Last week, we sat down with Aleks Petkov-Georgieva from Raiffeisen Bank International for this unique, deep-dive look at how this 206bn EUR bank keeps finding new ways to speed up, de-risk and simplify the development of breakthrough propositions.
Aleks leads Organisational Innovation at RBI, where she designs and develops RBI's innovation ecosystem, strategy, portfolio, and internal intrapreneurship program. In this episode, we discussed:
• The importance of pushing boundaries
• Learning from leading corporate innovation efforts
• Career paths for corporate innovators
• Attracting entrepreneurial talent
• The importance/unimportance of an MBA
• Securing the enthusiastic support of CEO's
• Innovations impact on cultural transformation
• Failure and evidence-based decision making
• Much more
Here's what we covered:
00:00 Intro
02:14 What are the characteristics of a corporate punk?
04:42 Has being a corporate punk been net negative or net positive?
07:16 How might we see the formalisation of innovation functions change?
09:47 What is it you get out of being a corporate innovator?
13:39 Is innovation more about people than process?
17:24 When hiring into your team, what traits are non-negotiable?
21:13 How do you find and attract talent with an entrepreneurial mindset?
25:37 Have you looked at creative ways of compensating corporate innovators?
31:04 How helpful has having an MBA been?
33:40 Has learning the language of finance been an advantage as an innovator?
34:51 What advice would you give to help others gain support from senior leadership?
40:04 Can you convince leaders, or does it have to be an intrinsic drive to innovate?
42:49 Which would you pick: output or culture?
45:29 Is there anything you would skip if you were to start over?
49:45 Is starting with innovation theatre harmless to build support?
51:49 What do you think you’ve mastered over the last 6 years?
54:36 What has been the impact of the lean startup way on executive mindsets?
58:42 What would make the next 6 years a success for you?
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