2019 Watchlist: Women in Innovation

2019 Watchlist: Women in Innovation

There’s a growing number of women in innovation making huge strides.  We’ve compiled a watchlist of 36 women in innovation who we believe will make a significant impact in 2019. Many of these incredible women in innovation are friends, but others are innovation leaders we hope to meet.

Inside Innovators

Inside innovators are women in innovation who work inside companies or are closely aligned to a corporation or organization in a consultative role.

Featured on Inside Outside Innovation Podcast / Summit / Event

Women in Innovation We Hope to Interview

  • Anne Wellington is Managing Director of Cedars-Sinai Accelerator, an organization that helps entrepreneurs bring their innovative technology products to market.
  • Nirali Shah is an innovation architect at Cisco HyperInnovation Living Labs (CHILL), a co-innovation catalyst for Cisco’s $12B Customer Experience business. They partner with large corporations to create an ecosystem approach to innovation.
  • Nicole Shepard is the Innovation Design Manager at Spotify in London, after serving in innovation roles at both Econic and Travelport. @shephardux

Outside Innovators

Outside innovators are women in innovation who serve as innovation consultants to both corporations and startups, in addition to providing thought leadership as authors.

Featured on Inside Outside Innovation Podcast

Featured at Inside Outside Innovation Summit

Women in Innovation We Hope to Interview

  • Beth Comstock is the author of Imagine it Forward, a book about summoning courage and creativity in the face of change.  She previously spent nearly three decades at GE, where she led efforts to accelerate new growth and innovation. She also served as President of Integrated Media at NBC Universal and as a director at Nike.  @bethcomstock
  • Aubrey Smith is founder of Sparked Advisory, a consultancy which uses the Lean Startup method to guide teams to rapid, data-driven, customer-centric decisions through validated learning.  She has also worked at Lean Startup Co, The Bionic Accelerator and GE. @AubreyatSparked
  • Heather E. McGowan  is the co-author of the book Disrupt Together: How Teams Consistently Innovate.  She is also a Transdisciplinarity Coach with The 4th Industrial Revolution.org, Co-founder, author and advisor with Work to Lean, and consultant with HE McGOWAN, where she works with forward-thinking clients in education and business to map strategies to address rapidly changing market conditions. @heathermcgowan
  • Sonja Kresojevic is co-founder of Spinnaker Co. and a Lean product innovation thought leader. She is also co-author of The Lean Product Lifecycle.  Most recently Sonja was SVP in the Chief Product Office at Pearson, leading the implementation of the Global Product Lifecycle. @sonjak18
  • Lital Marom is founder of  UNFOLD Media Group, a global consulting firm that helps executive teams integrate new growth strategies such as platform business model, digital ecosystem management and lean scale up. She also founded the Academy of Tomorrow with the mission to unlock human potential through programs that foster growth mindsets and creative skillsets to succeed in the future of work. @litalmarom

 

Venture Capitalists/Foundation/Government/University Innovators

Venture capitalist, foundation leaders, government innovators and university thought leaders are independent of serving specific corporations.  These women in innovation provide significant guidance to startups and corporate investors.

Featured on Inside Outside Innovation Podcast / Summit / Event

Women in Innovation We Hope to Interview

  • Jean Case is author of Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose. She is also Chairman of the National Geographic Society and CEO of the Case Foundation. Before starting the Foundation in 1997, Jean was a senior executive at America Online, Inc. where she directed the marketing and branding that helped establish AOL as a household utility. @jeancase
  • Molly Cain  is the Director of Venture at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Prior to this she served as the Executive Director of Tech Wildcatters. Molly is also the founder of Glass Heel and GH.Ventures, and writes a leadership column in Forbes that has generated over 10M views. @mollycain

 

Need More Innovation Insights?

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Connect with me!

Brian Ardinger is Director of Innovation at Nelnet and the founder of InsideOutside.io, makers of the weekly Inside Outside Innovation podcast, events, and community. For over 25 years, Brian has been helping entrepreneurs and enterprises navigate and compete in a world of change and disruption. He was the founder of NMotion (a seed-stage startup accelerator), CMO at Nanonation, head of research at Ion Global (a Hong Kong-headquartered technology firm), and senior consultant for Gartner in Asia. @ardinger

 

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