About Innovation Leader

How We Help

If you’re working to make change happen inside a large organization, Innovation Leader was created especially for you.

We create downloadable templates and tools; report on what the world’s best companies are doing; and convene your peers to share best practices, in conference calls, webcasts, and at live events. Everything we do is geared to helping you deliver impact in your organization, whether you work in strategy, R&D, new ventures, design, technology, or innovation.

• If you’re just getting a new initiative or lab started…
• If you oversee an existing department that needs to work differently…
• If you’re expanding your team and need to grow your budget…
• If you need to change the culture, and open up to the outside world…
• If you need benchmarks and comparables…
• If you are making the case for more resources, support, and investment…
• If you’re working to turn concepts into revenue-generating products…
• If your business is changing, and you need to keep upping your game…

Innovation Leader is the essential resource.

What Members Say

---

Our Editorial Advisory Board includes…

Our Editorial Advisory Board provides direction and input and ensures we remain true to our mission: helping corporate innovation and R&D executives deliver impact within their organizations. The group acts as a sounding board for editorial, weighs in on surveys and research, helps us design the best events on corporate innovation, and provides input on other ways Innovation Leader can be helpful to our membership. The complete list of advisory board members can be found here.

Who We Are

Innovation Leader is an unbiased, independent media and events company focused on helping change-makers in large organizations deliver real impact.

Our team of journalists, analysts, and media entrepreneurs has extensive experience in the worlds of innovation and business-to-business media, and we apply that experience to serve the needs of Innovation Leader’s network.

Co-founders Scott Kirsner, Frank Hertz, and Scott Cohen originally worked together at The Boston Globe, where in 1995 they launched a series of pioneering and award-winning Web sites, including the first regional news portal, Boston.com.

After Boston.com, Scott Kirsner, who serves as CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Innovation Leader, spent nearly two decades as a business journalist and contributing editor at the Globe, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, and other mainstream media outlets. His focus on how innovations that matter get introduced to the world has taken him to the White House, the Sundance Film Festival, the United Nations, and the innovation labs of Google, Walt Disney, General Motors, and many other companies.

Kirsner is the author of several books on innovation and technology, including a highly-acclaimed collaboration with George Lucas, “Inventing the Movies,” which explored the challenge of bringing new ideas to a century-old, change-resistant industry: Hollywood.

Frank Hertz and Scott Cohen, who also left Boston.com in the late ‘90s, went on to launch several successful digital media companies, all — like Innovation Leader — in the B2B space. Their first enterprise was an early-Internet directory business, which was acquired by CNET (now CBS Interactive). They then went on to launch a business information service for compliance executives at large public companies who were grappling with the complex post-Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory regime.

That information service, Compliance Week, was acquired by Haymarket Media in London. They then launched a digital company that tracked “sentiment” among sports fans online; that company was acquired by a division of Advance Publications in New York.

Chief Operating Officer Donna Rice joined Innovation Leader in 2019 to help expand and enhance the company’s offerings for its members and strategic partner firms. Rice previously spent eight years as Managing Director of Compliance Week, and before that was a sales leader at the Boston Globe, focused on both digital and print offerings, and the Community Newspaper Company.

Senior Director of Sales & Sponsorship Andrew Donovan has held senior business development and sales roles at the Boston Globe, GateHouse Media, Cheapflights, Nature Publishing, and, most recently, Propel Marketing, where he served as Director of Political and Advocacy Development.

Andy works with Innovation Leader’s strategic partners to help them achieve their business objectives and connect with our audience of senior R&D, innovation, technology, and strategy executives.

Managing Kelsey Alpaio shapes Innovation Leader’s digital and print offerings. She joined Innovation Leader in 2016, after earning a Master’s in Technical Entrepreneurship from Lehigh University, where she also edited the Brown & White, Lehigh’s student newspaper, and worked as a graphic designer in the Office of Sustainability.

Adam Perri focuses on growing Innovation Leader’s network as our Membership Sales Manager. His earlier career includes serving as an Account Executive in group sales for the Boston Red Sox and the Phoenix Suns; as a Private Event Manager for Paint Nite; and as an Account Executive at FamilyID.

Events Manager Elana Wilner organizes a wide range of in-person gatherings for Innovation Leader, with a focus on delivering useful and high-impact experiences for participants. She has overseen the IL Underground series of roundtables, as well as organizing our Deep Dive events, Field Studies, and annual Impact membership gathering.

Elana previously managed healthcare events at the Brigham Research Institute, part of Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and at CBI. She is a graduate of the University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business and Economics.

Event Producer & Communications Coordinator Caitlin Harper helps to support all of Innovation Leader’s in-person gatherings globally, including special events for members and strategic partners in Boston. She recently graduated from Boston University with a major in advertising and a minor in psychology. She has interned at the ad agency Hill Holliday and Paridaez, a fashion startup.

Kristen Krasinskas serves as a liaison between Innovation Leader and its network of corporate members and strategic partners. Kristen has previously worked in sales, marketing, and corporate accounts for organizations like the American Hockey League, the Cleveland Cavaliers, Invictus Boston, and Healthworks Fitness Centers. She holds a degree in sports management from Springfield College.

Kaitlin Milliken works on multimedia projects as a Producer at Innovation Leader, including our podcast “Innovation Answered,” as well as writing stories and helping to curate speakers for our live and online events. She is a 2018 graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication, and has previously served as a Massachusetts State House correspondent for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, as well as an intern at The Hill and Discovery Digital Networks.

Creative Director Patrick Mitchell serves as the designer of Innovation Leader’s print magazine. He has been creative director of Fast Company, Boston Magazine, O: The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Inc. Magazine, and is a founder of Modus Operandi Design, The Solo Project, and The Other Cape.

Contributing Writer Patricia Riedman Yeager has been a managing editor at Advertising Age, a contributor to the AMA’s Marketing News magazine, and a contributor to B2B magazine and Kellogg School of Management’s alumni magazine.

Contributing Writer Steven Melendez has worked as a software developer at WNYC, New York’s public radio station, and is a regular contributor to Fast Company.

Video: What is Innovation Leader?

---

Contributing to Innovation Leader

Innovation Leader regularly publishes opinion pieces and case studies from contributors who are currently in a corporate role, or who have left a corporate role recently. Leaders from Intel, Pfizer, Nike, Starbucks, Nestlé, Cambia Health, and Chick-fil-A have shared their insights and experiences recently on Innovation Leader. Guidelines for suggesting an idea or submitting a finished piece can be found here.

---

Speaking at an Innovation Leader Event

Interested in speaking at an upcoming Innovation Leader gathering? Check out our  guidelines, along with sample session titles and examples of past speakers. Speakers at Innovation Leader events are all involved in fostering innovation within large organizations. They may have roles in R&D, Strategy, Technology, Design, Marketing, HR, or other functions. You can learn more or propose a session you’d like to lead here .