More than 175 members of the InnoLead community gathered at the historic Hayes Mansion in San Jose, California, last week for our second Impact conference of the year. Leaders from companies like 3M, Dole Sunshine, Airbnb, PepsiCo, Google, General Motors, Intel, and more joined us for a variety of dynamic and engaging mainstage sessions and breakouts, and several of our Impact participants led fantastic “unconference” sessions on the second day, on topics like “Women in Innovation Leadership,” “Hybrid Work Can Be Ideal for Creative Output,” and “How are you Using XR to Innovate?” We feel lucky to have such a vibrant, intelligent, and helpful community. Thank you to everyone who made the conference so great, and especially to our event sponsors! We hope to see you at another one of our in-person events in the future. Stay tuned for more information about our 2023 calendar.
Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer at PepsiCo, with Rachel Antalek, Chief Global Food Innovation Officer at Pizza Hut
Cordell Hardy, Senior VP, Corporate R&D Operations and Lara Ramdin, Chief Innovation Officer at Dole Sunshine, chat with InnoLead CEO and Co-Founder Scott Kirsner during a mainstage session on sustainability and external innovation.
Attendees Vicky Zachareli of rready, Nikki Freeman of Microsoft, Jodie Brinkerhoff of DFW Airport, Meghan Hall of InnoLead, and Jackie Shiu of Harvard Business Publishing connect during a cocktail reception.
Impact attendees pose at Clos LaChance winery in San Martin, CA, as part of a pre-conference wine tour event.
Attendees celebrate making it out of an escape room in San Jose as part of InnoLead’s pre-conference activities.
Attendees collaborate and discuss their ideas during a breakout session. Impact conferences mostly consist of interactive breakouts — with very few Powerpoint presentations!
Cliff Justice, National Leader of Enterprise Innovation at KPMG, chats with Scott Kirsner, InnoLead CEO and Co-Founder, during a mainstage session on emerging technologies and the metaverse.
Attendees launch paper airplanes in hopes that their creation will cover the greatest distance. One of InnoLead’s sponsors, rready, led the skill-building workshop, titled, “Idea Execution Eats Idea Management for Breakfast!”
Mark Simoncelli, Chief Revenue Officer of Mach49, makes a connection with Tim Turkowski, Strategy Development Director at Enterprise Holdings, during a networking break.
Prapti Jha of Harvard University and Jusien Yong of Edward Jones grab a photo together.
InnoLead’s Scott Kirsner poses with attendees from Procter & Gamble (from left): David Gladney, Jeremy Carter, Corey Bischoff, Hari Nair, and Jarenn Stewart during a networking cocktail hour.
Chris Michaud, VP, Experience & Innovation Consulting at EPAM Continuum, a presenting sponsor of Impact Silicon Valley, gives a Thursday mainstage talk on what it takes to be a maverick.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab team celebrates an 2022 Impact Award win. Their non-profit research organization helped create a rocket that altered the course of the asteroid Dimorphos, which showed that NASA has the chance to alter the course of potentially harmful asteroids in the future.
Jodie Brinkerhoff, VP of Innovation at DFW Airport, gives a talk on how organizations can teach innovation best practices to employees outside of the innovation group.
Attendees take an active role in participating in a session on startup engagement, led by Diana Joseph, CEO of the Corporate Accelerator Forum.
Vicki Dobbs Beck, VP, Immersive Content Innovation at ILMxLAB, part of Lucasfilm.
Prapti Jha, Design Strategist & Researcher at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Harsh Wardhan, Innovation Program Lead at Google, lead a breakout session on design thinking.
Sara Kraft of AstraZeneca, Michelle Risinger of Rising Solutions, and Amol Bargaje of Mayer Brown LLP introduce themselves during a breakout session.
InnoLead’s Meghan Hall with Sukhada Agashe Jog, Head of Global Research at Airbnb, during a breakout session on product research in large organizations.
Attendees create videos with Legos and mini sets during a workshop on “tangible future scenarios,” led by Jill Lawrence, VP of Design at Crown Equipment Corporation.
The InnoLead team (from left): Alex Slawsby, Kristof Torok, Meghan Hall, Kristen Krasinskas, Katie Hammaker, Scott Kirsner, and Alyssa Stern.
