Innovation Leader Events

Why Does Everyone Love Innovation Leader's Live Events?

You won’t find the usual canned PowerPoint presentations, panel discussions, and trade show booths at our events.

Instead, we create useful and in-depth experiences that take you inside the most innovative spaces in the world to interact with the teams running those centers, and host informal, interactive whiteboard sessions that connect you with your peers to share best practices, compare approaches, and explore solutions to common challenges.

Whether you attend one of our Field Studies, our annual Impact conference, or our regional executive roundtables, or our new one-day Deep Dive events, you’ll benefit from the high-level information exchange and networking opportunities that are Innovation Leader hallmarks.

All of our events are designed for current corporate leaders in large organizations. Innovation Leader members receive a significant discount to all of our events. Our executive roundtables are free to attend to qualified corporate leaders at the director level and above. Our largest annual gathering is Impact, held every October.

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Our Unique Event Formats

Our Field Studies provide an engaging and collaborative forum for innovation executives, enabling them to visit other innovation spaces, share war stories, and benefit from the insight of their peers.

We’ve taken Field Study participants to dozens of innovation spaces at the world’s best-known brands, including Adobe, American Greetings, Autodesk, Barclays, BMW, the Cleveland Clinic, CVS, Dow Jones, Fidelity, Ford, Google, Home Depot, IBM, ING, Johnson & Johnson, LinkedIn, MasterCard, NASDAQ, Porsche, Starbucks, Suffolk Construction, Twitter, Visa, Vodafone, and many others.

Our shorter events — from a three-hour roundtable with peers to a full-day Deep Dive focusing on a single theme — still deliver incredibly high value to participants. Usually, we host them in corporate labs or startup spaces (not hotel boardrooms.)

We’ve run roundtables and Deep Dive gatherings at the CME Group, Johnson & Johnson, LinkedIn, MassChallenge, MasterCard, MIT, New Labs, Royal Bank of Scotland, Starbucks, Verizon, Tiffany & Co., Whirlpool, Work-Bench, and many others.

Impact is the only conference designed just for corporate innovators, to help them achieve more impact in their organizations and career.

Through interactive whiteboard sessions and hands-on workshops, attendees learn about innovation metrics, governance, working with business units, co-creation, ecosystems, and a wide array of new and established innovation methodologies. Infused with peer-to-peer learning, skill-building, and interactive activities, our off-the-record sessions are for attendees' ears only. No slides, no panels, just real conversations with your peers at the world's largest companies.

Who comes to Innovation Leader events?

Corporate innovation, strategy and R&D professionals. That’s everyone from Chief Innovation Officers and VPs of Innovation, to Directors of Innovation and R&D Managers. If you’re responsible for new products or services inside your company, you’re probably the right fit.

Will vendors be there pitching me?

No. Our events are pitch-free zones. Aside from event partners who help us plan and run some of our events (and often run some very useful, pitch-free sessions), we do not admit consultants, advisors, software firms, or others who might try to pitch you something.

We're brand new to innovation ... will we be in over our heads?

NO, absolutely not! Our events have sessions that will be super-useful to you whether you’re just getting your innovation program started, or are several years in. In addition, regardless of your level, you’ll benefit from the collective experience of corporate innovators from some of the world’s leading companies, who attend our events and lead our sessions.

I can't really afford time out-of-the-office ... Will this be worth it?

Probably best to let past event attendees answer this one:

• “As a leader starting up a new innovation function in my company, this event was invaluable. Great way to get started!” – Innovation Architect at a $3.5B technology distributor
• “It’s easy to get buried in your corners of the world and be busy with stuff. The Teach-In broke me out of my reverie, and woke me up to what all is going on — stuff that will make a difference.” – V.P. Strategy, Biz Dev & innovation at $5B company
• “So many smart, forward thinking, helpful and insightful people in one place.” – VP of Innovation at global financial services firm
• “It was fantastic to see so many people facing similar issues and to see the varied ways they approach them. Real stories from real people.” – SVP at $30B global energy management company
• “Better than any innovation conference I’ve been to” – Director of Strategic Innovation at $2B insurer

How can I justify attending to my boss?

We've created a downoadable PDF document that makes the case for participating in Innovation Leader's high-value live events.