of The Innovation Brief Podcast, hosts Gabriella Hernandez and Gabi Matic speak with Maggie Lee, Senior Director of Sustainability at Coca-Cola ASEAN and South Pacific, about what a career spanning NGOs, the UN, and one of the world's most iconic beverage companies teaches you about how sustainability actually gets done, and what needs to change urgently.

    Maggie has spent nearly two decades working at the crossroads of environmental impact, corporate strategy, and systems thinking across Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific Islands. She is also a published children's book author and an aspiring futurist currently studying strategic foresight.

    The episode also explores:

    • Why innovation doesn't have to be rocket science, and what a hotel toothbrush kit, an airline blanket, and clover lawns have to do with environmental progress
    • How Maggie got four competing food delivery companies to agree to a shared plastic cutlery standard in one meeting, using nothing but FOMO
    • What impact measurement looks like when your beneficiaries are ecosystems that cannot speak for themselves
    • Why she joined Coca-Cola and what it means when the industry's biggest player makes even a small move
    • Why Southeast Asia is one of the best places in the world to pilot green solutions, and what leapfrogging actually looks like in practice
    • How a bag of black-and-white chips in Japan illustrates everything that is wrong with how most organisations think about risk
    • What strategic foresight is, and why it should become the next critical thinking
    • Why the USAID cuts are a warning for the whole sector, and what sustainability leaders need to do before the next wave hits
    • What children's books about environmental ethics have to do with long-term systems change


    At its core, this conversation is about what it takes to look far enough ahead, at a moment when the pressures pushing sustainability leaders toward short-term thinking have never been greater.

    So, as funding shrinks, policy moves backwards, and talent haemorrhages out of the sector: how do we make sure the work we have built survives what comes next?

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    53 min
  • Building the Innovation Ecosystem Across the Caribbean & Africa with Sébastien Célestine, EOG

    What does real innovation actually look like in emerging markets, and who does it actually benefit? In this episode of the Innovation Brief, host Gabriella G. Hernandez sits down with Sébastien Célestine, a leading Caribbean entrepreneur and investor who has spent two decades building companies and innovation ecosystems across the Caribbean, West Africa, Europe, and the United States.

    Sébastien is chairman and co-founder of Entrepreneurs of Greatness (EOG), a community wealth-building venture studio driving inclusive entrepreneurship across the Greater Caribbean and West Africa, and he serves as the Caribbean ambassador for Seedstars. His journey began at 16 with his first startup in Guadeloupe, then took him to co-found ALL MOL Technology, one of Guadeloupe's pioneering tech companies, before he set out to build an alternative to the extractive economic models he saw holding back entrepreneurs across the region.

    In this conversation, Sébastien breaks down what separates genuine innovation from "innovation washing," why the Caribbean functions as a strategic testing lab for solutions that can scale to West Africa's much larger markets, and how EOG's new accelerator and $15M fund are structured to keep wealth inside the communities where it's created. He also gets candid about AI's extractive tendencies in the West, why execution and distribution matter more than having the best product, and the burnout and hard-won humility behind building across a dozen jurisdictions at once.

    In this episode:

    • What innovation really means, and why "innovation washing" is the new greenwashing
    • Building EOG as a community wealth-building venture studio for the Caribbean and West Africa
    • Inside EOG's agri-business accelerator: a three-phase model from idea stage to $300K investment
    • The CaribEquity Facility and closing the region's early-stage investor gap
    • Why the Caribbean's small size and administrative diversity make it a strategic testing lab for West Africa
    • Why execution, partners, and distribution matter more than having the best product
    • How AI is being built extractively in the West, and why that's different in Asia
    • The reputation economy behind ecosystem-building, and the diaspora's role as a bridge between the global north and global south
    • Lessons on burnout, priorities, and letting go of founder hubris

    If you're an entrepreneur, investor, or ecosystem builder working in emerging markets, or part of the Caribbean or African diaspora looking for a way to plug in, this episode is for you.

    🌐 Learn more about Entrepreneurs of Greatness
    🌐 Connect with Sébastien on LinkedIn

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    47 min
  • Designing for a Better World: Community-Led Innovation with Sarayu Agarwal, Aga Khan Foundation

    What does innovation really mean when you’re working in some of the world’s most complex, poverty-affected contexts, and how can it genuinely drive impact?

    In this episode of The Innovation Brief podcast by Metta, Gabriella G. Hernandez and Wil Benton sit down with Sarayu Agarwal, Global Innovation and Design Advisor at the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF). Sarayu leads human-centred design and innovation in international development, working across AKF’s programmes in Central and South Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa.

    We explore:

    • What innovation in development is – and what it isn’t
    • Why you can’t parachute in solutions – and what genuine community-led innovation really looks like in practice
    • The tension between elegant design and messy real-world implementation and scaling
    • How human-centred design (HCD) helps build local ownership, confidence, and community agency
    • Concrete innovation and impact case studies from projects in early childhood development, nutrition, livelihoods, agriculture, and climate resilience
    • Why the sector should shift from scaling interventions to scaling people’s capacity to solve problems
    • How AI + human-centred design can empower teachers and frontline practitioners, not replace them – including through programmes like Schools2030

    Sarayu also talks about:

    • The Accelerate Impact Guide to Human-Centred Design for Social Innovation and AKF’s innovation toolkit to democratise design methods
    • A five-year learning review of 21 HCD-led projects across Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, and what works (and doesn’t) when you apply design for social innovation at scale
    • Her own journey from design consulting to an implementation-focused role, and how that reshaped her view of what “good design” and high-impact innovation really look like
    • Why skills like listening, facilitation, trust-building, and sense-making will only become more valuable in the age of AI and impact-driven innovation

    If you work in innovation, international development, philanthropy, social impact, or systems change – or you’re curious about how to use human-centred design and community-led innovation to create meaningful impact and design with communities, not for them – this episode is for you.

    Links & Resources

    Connect with our guest Sarayu Agarwal via LinkedIn:
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarayuagarwal/

    Learn more about the Aga Khan Foundation:
    https://akf.org/

    Dive in with the Aga Khan Learning Hub:
    https://akflearninghub.org/

    Download the Guide to
    Human-Centred Design for Social Innovation:
    https://akflearninghub.org/initiative/human-centred-design/

    Check out Sarayu´s book recommendation, Design for a Better World by Don Norman: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548304/design-for-a-better-world/

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    34 min
  • Why Most Innovation Fails: On Risk, Sponsorship & AI Hype with Dr. Nicola Millard, BT

    Why do most innovation projects quietly fail? What actually makes people adopt something new at work? Dr. Nicola Millard, Principal Innovation Partner at BT, has spent 35 years finding out, from building the UK's earliest workplace chatbots to running home-working trials before "hybrid work" was a phrase anyone used.

    In this episode of the Innovation Brief podcast, Nicola shares the real reasons innovation succeeds or fails within large organisations, and why technology is almost never the reason.

    We cover:

    • Why most innovation projects fail, and why that's not always a bad thing
    • The one factor that can kill a project overnight: losing your senior sponsor
    • Her "useful, usable, used" framework - and why peer pressure decides adoption more than leadership buy-in
    • The Inverness Experiment: BT's 1990s home-working pilot, decades before the pandemic made it universal
    • Why 82% of UK managers are "accidental managers", and what that means for hybrid work
    • AI hype vs. reality: work slop, vibe coding, skill atrophy, and her theory that we're in a "42 moment" with generative AI

    Nicola Millard is Principal Innovation Partner at BT, working with corporate and public-sector clients on innovation strategy, and partners with researchers at Cambridge, Bristol, MIT, and Stanford. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

    🎧 Subscribe to the Innovation Brief for more conversations on innovation, technology, and the future of work. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube Podcasts. Also available on Substack.

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    33 min
  • The Pretzel Theory of Innovation, with Selina Lehmann, Mahle

    In this episode of The Innovation Brief Podcast, host Gabi Matic speaks with Selina Lehmann, Innovation Manager at Mahle and lead of the company's venture clienting programme, about what it really takes to run idea management at scale and what her own academic research reveals about where AI genuinely helps, and where it doesn't.

    Selina shares how five years managing global ideation platforms led her into doctoral research on AI and innovation, and how she now combines hands-on practice with published findings on what actually makes ideation systems work.

    The episode also explores:

    • Why innovation is fundamentally people business, and what that means for how ideas should be evaluated and rewarded
    • What venture clienting is, and how Mahle uses it to bring external startup innovation into a large industrial organisation
    • The real misunderstandings between corporates and startups, on both sides
    • The "content formulation pain", the universal bottleneck in ideation systems that has little to do with creativity
    • The five roles AI can play inside an ideation system: inspirer, stylist, matchmaker, analyst, and organiser
    • How to sequence AI adoption, starting with people, not tools
    • Two possible futures for human creativity and AI inside large organisations
    • Why visible recognition often motivates more than financial reward
    • The underrecognised history of women in innovation, from Clara Ritter to today


    At its core, this conversation is about what actually drives good ideas to the surface, and what gets in the way before AI ever enters the picture.

    So, as organisations rush to adopt AI in their innovation processes: are we solving the right problems, or just generating more ideas faster?

    Follow Selina: linkedin.com/in/selina-lehmann
    Innovation Manager, Venture Clienting at Mahle | Doctoral Researcher, University of Hohenheim

    To Listen Elsewhere:
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ppEcvpGYruz6VdXu21A96
    Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-innovation-brief/id1831453913
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InnovationBrief

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    44 min
  • Innovation Without a Playbook, with Dirk Ploss, Beiersdorf

    Innovation Without a Playbook, with Dirk Ploss

    In this episode of The Innovation Brief Podcast, hosts Wil Benton and Gabi Matic speak with Dirk Ploss, digital pioneer and Associate Director Early, Innovation at Beiersdorf, about what three decades of building at the edge of the possible actually looks like, and what it teaches you about innovation, transformation, and getting things done.

    Dirk shares how his early career in advertising shaped a resilience that carried him through founding startups, leading e-commerce transformation before the term was widely understood, and driving innovation inside one of the world's most recognisable FMCG companies.

    The episode also explores:

    • Why emotional transformation is the hardest layer of any digital or business transformation
    • What founding four startups (and watching two of them fail) teaches you that success never could
    • How large corporations can move faster than startups when aligned around a shared goal
    • Building teams that tell you the truth, and why that is the most important thing a leader can do
    • Why most productivity systems fail, and the DIRK framework Dirk is writing his next book around
    • What it means to operate without guarantees, and how to keep building anyway
    • The difference between doing the right thing and doing things right
    At its core, this conversation is about what innovation actually demands of the people who practise it: not just tools or frameworks, but character, the capacity to tolerate uncertainty, hire well, and stay curious when the path runs out.
    So, as organisations face pressure to transform faster than ever before: how do we build the resilience, the honesty, and the long-term thinking that real innovation requires?

    Follow Dirk Ploss: linkedin.com/in/dirk-ploss

    To Listen Elsewhere:
    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ppEcvpGYruz6VdXu21A96
    Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-innovation-brief/id1831453913
    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InnovationBrief 

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    47 min
  • Thomas Boermans: AI, RISK, & the FUTURE OF POWER | Inside Smart Energy at E.ON

    How To Drive Better Energy Decisions: From A to Z

    In this episode of The Innovation Brief Podcast, hosts Matt Briggs and Gabriella G. Hernandez speak with Thomas Boermans, Head of Trend Intelligence at E.ON, about how innovation leadership is evolving inside one of Europe’s largest energy companies.

    Thomas shares how foresight has shifted from trend-spotting to becoming a core part of strategic decision-making. This includes supporting everything from setting strategic objectives to navigating disruption in the energy sector innovation space.

    The episode also explores:

    • Smart grid technologies and how smart grids are reshaping energy systems
    • How ethical AI supports foresight without replacing human judgement
    • The role of data governance implementation and data governance tools in enabling better decisions
    • What new innovation leadership looks like in complex organisations
    • How social impact and humanitarian innovation are increasingly tied to energy transformation
    • Bridging the gap between theoretical foresight and practical, daily strategic application
    • Building resilient, future-focused organisations with The Innovation Brief mindset

    At its core, this conversation is about transformative work: how organisations can move beyond reacting to change and start actively shaping what comes next. 

    So, as energy systems, technology, and society continue to evolve: how do we make sure the decisions we’re making today are truly aligned with the future we want to build?

    Follow Thomas:
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-boermans-07701a5/

    Head of Trend Intelligence at E.ON SE, Advisory Board Member at Themis Foresight

    To Listen Elsewhere:

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ppEcvpGYruz6VdXu21A96?si=8cc299071e374f8d
    Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-innovation-brief/id1831453913

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InnovationBrief

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    21 min
  • Innovation at the Frontlines of Global Hunger with Sandra Raad, UN WFP Innovation Accelerator

    Sandra Raad has spent a decade building innovation capacity inside one of the world's most complex humanitarian organisations. Her verdict? Innovation is not a silver bullet - and in a world where 318 million people face acute hunger, that clarity matters.

    In this episode, Sandra (Head of Innovation Network at the United Nations World Food Programme Innovation Accelerator) joins Innovation Brief co-hosts Gabriella G. Hernandez and Stephanie Shaar to talk about what innovation actually means when lives are on the line - not the shiny tech version, but the unglamorous, human-centred, politically aware work of making new ideas stick inside large institutions under extreme pressure.

    Sandra explains what WFP Innovation has built over the past decade: an award-winning community of 600 internal champions, AI-enabled supply chain tools that generate millions in savings, and programmes designed from the ground up for people living in fragile, conflict-affected environments. 

    At WFP, innovation is fundamentally about doing more with less - stretching every dollar further, compressing delivery timelines from weeks to hours, and finding smarter pathways to reach more of the 318 million people facing acute hunger today. She also talks honestly about what innovation cannot do - replace political will, resolve structural inequality, or prevent crises. In a humanitarian context, innovation is a powerful enabler, but it works alongside structural change, not in place of it.

    We also go somewhere most innovation podcasts don't: the emotional weight carried by people doing this work, why protecting innovators' mental health is a leadership responsibility, and how Sandra herself navigates hope and resilience when the world feels relentlessly difficult.

    If you work in innovation, impact, or humanitarian response - or if you simply want a more honest conversation about what it takes to make ideas matter - this one is worth your time.

    Learn more and get involved:

    • UN WFP Innovation Accelerator: 
      https://innovation.wfp.org/
    • Support WFP via the Share the Meal app - it costs less than $1 to feed one person for a day: https://sharethemeal.org/
    • Connect with Sandra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-raad/

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    47 min
  • Leaps of Faith: Entrepreneurship, Empathy and Ecosystems with Alejandro Ortega, StartLife

    In this episode of the Innovation Brief, hosts Gabriella G. Hernandez and Gabriela  Matic sit down with Alejandro Ortega, Programme Manager at StartLife, co‑founder and Managing Partner at Deep Impact Venture Partners, and co‑creator of Inspira Diaspora. 

    Alejandro shares his journey from feeling like an outsider in Costa Rica to launching startups, moving to the Netherlands, and now shaping agritech, foodtech, and cleantech ecosystems across Europe and Latin America.

    Together, they explore what it really means to take a leap of faith as an entrepreneur, the cultural and structural barriers faced by founders from Latin America and the Caribbean, and why “founder mining” – backing people, not just polished startups – could unlock the region’s true innovation potential.

    They explore:

    • How personal history, family values, and a pivotal moment of loss pushed Alejandro to leave a comfortable tech job and commit to impact‑driven entrepreneurship
    • Why programmes like StartLife are critical in reducing the “valley of death” for early-stage founders, from validation and mentorship to infrastructure and long-term support
    • The limits of copying Silicon Valley in emerging markets, and what European ecosystems can learn from Latin American resilience and resourcefulness
    • The role of diaspora communities - from Latin America & the Caribbean to the Balkans - in opening doors, sharing networks, and building new models of capital and cross-border collaboration
    • The tension between chasing quick financial returns and building long-term, values‑driven impact, and why conviction matters more than hype

    Whether you’re a founder, ecosystem builder, investor, or part of a global diaspora looking to give back, this conversation offers a candid, hopeful look at how we can build more inclusive, human‑centred innovation ecosystems.

    Connect with Alejandro via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleortega/

    Learn more about StartLife: https://startlife.nl/

    Learn more about Deep Impact Venture Partners: https://deepimpact.earth/

    Contact Us

    Thanks for tuning in to the Innovation Brief, the podcast by Metta for the people building, funding, and governing innovation - inside corporates, governments, and ecosystems across the globe. Bi-weekly conversations with the leaders shaping the future.

    Find out more:
    Website: https://www.innovationbrief.co

    Email: [email protected] 

    Follow us on social media:
    Connect on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-brief/

    Subscribe on Substack: https://innovationbrief.substack.com/

    The Innovation Brief is produced by Metta. Metta focuses on research into innovation & entrepreneurship, programme design and delivery, and ecosystem building for more sustainable and resilient futures.

    Learn more about Metta: https://www.metta.partners

    Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mettatalks/ 

    Follow us on Instagram: ht...

    52 min

About The Innovation Brief

From the publisher's feed

The Innovation Brief by Metta features conversations with innovation leaders from global corporates, governments, academia, and ecosystems, exploring breakthrough ideas and future trends shaping…