Thought Leaders

INNOVATE™ Stockholm

RASMUS RAHM

PHD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STOCKHOLM SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Sweden has a global reputation for entrepreneurship. We’re a small country, but we’ve produced our fair share of global companies and ideas. People ask ”why?”, seemingly expecting a secret (?) formula. I don’t think there is one. What there is – however – is a lot of trial and error,...

INNOVATE™ Bristol & Bath

Professor Hugh Brady

Professor Hugh Brady

Vice-Chancellor And President, University Of Bristol

Innovation is the application of creative solutions to real-world problems – a basic maxim, and one that perhaps obscures the more complex processes that underpin its subject. In reality, innovation can require patient investment in both fundamental and applied research, cross-discipline and cross-sector collaboration, risk-taking, iteration, trust, vision and civic...

INNOVATE® Tampa Bay Vol.3

Tom Wallace

Tom Wallace – Managing Partner for Florida Funders

Managing Partner for Florida Funders

Early-stage innovation and technology companies are one of the best investment opportunities available today. Florida is at the forefront of a blooming technology landscape and Florida Funders, a hybrid of a venture capital fund and crowd-funding platform that invests in emerging trends, has a passion for growing the next generation...

INNOVATE™ Adelaide

ELOISE HALL

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, TABOO PERIOD PRODUCTS

We all enter this world the same, screaming, and naked, as human as each other and as deserving of the same freedoms and rights as the next tiny infant. Unfortunately, people’s access to human rights isn’t as simple as that. It’s dependent on the family you were born into, the...

INNOVATE® Tampa Bay Vol.3

Judy Genshaft

Judy Genshaft - All Great Cities Have Great Research Universities

President, USF System

As the state’s first public research university to be located in a metropolitan region, the University of South Florida System has always been proud of its relationship with the Tampa Bay community we serve.We live in an era when the public increasingly depends on research universities to be a key...

INNOVATE™ Stockholm

JOHAN WEIGELT

CEO, KI INNOVATIONS

At KI Innovations, we bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and tangible impact, ensuring that groundbreaking discoveries from Karolinska Institutet (KI) reach patients, healthcare systems, and society at large. With a deep-rooted foundation in one of the world’s leading medical universities, we are committed to fostering a thriving ecosystem where...

INNOVATE® Phoenix

Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan

Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan

Executive VP and Chief Research and Innovation Officer - ASU

Introduction Perspective on InnovationInnovation is not limited to creating new products or starting new companies. It is a spirit and a mindset that permeates everything that we do. The most intractable challenges we face are not going to be solved by doing what we’ve always done. It is important to...

INNOVATE® Tampa Bay Vol.3

COL (RET) STU BRADIN

COL (RET) STU BRADIN

GLOBAL SOF FOUNDATION

As I approached my retirement from U.S. Special Operations Command in 2014, I decided to keep serving my nation and the wider Special Operations community through the formation of a new professional SOF association – the Global SOF Foundation (GSF). Since 9/11 U.S. special operations forces (SOF) had over doubled...

INNOVATE® Jacksonville

Peoplr - Amy McGeorge

Amy McGeorge is the founder and managing partner of Peoplr, a global firm of human resources experts who deliver excellent consulting services that drive business results. McGeorge has more than a decade of experience in executive search and 25+ years’ experience leading HR consulting engagements for large companies like Best...

INNOVATE™ Oeiras

Carlos Guillén Gestoso

Carlos Guillén Gestoso

President And Professor Of Atlântica - Instituto Universitário

It requires an effective link between the university and the business sector, which encourages higher education institutions to train professionals and what the labour market demands, in order to encourage companies to invest in research and development as a strategic activity to incorporate knowledge and progress. We understand that the...

INNOVATE™ Atlantic Canada

SARAH COREY HOLLOHAN, CEO, IGNITE

CEO - IGNITE

Innovation thrives where diverse perspectives intersect—what I like to call “collision points.” Whether it’s the synergy between rural and urban communities, new entrepreneurs exchanging ideas with seasoned business owners, or students immersing themselves into the local business ecosystem, these intersections spark creativity, growth, and resilience. As someone deeply committed to...

INNOVATE® Chicago Vol.1

FRANCISCO PEDRO PRESAS PINTO DE BALSEMÃO

CEO OF IMPRESA

I was born in 1980, I’m married and a proud father of three young children. I joined Impresa in 2009 and became CEO in 2016. My background is in Law (Lisbon and Oxford) and I undertook several international post-grad management courses. I also had a brief spell at the Portuguese...

Angela Renick

Angela Renick

Owner - A`Vie Events

Angela Renick Owner – A`Vie Events Angela Renick has been planning events in Gainesville for 30 years. She began in 1996 with a part-time wedding coordination business, which has continued to expand over the years. She has planned many events along the way during these years. In 2005, she opened...

INNOVATE™ Adelaide

SIMONE DOUGLAS

CEO, DIGITAL MARKETING AOK

We are seeing a surge in creativity as businesses look for new and innovative ways to stay afloat and emerge from this crisis successfully. Now more than ever your social capital counts. Today’s social climate encourages people to support local small businesses, creating a sense of community among us all....

VOICES of the Future

ERIK ANDERSON

BLUEPRINT FOR A COMPASSIONATE FUTURE

Innovation, purpose, and sustainability intertwine to sketch the silhouette of tomorrow. Erik Anderson – a distinguished entrepreneur and executive renowned for his leadership across various sectors – stands at the vanguard, a guiding light illuminating the path to a future replete with promise and potential. His story of purpose-driven leadership...

INNOVATE™ Stockholm

AMIR ELION

THINK BIG LEADERS - CEO, INNOVATION AND AI ADVISOR, SPEAKER

Many years ago, when I was facilitating internal innovation workshops at Motorola, word got out, and executives would ask me to run “The Innovation Workshop” for their teams. I told them that I don’t have an innovation workshop, and that they should tell me what they aiming to achieve, and...

INNOVATE™ Montréal

Alan MacIntosh

Alan MacIntosh

Partner, Real Ventures Chairman, OSMO Foundation

The Future Starts Here An entrepreneurial endeavor of consequence is provocatively described as the pursuit of an opportunity beyond the resources you currently control combined with challenges you have yet to imagine. Ten years ago when the Notman Project was conceived, it had many such hallmarks from the discouraging skeptics...

INNOVATE™ Vancouver Vol.2

Kookai Chaimahawong

Associate

Kookai Chaimahawong Associate “IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO BUILD GREAT COMPANIES, ESPECIALLY IN HARD TECH. VANCOUVER IS THE VILLAGE WITH A WORLD-CLASS PARTNER ECOSYSTEM THAT ARE HUNGRY TO SEE FOUNDERS AND STARTUP COMPANIES SUCCEED”. – KOOKAI CHAIMAHAWONG, ASSOCIATE I moved to Vancouver in 2017 to pursue my Master of Business...

INNOVATE™ Flanders

KOEN KENNIS

ANTWERP VICE MAYOR FOR MOBILITY

Antwerp is a city in full change, once again, as it has been so many times over the past centuries. Now it is mobility shaping the future of the city, in the form of the Oosterweel works. For about two decades the plans for the completion of the ring road...

INNOVATE™ Ottawa

Jim Stackhouse

Jim Stackhouse

Founder & CEO - Neolore Networks Inc.

AN EXERCISE IN INNOVATION AND DEMONSTRATING VALUE. The digital landscape of IT Support is forever changing. Just five years ago, the ways IT Managed Service Providers (MSPs) supported their clients is totally different than today. As more companies turn to MSPs for outsourced IT Support and Cloud services, the value...

INNOVATE™ Adelaide

The Hon Peter Malinauskas

Premier of South Australia

They’re all inventions which changed the face of the world. They’re all examples of original and innovative thinking. And they all began as sparks of brilliance in the minds of South Australians. From Sir Howard Florey’s insights into the properties of penicillin and Lancelot de Mole’s development of caterpillar tracks,...

INNOVATE™ Adelaide

NICK ADDISON

CEO, ADELAIDE OVAL STADIUM MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY

Whether in technology, the cost of goods and wages, contracts, regulatory variations, social and environmental change – the list is endless. However, in my opinion, changes in expectations is the most important dynamic. A business staying abreast of things on paper but deaf to a shift in mood from its...

INNOVATE® St. Louis

John G. Gatewood

CFP®, CLU®, President & Founder - Gatewood Wealth Management

When his military pension wasn’t enough to support our family, my father went into life insurance. He realized no one was coordinating all of the separate aspects of families’ financial planning. The Glass Steagall Act was still in effect, and it kept all financial companies separate; insurance was separate from...

INNOVATE™ Oeiras

WYGROUP

WYGROUP - Shaped by curiosity

SHAPED BY CURIOSITY

For the last 20 years, WYgroup has been one of the top leading players in digital marketing, technology, and creativity services in Portugal. We are currently the largest independent group for Marketing and Customer Experience Services in Portugal, with a collaborative framework of 7 companies that – together – can...

RASMUS RAHM

PHD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR STOCKHOLM SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Sweden has a global reputation for entrepreneurship. We’re a small country, but we’ve produced our fair share of global companies and ideas. People ask ”why?”, seemingly expecting a secret (?) formula. I don’t think there is one. What there is – however – is a lot of trial and error,...

Professor Hugh Brady

Professor Hugh Brady

Vice-Chancellor And President, University Of Bristol

Innovation is the application of creative solutions to real-world problems – a basic maxim, and one that perhaps obscures the more complex processes that underpin its subject. In reality, innovation can require patient investment in both fundamental and applied research, cross-discipline and cross-sector collaboration, risk-taking, iteration, trust, vision and civic...

Tom Wallace

Tom Wallace – Managing Partner for Florida Funders

Managing Partner for Florida Funders

Early-stage innovation and technology companies are one of the best investment opportunities available today. Florida is at the forefront of a blooming technology landscape and Florida Funders, a hybrid of a venture capital fund and crowd-funding platform that invests in emerging trends, has a passion for growing the next generation...

ELOISE HALL

MANAGING DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER, TABOO PERIOD PRODUCTS

We all enter this world the same, screaming, and naked, as human as each other and as deserving of the same freedoms and rights as the next tiny infant. Unfortunately, people’s access to human rights isn’t as simple as that. It’s dependent on the family you were born into, the...

Judy Genshaft

Judy Genshaft - All Great Cities Have Great Research Universities

President, USF System

As the state’s first public research university to be located in a metropolitan region, the University of South Florida System has always been proud of its relationship with the Tampa Bay community we serve.We live in an era when the public increasingly depends on research universities to be a key...

JOHAN WEIGELT

CEO, KI INNOVATIONS

At KI Innovations, we bridge the gap between cutting-edge research and tangible impact, ensuring that groundbreaking discoveries from Karolinska Institutet (KI) reach patients, healthcare systems, and society at large. With a deep-rooted foundation in one of the world’s leading medical universities, we are committed to fostering a thriving ecosystem where...

Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan

Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan

Executive VP and Chief Research and Innovation Officer - ASU

Introduction Perspective on InnovationInnovation is not limited to creating new products or starting new companies. It is a spirit and a mindset that permeates everything that we do. The most intractable challenges we face are not going to be solved by doing what we’ve always done. It is important to...

COL (RET) STU BRADIN

COL (RET) STU BRADIN

GLOBAL SOF FOUNDATION

As I approached my retirement from U.S. Special Operations Command in 2014, I decided to keep serving my nation and the wider Special Operations community through the formation of a new professional SOF association – the Global SOF Foundation (GSF). Since 9/11 U.S. special operations forces (SOF) had over doubled...

Peoplr - Amy McGeorge

Amy McGeorge is the founder and managing partner of Peoplr, a global firm of human resources experts who deliver excellent consulting services that drive business results. McGeorge has more than a decade of experience in executive search and 25+ years’ experience leading HR consulting engagements for large companies like Best...

Carlos Guillén Gestoso

Carlos Guillén Gestoso

President And Professor Of Atlântica - Instituto Universitário

It requires an effective link between the university and the business sector, which encourages higher education institutions to train professionals and what the labour market demands, in order to encourage companies to invest in research and development as a strategic activity to incorporate knowledge and progress. We understand that the...

SARAH COREY HOLLOHAN, CEO, IGNITE

CEO - IGNITE

Innovation thrives where diverse perspectives intersect—what I like to call “collision points.” Whether it’s the synergy between rural and urban communities, new entrepreneurs exchanging ideas with seasoned business owners, or students immersing themselves into the local business ecosystem, these intersections spark creativity, growth, and resilience. As someone deeply committed to...

FRANCISCO PEDRO PRESAS PINTO DE BALSEMÃO

CEO OF IMPRESA

I was born in 1980, I’m married and a proud father of three young children. I joined Impresa in 2009 and became CEO in 2016. My background is in Law (Lisbon and Oxford) and I undertook several international post-grad management courses. I also had a brief spell at the Portuguese...

Angela Renick

Angela Renick

Owner - A`Vie Events

Angela Renick Owner – A`Vie Events Angela Renick has been planning events in Gainesville for 30 years. She began in 1996 with a part-time wedding coordination business, which has continued to expand over the years. She has planned many events along the way during these years. In 2005, she opened...

SIMONE DOUGLAS

CEO, DIGITAL MARKETING AOK

We are seeing a surge in creativity as businesses look for new and innovative ways to stay afloat and emerge from this crisis successfully. Now more than ever your social capital counts. Today’s social climate encourages people to support local small businesses, creating a sense of community among us all....

ERIK ANDERSON

BLUEPRINT FOR A COMPASSIONATE FUTURE

Innovation, purpose, and sustainability intertwine to sketch the silhouette of tomorrow. Erik Anderson – a distinguished entrepreneur and executive renowned for his leadership across various sectors – stands at the vanguard, a guiding light illuminating the path to a future replete with promise and potential. His story of purpose-driven leadership...

AMIR ELION

THINK BIG LEADERS - CEO, INNOVATION AND AI ADVISOR, SPEAKER

Many years ago, when I was facilitating internal innovation workshops at Motorola, word got out, and executives would ask me to run “The Innovation Workshop” for their teams. I told them that I don’t have an innovation workshop, and that they should tell me what they aiming to achieve, and...

Alan MacIntosh

Alan MacIntosh

Partner, Real Ventures Chairman, OSMO Foundation

The Future Starts Here An entrepreneurial endeavor of consequence is provocatively described as the pursuit of an opportunity beyond the resources you currently control combined with challenges you have yet to imagine. Ten years ago when the Notman Project was conceived, it had many such hallmarks from the discouraging skeptics...

Kookai Chaimahawong

Associate

Kookai Chaimahawong Associate “IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO BUILD GREAT COMPANIES, ESPECIALLY IN HARD TECH. VANCOUVER IS THE VILLAGE WITH A WORLD-CLASS PARTNER ECOSYSTEM THAT ARE HUNGRY TO SEE FOUNDERS AND STARTUP COMPANIES SUCCEED”. – KOOKAI CHAIMAHAWONG, ASSOCIATE I moved to Vancouver in 2017 to pursue my Master of Business...

KOEN KENNIS

ANTWERP VICE MAYOR FOR MOBILITY

Antwerp is a city in full change, once again, as it has been so many times over the past centuries. Now it is mobility shaping the future of the city, in the form of the Oosterweel works. For about two decades the plans for the completion of the ring road...

Jim Stackhouse

Jim Stackhouse

Founder & CEO - Neolore Networks Inc.

AN EXERCISE IN INNOVATION AND DEMONSTRATING VALUE. The digital landscape of IT Support is forever changing. Just five years ago, the ways IT Managed Service Providers (MSPs) supported their clients is totally different than today. As more companies turn to MSPs for outsourced IT Support and Cloud services, the value...

The Hon Peter Malinauskas

Premier of South Australia

They’re all inventions which changed the face of the world. They’re all examples of original and innovative thinking. And they all began as sparks of brilliance in the minds of South Australians. From Sir Howard Florey’s insights into the properties of penicillin and Lancelot de Mole’s development of caterpillar tracks,...

NICK ADDISON

CEO, ADELAIDE OVAL STADIUM MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY

Whether in technology, the cost of goods and wages, contracts, regulatory variations, social and environmental change – the list is endless. However, in my opinion, changes in expectations is the most important dynamic. A business staying abreast of things on paper but deaf to a shift in mood from its...

John G. Gatewood

CFP®, CLU®, President & Founder - Gatewood Wealth Management

When his military pension wasn’t enough to support our family, my father went into life insurance. He realized no one was coordinating all of the separate aspects of families’ financial planning. The Glass Steagall Act was still in effect, and it kept all financial companies separate; insurance was separate from...

WYGROUP

WYGROUP - Shaped by curiosity

SHAPED BY CURIOSITY

For the last 20 years, WYgroup has been one of the top leading players in digital marketing, technology, and creativity services in Portugal. We are currently the largest independent group for Marketing and Customer Experience Services in Portugal, with a collaborative framework of 7 companies that – together – can...

INNOVATE® Ecosystems