Nancy Shea: Turning your CEO into a fully-vested partner

Nancy Shea has been a senior innovation and marketing executive at both consumer products and business-to-business companies such as Kraft Foods, World Kitchen and, most recently, the $7.8 billion specialty chemical company Ashland, Inc. She wrote this piece exclusively for Innovation Leader after we asked her this question: How can innovation executives build a constructive working relationship with their CEOs?

“You really have to be careful what you wish for when you talk about getting your CEO involved with innovation,” Shea says. “Often, a CEO wants results now, now, now. And you need to get them to think about the risks you are taking, the long-term nature of what you are working on. It’s not the same thing managing a business unit.”

Here’s her advice.