Why I offer these services?
Many innovation efforts get stuck long before they deliver real-world value. These are the 5 blockers I see most often:
- Fuzzy problem framing: innovation often starts without a sharp understanding of the real-world problem, who faces it, and what value a solution brings.
- No path to adoption: pilots and demos abound — but few initiatives cross the chasm into daily use and scaled value.
- Misaligned roadmaps: tech, product, and business teams operate in silos, leading to uncoordinated development and missed opportunities.
- Isolated innovation: without portfolios, processes, or clear KPIs, innovation efforts stay stuck in corners of the org — never maturing into repeatable capability.
- Underused partnerships: valuable ecosystems and partners are overlooked or inconsistently engaged, limiting speed, reach, and co-creation potential.
These blockers reflect a universal challenge: how to balance today’s business with tomorrow’s innovation. As Stanford’s James G. March put it: “The basic problem confronting an organization is to engage in sufficient exploitation to ensure its current viability and, at the same time, devote enough energy to exploration to ensure its future viability.”
My services are built around helping organizations do exactly that — by aligning teams, roadmaps, and ecosystems to make innovation stick.
How I support innovation efforts that aim for real-world adoption and lasting value
Opportunity Discovery & Customer Validation
Many innovation efforts begin with vague assumptions about what the market needs, leading to wasted resources and slow traction. I help organizations uncover real opportunity by identifying meaningful signals, validating them across the value chain, and cutting through the noise of hype and generalities. Together, we explore unmet needs, emerging trends, and plausible future scenarios — translating them into actionable insights that guide strategy, product direction, and ecosystem positioning.
Innovation Pilots & Adoption Readiness
Testing new ideas in real-world conditions is one of the hardest phases in the innovation lifecycle. I lead early-stage initiatives that validate assumptions, uncover adoption barriers, and assess feasibility in live environments. These pilots are designed to generate actionable learning while minimizing risk, helping teams move from exploration to informed execution. I often operate outside traditional business units: supporting market entry, new vertical exploration, or cross-functional growth projects.
Technical Assessment & Partnership Mapping
Filling capability gaps — whether technical, operational, or strategic — requires more than intuition. I help organizations make grounded decisions on whether to build, partner, or acquire. I help assess these options by combining my corporate development experience with hands-on technical insight. I support decision-making by evaluating emerging technologies, identifying relevant partners or acquisition targets, and mapping how external capabilities align with strategic goals. When needed, I also provide technical due diligence and support early-stage partnership design.
Ecosystem & Portfolio Design
Too often, innovation lives in disconnected teams, one-off initiatives, or temporary task forces. I help organizations embed innovation into their core — with portfolios, governance, and practices that scale.
I draw on frameworks like The Lean Startup and The Corporate Startup, but always adapt them to your specific context, product landscape, and organizational structure.