Back in episode 11 of Where Innovation Happens, I took a slight departure from the main focus of this podcast — the places and spaces where people innovate — to explore a process that matters deeply for every innovation company: how to select amazing people to join your team.
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At the time, I mentioned that I would publish the conversation in two parts.
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Part 1 (episode 11) focused on how to decide who to interview based on the candidates who apply. In other words, it was about resume review and the first stage of candidate evaluation.
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This episode is the promised Part 2. It focuses on how to conduct great interviews.
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Our guest host again is CIC’s Global Head of HR, Karina Wozniak. Our expert guest this time is CIC’s CEO, Denyse Medlenka. Denyse came up through CIC’s HR function earlier in her career, so she knows this topic from many angles: as an HR leader, as a manager, and now as CEO.
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These episodes use CIC’s own approach to candidate selection and interviewing as the example for explaining our philosophy. CIC is widely viewed as building unusually strong teams, so we hope that sharing some of our practices will be useful to founders, managers, and hiring teams building their own organizations.
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A key message in this episode is that hiring is one of the most important things any manager does.
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That may sound obvious, but it is easy to underestimate just how much a single hiring decision can shape a team, a culture, and an organization’s ability to do its work. A great hire can make people feel, almost immediately, that they cannot remember how the team functioned without that person. A poor hire can create rework, slow everyone down, and damage the trust of the team.
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Denyse explains how CIC looks for evidence of values, experience, potential, and “horsepower.” She also explains why the best interviews are not about whether someone sounds impressive in theory. They are about whether the candidate can show what they have actually done.
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One theme we find especially important is the difference between values fit and familiarity. Too often, “fit” can become a vague way of saying that someone feels familiar, comfortable, or similar to the existing team. Denyse and Karina talk about why that is dangerous, and why strong hiring means looking for people who can thrive in the culture while also adding something the team does not already have.
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Karina and Denyse also discuss behavioral interviewing, how to ask better follow-up questions, how to understand the real meaning behind a line on a resume, and why interviewers should listen carefully not only to what candidates say, but also to what they do not say.
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The conversation gets very practical. Denyse shares red flags to watch for, including lack of curiosity, speaking negatively about former employers without reflection, and an inability to describe a real mistake and what was learned from it. She also talks about reference checks, work samples, evaluating early-career candidates, and the challenge of balancing high standards with openness to potential.
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At the heart of the conversation is a simple idea: hiring should be evidence-based.
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We should not make excuses for missing evidence because we like someone. We should not confuse confidence with competence. And we should not rely on vague impressions when the stakes for the team are so high.
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This episode is especially useful for founders, managers, hiring teams, HR leaders, and anyone building an organization where culture and performance both matter. Innovation communities depend on great people. Great people come from thoughtful, disciplined hiring.
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Featured guest: Denyse Medlenka, CEO of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)
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Guest host: Karina Wozniak, Global Head of HR at CIC

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with Daniel Koh, a candidate for Congress in Massachusetts’ Sixth District, for a conversation about innovation, competitiveness, and the role political leaders can play in helping builders build.
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Political leaders can have profound impacts on the innovation landscape. With this in mind, this is the first of what I expect will be a number of conversations with aspiring political leaders about the impact they believe they can have on innovation.
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I’ve known Dan for years, going back to his time as Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a role he took on at just 29 years old. When Walsh later became U.S. Secretary of Labor, Dan followed him to Washington as his Chief of Staff once again.
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Since then, Dan has also worked inside the White House and in the startup world, including as Chief Operating Officer of HqO.
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That combination makes him an interesting guest for us. Dan has seen government from the inside, but he has also worked in the early-stage world, where companies are trying to find customers, raise capital, hire talent, and survive long enough to matter.
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That experience shapes how he thinks about policy, economic growth, and what it takes for a region to remain competitive.
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We talk about why Dan is running, and his view that Washington has become too focused on personal attacks and not focused enough on delivering for people.
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We discuss artificial intelligence, including the challenge of addressing real risks while protecting the enormous potential of new technology, especially in health research, life sciences, and the search for cures.
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We also dig into the housing challenge in Massachusetts, the abundance agenda, and the simple but often overlooked idea that supply and demand still matter.
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Dan talks about Massachusetts not just as Boston or Cambridge, but as a broader innovation ecosystem. He sees places like Lynn, Andover, and the rest of the Sixth District as part of a potential corridor of innovation, if the region chooses to think and act more ambitiously.
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Another major theme is talent. Massachusetts educates some of the most capable people in the world, but too many leave after graduation to build their careers elsewhere.
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We talk about what it would take to keep more of that talent here, and what role public leaders can play in supporting entrepreneurs, startups, and growing companies.
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In this conversation, I seek to find out what government can do when leaders understand both policy and the real-world challenges of building something new.
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Whether you are an entrepreneur, investor, policymaker, or someone who cares about the future of Massachusetts and the country, I think you will find a lot here worth thinking about.
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Featured guest: Daniel Koh, candidate for Congress in Massachusetts’ Sixth District, former Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, former White House official, and former COO of HqO.
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Host: Tim Rowe, founder of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) and host of Where Innovation Happens.
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Topics and keywords: innovation policy, startups, entrepreneurship, Massachusetts politics, Congress 2026, Sixth Congressional District, Daniel Koh, Dan Koh, Tim Rowe, Where Innovation Happens, Boston innovation, life sciences, biotech, artificial intelligence policy, housing affordability, abundance agenda, talent pipeline, venture capital, economic competitiveness, Cambridge Innovation Center, CIC, startup ecosystem, government and innovation.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down at CIC Berlin with Marvin Göldner, co-head of Startup Incubator Berlin, the entrepreneurship center of the Berlin School of Economics and Law.

Startup Incubator Berlin is located within CIC Berlin.

Marvin works right at the beginning of the startup journey.

He describes his world as “zero to one”: working with entrepreneurs from the moment when they have an idea, a possible co-founder, a first prototype, or maybe only a problem they want to understand better.

That is a fascinating place to spend time, because it is where many companies either begin to become real or quietly disappear.

One of Marvin’s memorable messages in this conversation is that founders often fall in love with their idea too soon.

They can become attached to a solution before they have really understood the problem.

At Startup Incubator Berlin, Marvin and his team push founders to get out of the building, build prototypes, test early MVPs, and speak with real customers early and often.

Their monthly UX testing format, which happens within Venture Café Berlin, is a structured method to make that happen at scale.

We also talk about Berlin as a startup city.

Marvin is candid about both the opportunities and the challenges.

Berlin has become more mature as a startup ecosystem, with strong networks, venture capital, creative energy, and many founders looking for collaborators.

At the same time, finding housing has become harder, and the city needs more scale-ups that stay and create long-term jobs.

Marvin also shares his work with Climate Tech Hub Berlin and the Urban Innovation Forum, which bring together startups, researchers, infrastructure players, municipalities, and companies working on climate and urban innovation.

I liked his point that good ecosystems should not be closed shops.

They need easy entry points, strong events, and repeated opportunities for people to be in the same room long enough to build trust.

Toward the end of the conversation, Marvin raises a question that feels very current:

In the age of AI, do technical founders still need business co-founders, and do business founders still need technical co-founders?

With tools like ChatGPT, Canva, Lovable, and Cursor AI, some founders can now do much more on their own than they could before.

But Marvin’s view is that this only works up to a point.

Building a company is not only about tasks.

It is also about the mental support, trust, and shared commitment of being in it together.

That theme connects with something I have seen again and again in innovation communities.

Entrepreneurship often begins with people meeting each other, spending time together, testing ideas, and deciding to build.

The spaces, programs, and gatherings that make those moments possible are not background infrastructure.

They are part of how innovation actually comes together.

Featured guest: Marvin Göldner, co-head of Startup Incubator Berlin

Host: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)

Topics and keywords: Marvin Göldner, Startup Incubator Berlin, HWR Berlin, Berlin School of Economics and Law, CIC Berlin, Where Innovation Happens, Cambridge Innovation Center, Berlin startups, startup incubation, startup ecosystems, early-stage startups, zero to one, lean startup, UX testing, MVPs, customer discovery, Venture Café Berlin, Climate Tech Hub Berlin, Urban Innovation Forum, co-founder matching, AI and startups, ChatGPT, Lovable, Cursor AI, Canva, Berlin entrepreneurship, startup founders, innovation hubs.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down at CIC Berlin with Jorge Ferreira, founder of LIQUIDLOOP GmbH, a Berlin-based startup working at the frontier of climate technology, electrochemistry, and sustainable chemistry.This episode is part of a larger experiment I am doing to occasionally interview entrepreneurs working within innovation hubs, to learn about the innovation process from their perspectives. I ask about their work, but also about their experience as innovators in their communities.Jorge, whose name is pronounced very much like the English name “George,” and his team are building tools that help scientists see what is happening inside complex chemical reactions in real time. One goal is to take a compound we often think of as waste, such as carbon dioxide, and transform it into something useful that we can actually build products with.In our conversation, Jorge explains how LIQUIDLOOP’s technology helps researchers study reactions related to CO₂ capture and CO₂ transformation into other molecules, some of which may matter for the energy transition. We talk about why scientists need better tools to understand these reactions, how electrochemistry can help turn electricity into fuels or useful chemicals, and why this kind of research may become an important part of a cleaner industrial future.Jorge speaks both as a scientist and as an entrepreneur. He has spent years thinking about catalysts, materials, electrochemical reactions, and how molecules behave at tiny scales. But he is also thinking about how those discoveries move out of the lab and eventually become part of real-world solutions.We also talk about Berlin. Jorge moved from Portugal to Berlin more than a decade ago to pursue his scientific work, and he describes why the city became the right place for him to build. Berlin has a special energy. It attracts people who want to explore, build, experiment, and live creatively. In Jorge’s case, that energy helped lead him to build a company working on a fulfilling scientific challenge with wide-ranging applications.This episode underscores that climate innovation is not only about big infrastructure and policy. It is also about the deep tools and scientific instruments that allow researchers to rewire how our industrial processes work. Before a technology can scale, someone has to see the reaction clearly. LIQUIDLOOP is trying to make that possible.Featured guest: Jorge Ferreira, founder of LIQUIDLOOP GmbHHost: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)Topics and keywords: LIQUIDLOOP, Jorge Ferreira, CIC Berlin, Where Innovation Happens, Cambridge Innovation Center, climate tech, carbon capture, CO₂ capture, CO₂ transformation, electrochemistry, electrocatalysis, sustainable chemistry, green hydrogen, ammonia, renewable energy storage, energy transition, startup Berlin, Berlin startups, climate innovation, deep tech, scientific instruments, Differential Electrochemical Mass Spectrometry, DEMS, startup ecosystems, innovation hubs.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down in Berlin with Ewa Geresz, Director of Venture Café Berlin and one of the people helping grow the Venture Café network around the world.

Venture Café has a simple mission: connecting innovators to make things happen. As Ewa explains in this conversation, there is a lot of thought and care behind this. Every week, in cities around the world, Venture Café brings together founders, investors, scientists, artists, students, corporate leaders, public sector people, and others she calls “curious doers” in a free, open environment.

The goal is not just networking. It is to create the conditions where people who would not normally meet each other can discover shared interests, build trust, and sometimes create something entirely new.

We recorded this conversation at CIC Berlin, where Venture Café Berlin holds its Thursday Gathering. Ewa shares what a typical evening looks like, including a recent gathering focused on fashion tech. Nearly 350 people attended that night, which gives a sense of the energy that is forming around this community.

One of the ideas I love most in this conversation is that innovation often happens at the intersection of different worlds. Ewa and I talk about the importance of breaking silos, building trust through regular gatherings, and designing spaces where people meet first as human beings, not as job titles or company names.

We also discuss why a recurring, low-barrier event can become an important piece of a city’s innovation infrastructure.

Ewa also shares what it has been like to help build Venture Café Berlin, including the importance of understanding the local ecosystem before trying to strengthen it. Venture Café is not an accelerator, incubator, or investor. It is a platform for the people already building a city’s innovation community.

The goal is to help local founders, ecosystem builders, institutions, and innovators find each other more easily and work together more effectively.

This episode is also a good introduction for anyone who has heard of Venture Café but has never attended, or for anyone thinking about ways to strengthen the innovation ecosystem in their own city. Ewa explains who should come, how to get involved, and why the first step is often simply showing up.

If you are building a company, thinking about starting something, working in science, art, technology, government, education, or just curious about innovation, Venture Café is meant to be open to you.

Featured guest: Ewa Geresz, Director of Venture Café Berlin.

Host: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC).

Topics and keywords: Venture Café Berlin, Venture Café Global, CIC Berlin, Cambridge Innovation Center, Berlin startup ecosystem, innovation communities, startup ecosystems, ecosystem building, innovation hubs, entrepreneurship, founders, investors, co-founder matching, fashion tech, UX startups, creative technology, community building, serendipity, trust, cross-sector collaboration, innovation infrastructure, Thursday Gathering, startup community, Where Innovation Happens.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down in Berlin with Timon Rupp.Timon has spent much of his career at the intersection of technology, mobility, startups, corporates, and public policy. Before joining CIC as Managing Director for Germany, Timon founded and led The Drivery, one of the world’s best-known mobility innovation hubs. He and I share the vision that if we bring bright people together around a hard problem, and give them a focused place to work in close proximity to one another, the speed and quality of their innovation will increase dramatically. One result can be big, positive impacts on the world. A simple example is how autonomous driving appears to be ~8-10x safer than human driving, looking at serious accidents.We talk about how innovation ecosystems are built, why physical places matter, and what Germany can contribute to the next era of global innovation.In this conversation, Timon and I explore how innovation is not just about buildings, programs, or capital. It is about people, trust, density, and the informal collisions that help ideas move from invention to real-world impact.Since Timon runs CIC Berlin, we talked about CIC Berlin itself and share some B-roll. The building is extraordinary: large, historic, full of courtyards, high ceilings, and layers of Berlin’s complicated past. It is the kind of place where a new chapter of innovation can happen. Under Timon’s leadership, CIC Berlin is evolving from a single focused hub into what he terms a “hub of hubs,” where clusters such as artificial intelligence, mobility, fashion, fintech, health, music tech, universities, startups, corporates, investors, and policymakers can interact under one roof.From there, Timon and I discuss how globalization is changing, why global innovation platforms may become even more important in a more fragmented world, and why ecosystems like CIC can help keep channels open between people who still need to work together.We look ahead to the technologies that may define the coming decades: artificial intelligence, quantum computing, fusion energy, autonomous mobility, drones, solid-state batteries, and new forms of transportation. Some of these changes are exciting. Some are unsettling. And most are both. That makes the role of innovation communities even more important, because we need places where people can understand what is happening, ask better questions, and help guide these technologies toward useful and responsible outcomes.Toward the end, Timon offers advice for people who want to participate in this future. His message is encouraging: stay open, keep learning, talk to people, join communities, and do not try to navigate the next wave alone. Major technology waves, which he refers to as "hype cycles," are coming faster now, and each one also creates a new on-ramp for people who want to build, contribute, and help shape what comes next.Featured guest: Timon Rupp, Managing Director of CIC Germany and founder of The Drivery.Host: Tim Rowe, founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center.Topics include: innovation hubs, CIC Berlin, Germany innovation, Berlin startup ecosystem, The Drivery, mobility innovation, automotive innovation, artificial intelligence, AI ecosystems, quantum computing, fusion energy, autonomous vehicles, solid-state batteries, drones, startup ecosystems, corporate innovation, university innovation, Venture Café, global collaboration, innovation infrastructure, and where innovation happens.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down in Tokyo with Tak Umezawa, a leading voice in Japan’s innovation ecosystem and Chairman of CIC Japan, for a wide-ranging conversation about Japan’s innovation economy.

Tak has had a front-row seat to many sides of Japanese innovation. For much of his career, he led A.T. Kearney in Japan, stepping down as its Chairman last year. In that role, he served as an advisor to the CEOs of many large Japanese corporations, as well as to senior Japanese government leaders. He is known as a proponent of the idea that Japan can recognize and build on its uniqueness, not just as a technological power, but also as a cultural power. He helped spur many initiatives in this area, including the well-known Cool Japan initiative and fund.

Tak also happens to have been my classmate at MIT Sloan School of Management, and a friend for 33 years.

Since CIC’s arrival in Japan, Tak has helped build CIC into one of Japan’s most important startup communities. He agreed to become our Chairman a little under a decade ago, while continuing in his role at A.T. Kearney.

This conversation is not just about startups. It is about the deeper question of how Japan can turn its extraordinary strengths into new global companies. And it is also two old friends catching up on a topic of shared interest.

Japan is still one of the world’s great countries for quality, manufacturing, science, design, culture, and trust. But as Tak explains, having great ideas is not the same thing as innovation. Innovation requires making those ideas real. It requires commercializing them. It requires building companies that can compete in the most important markets in the world.

We talk about why large Japanese companies are so good at their core businesses, but often struggle with disruptive innovation. We also talk about why Japanese startups may need to think globally from the beginning, rather than first building only for the Japanese market and expanding later.

Tak makes a provocative suggestion: for some Japanese startups, getting acquired early by the right global company may actually be a smart way to bring Japanese innovation to the world faster.

We also explore what Japanese innovation policy could look like if the goal were to create more globally competitive startups. Tak highlights three big ideas: Japan should attract more international investors; Japan should unlock the technology and talent trapped inside large corporations; and Japan should internationalize its people, companies, and institutions much more deeply.

This leads us into a broader discussion about talent. We talk about women in Japan’s workforce. We talk about Japanese people who have lived abroad and may not feel fully welcomed back. We talk about dual citizenship, overseas Japanese talent, and what Japan might learn from countries like India and China.

We also talk about Japan’s global cultural power. Food, anime, manga, gaming, beauty, fashion, and design are no longer niche interests. They are major global markets. But in many cases, non-Japanese entrepreneurs have been faster than Japanese companies at building global businesses around Japanese culture. That is both a warning and a huge opportunity.

Toward the end, we talk about CIC Japan itself. Tak shares what he thinks helped CIC Tokyo develop such a strong community. He also talks about CIC Catalyst, climate innovation, life sciences, Fukuoka, Osaka, and the next stage of CIC’s work in Japan.

For me, this conversation is really about Japan’s next chapter. Japan has world-class science. It has trusted brands. It has creative culture with global appeal. It has extraordinary talent. The question is how to connect those strengths to entrepreneurship, global markets, and places where innovators can find each other.

That is where innovation happens.

Featured guest:

Tak Umezawa

Chairman, CIC Japan

Host:

Tim Rowe

Founder and Executive Chair, CIC

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with Sheamus McGovern, founder and CEO of ODSC AI and author of The AI Skill Flip, to talk about what AI really means for professionals, cities, and innovation ecosystems.The book itself can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/AI-Skill-Flip-Professionals-Reinventing/dp/B0GTX3D6W8Sheamus has been part of the data science and machine learning world for many years.He built ODSC from its early roots in the Boston data community into one of the largest practitioner-focused AI and data science conference communities in the world.And, as it turns out, part of that story began right here at CIC in Cambridge: he was here when he founded the conference.We talk about the moment when data science became AI in the public imagination, especially after ChatGPT brought these tools into everyday life.This conversation is about what people can actually do with AI.Sheamus makes the case that AI is not simply replacing skills.It is flipping which skills matter most.If AI can now help you write, code, summarize, research, or review documents, then the scarce skill – the one that will matter for humans – becomes “judgment”.Can you tell whether the output is good?Can you ask the right question?Can you use the tool in a way that makes you more capable, rather than just faster?We also talk about what this means for cities and regions that want to lead in AI.Many governments now have an AI strategy.But Sheamus argues that the most important work may not start with a top-down strategy document.It should start with people, communities, literacy, and practical use cases.Boston’s innovation ecosystem comes up naturally in the conversation.We talk about CIC, MassChallenge, MassRobotics, meetups, practitioner communities, and the kind of bottom-up learning that helps new technologies spread.We also explore a useful mental shift: treating AI less like a tool and more like a teammate.That does not mean trusting AI blindly.It means learning how to work alongside it, give it context, build feedback loops, and use it to extend your own capabilities.This episode is for professionals trying to understand how AI will affect their careers.It is also for founders, policymakers, city leaders, and ecosystem builders who are thinking about how AI will shape the next generation of innovation hubs.Featured guest:Sheamus McGovern, founder and CEO of ODSC AI and author of The AI Skill FlipHost:Tim Rowe, founder of Cambridge Innovation Center, co-founder of LabCentral and MassRobotics, and host of Where Innovation HappensKey topics:AI and the future of workThe AI Skill FlipAI literacyData science and machine learningChatGPT and generative AIAI for professionalsAI tools versus AI teammatesInnovation ecosystemsBoston and Cambridge innovationStartup communitiesODSC AIOpen Data ScienceCIC CambridgeMassChallengeMassRoboticsCities and AI strategyEconomic development and AIFuture of workKnowledge workEntrepreneurshipStartup hubsPlaces where innovation happens

In this bonus episode of Where Innovation Happens, I take a slight departure from the main focus of our podcast — the places and spaces where people innovate — to explore a key process that is important for all innovation companies: selecting amazing candidates to work for your business.

I will publish two parts to this episode: Part 1, this video, which focuses on how to choose who to interview based on the candidates who apply, and a future Part 2, which will focus on how to conduct great interviews.

For this episode, I sat down with Karina Wozniak, CIC’s Global Head of Human Resources, for a practical conversation about reviewing resumes. This is one of the most important, and underrated, skills in building any organization.

Here is the gist of what we talked about:

Most people are asked to review resumes at some point, but few people are taught how to do it well. Yet it is important that we do it properly. When we decide to move forward with interviewing someone who doesn’t actually have the experience or capabilities we need, it is costly to the company.

First, there are some qualities that we can principally only evaluate well at the resume-review stage, such as whether candidates have the right experience and whether they were high performers in past jobs. If we neglect to draw a firm conclusion about these things at the resume-review stage, there is a chance that when we interview them, we will “like” them because of their communication style or natural charm, and that we will end up hiring someone without the actual experience and capabilities we need.

Even if we catch in the interviews that they are not the right hire, we will typically have squandered a full day of team time on unnecessary interviews. So we need to learn how to make the right selections up front about whom to interview.

We talk about tips for focusing our review of the candidate’s past experience, and determining whether it is relevant to us.

And we talk about how to assess whether the person was a high performer in past jobs — what we call evidence of “real-world horsepower.”

Understanding these things is key to determining whether the person is likely to become a high performer in the specific role you are hiring for.

One of the main ideas in the episode is that a resume is not just a biography. It is a map.

It can show patterns, such as repeated promotions — or the lack thereof.

It can show awards, selective acceptances, major accomplishments, and other signs that leaders in the candidate’s prior organizations saw them as exceptional — or the lack thereof.

One of the most useful signals is what is missing on a resume: you need to look past the words to see what is not stated. You need to notice the things we need to see that aren’t there.

We talk about why repeated promotions are such a powerful signal. A promotion is not just a title change. It is evidence that the people who actually knew the candidate’s work thought highly enough of them to give them more responsibility. When that happens repeatedly, it is the strongest sign available to us from a resume that a candidate has the judgment, drive, execution ability, and learning velocity to succeed.

We also discuss how to think about early-career candidates, where there isn’t much past work experience to go on. In those cases, we can look for other signals of initiative, leadership, achievement, and follow-through in school and other pre-career settings.

This episode is for founders, managers, recruiters, and anyone who wants to get better at hiring.

Because hiring exceptionally well is not magic. It is a skill.

And like most skills, it gets much better when you have a few good tools.

Featured guest:
Karina Wozniak, Global Head of Human Resources, CIC

Host:
Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of CIC

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with John Land, General Manager of CIC St. Louis, to explore the innovation story of St. Louis, Missouri.

St. Louis is one of America’s great historic innovation cities. Its position on the Mississippi River made it a gateway for goods, people, and ideas moving across the continent.

Over time, that geographic advantage helped the city become home to major companies and industries, from Anheuser-Busch and McDonnell Douglas to Monsanto, Enterprise, Edward Jones, Mastercard, Square, and Block.John and I talk about how that history is shaping the next generation of innovation in St. Louis.

The city has deep strengths in AgTech, biotech, geospatial technology, aerospace, fintech, and life sciences. It is also unusually affordable compared with many other major U.S. innovation markets, which gives startups and growing companies a chance to stretch their capital further.

We discuss why St. Louis has become one of the world’s most important centers for agricultural technology and plant science, including the role of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Washington University in St. Louis, and the region’s long-standing agricultural and bioscience expertise.

We also explore the rise of geospatial technology in St. Louis, including the impact of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s major investment in the city, the Taylor Geospatial Institute, and the growing cluster of companies, universities, and researchers working in mapping, defense, location intelligence, agriculture, and data-driven infrastructure.

John and I spend time on Cortex, the 200-acre innovation district at the heart of St. Louis’ startup and deep-tech ecosystem. Cortex was founded by Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis University, the University of Missouri–St. Louis, BJC HealthCare, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. What began as a former industrial area has become one of the most important innovation districts in the middle of the United States.

We also talk about CIC St. Louis, which operates across multiple buildings in Cortex and includes flexible office space, coworking, private labs, shared wet labs, event space, and community infrastructure for entrepreneurs. CIC St. Louis is now one of the largest innovation hubs in the central United States, supporting companies across biotech, bioscience, software, services, fintech, and many other sectors.

Along the way, John shares why he moved to St. Louis sight unseen more than a decade ago, what surprised him about the city, and why he believes St. Louis remains a hidden gem for founders, researchers, investors, and international companies looking to build in the United States.

This conversation is about St. Louis, but it is also about a bigger question at the heart of this show: how do older industrial cities use their history, institutions, talent, infrastructure, and affordability to become powerful places for the next generation of innovation?

About the studio:

This show is the first Where Innovation Happens episode to be recorded in my new mobile podcast studio. It is a 28' Frank Lloyd Wright Limited Edition Airstream, named "Amaterasu," that I brought with me to St. Louis. I hope to record many future episodes in this beautiful traveling space. As the quintessential American midwestern architect, perhaps Wright would have appreciated that his namesake trailer was used to help tell a story about Midwest innovation.

Featured guest: John Land, General Manager of CIC St. Louis

Host: Tim Rowe, Founder and Chair of CIC

Where Innovation Happens explores the people, places, and ecosystems that help entrepreneurs thrive — from startup hubs and innovation districts to the communities that make ambitious new ideas possible.