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  • Insights
        • Quizzes
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Fostering a culture of intrapreneurship for long-term success

Case studies, Innovation programs

Innovation programs   Kickbox program

Transforming innovation

The challenge

The global aerospace industry has been facing unprecedented challenges for many years. In the past emission reduction targets were driving demand for new, innovative, products, while country-specific problems like Brexit in the UK and the soaring cost of higher education programs in Germany were creating skills gaps where it’s difficult to attract and retain talented staff. Today, the landscape is shaped by various factors such as economic conditions, geopolitical tensions, technological advancements, and environmental concerns. Like the rest of the industry, one of our customers , a multinational aerospace corporation, is battling against these pressing issues, striving to foster a culture of innovation which will help it maintain its industry-leading position for the long term.                                           

Transforming innovation                      

The approach

The savviest firms realize that innovation can come from anywhere within a business, regardless of specialism or hierarchy. And, when a staff member met Verhaert Innovation Academy mentors at a conference in Copenhagen, this mindset was brought to bear for this organization. The company was initially skeptical – it had already undertaken an ‘out of the box’ innovation program and felt that the hands-off method had left the team without the guidance it needed. However, in Verhaert Academy, they saw a different approach – combining practical advice with ongoing mentoring. This company took a chance on the ambitious team member, agreeing to undertake our customizable Kickbox program. The innovation team, selected from across business disciplines, used this program to create disruptive ideas which they felt would support business growth and meet strategic objectives (particularly in the arena of sustainability). The twelve-week program saw the team rigorously test prototypes and improve the best ones, use customer feedback and testing to validate ideas and make further changes – and ultimately prepare fully tested concepts for pitch, and for further development.  

The stand-out benefit for us was that the entire process was supported by an expert mentor who was able to provide us guidance, challenge our team’s assumptions and corporate processes. The mentor also ensured the team was engaged and on track throughout these 12 weeks. 

Transforming innoavtion

The value

This Kickbox program has resulted in two concepts which meet the company’s stringent brief and are now ready to take to the next stage. But, on top of this immediate benefit, undertaking our program has created a group of pioneer ‘intrapreneurs’: employees with an entrepreneur mindset, who have the skills, knowledge and aptitude to foster a culture where innovation is encouraged and sought out – from anywhere in the business. Furthermore, we saw that the innovation teams who have undertaken this training were able to transfer knowledge across the business – combatting the trap that so many corporations fall into,  where expertise is siloed and where innovation sits apart from the rest of the organization. Ultimately, this first step in this customer’s journey with us has increased the likelihood of innovation success in the future and has paved the way for future initiatives.

 

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Tags: Corporate trainingInnovation programsKickbox program
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Verhaert Innovation Academy is part of Verhaert Masters in Innovation, a pioneering innovation group helping companies and entrepreneurs to innovate, creating new products, businesses and services.

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Jan Kennedy, Founder


Location: Munich
Speaks: English, German
Specialty: World of Corporate Entrepreneurship
Fact: Created 1 Billion Dollars of Value as Intrapreneur at Intel

Jan Kennedy is an expert for Intrapreneurship program design. As founder of Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship (AfCE) he overseaw the design and implementations of various Intrapreneurship Programs covering different stages of the Innovation Process for many Fortune 500 organisations. He is also a Director at the Founder Institute, the world’s largest mentoring program for early stage entrepreneurs launching over 1,000 companies per year with a 72% survival rate.

Born in Germany, grown up in the UK and lived and worked in Silicon Valley, Vienna, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Munich, Jan loved working with AfCE’s team of diverse global mentors. He can be found on stage at Intrapreneurship or Innovation Conferences or down in the trenches with corporate startup teams testing and validating critical assumptions. Jan also runs an investment fund focused on startups and crypto currencies.



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Narjeet Soni, Product Development Director


Location: Berlin
Speaks: English
Specialty: Agile Product Development

Narjeet is a a serial entrepreneur with his latest start-up valued at € 1.5 mil within 2 years. He is the founder and CEO of Lean Apps GmbH and acts as Head of Product Development at AfCE where he supports all of our participating teams with the AfCE Prototype Fund and Incubation Development Fund. He was also a Scrum Master at Infosys and Adidas.

Currently, he is focused on helping companies go through their Digital Transformation journey. Narjeet has been working with startups to learn, the ways of working that keep them agile and fast paced and has been implementing those learnings in the enterprise. He has successfully implemented Lean Innovation in Retail, Automotive and Insurance companies and has worked as an Agile Coach, Product Owner, Project Manager and Business Consultant as well as a Software Engineer at various Retail and Telecom customers.



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Aernout van Heusden, Business Development Director


Location: Madrid
Speaks: English, Spanish, Dutch, German
Specialty: Business Development
Fact: Been living and working outside the Netherlands for more than 25 years

Dutch born and a Spanish resident since 1999, with a wealth of experience in International Business Development & Sales within various industries and (mainly EMEA) countries. Senior background as entrepreneur, director, and as independent consultant having done projects (70% of those relating to Business Development and Sales) with start-ups till established multinationals.

Networker, public speaker, tech (SaaS, PaaS, Mobile, AR, Smart City) savvy, structured and loves working on solving company pain points.



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Maria Isabel Becerra-Noll, Finance Manager


Location: Munich, Germany
Speaks: English, Spanish, German, French
Specialty: Finance manager
Fact: Worked for the company that produced the Netflix series “Narcos”

Maria Isabel has more than 10 years of experience as Financial Analyst and Business Development Manager in a wide variety of industries. She is originally from Colombia, where she was born and raised. She has lived in Paris, Boston and now Germany. Maria Isabel holds an MBA from Babson College, the number one school for Entrepreneurship in the world.

Before moving to Germany in July, 2018, Maria Isabel worked in Bogota as Business Development Manager for the world’s largest infrastructure company, VINCI. In this role she was responsible of searching new concession projects and leading Due Diligence processes to acquire new concessions. Before this she worked for another infrastructure company, as well as a film production company and a marketing agency.

Maria Isabel is passionate about finance and numbers, enjoys working in teams and seeing the results of hard work.



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Stijn Smet, Managing Director


Location: Antwerp (BE)
Speaks: English, Dutch
Specialty: Innovation strategy and program design
Fact: Performed live on stage in front of 30.000 people

Stijn is an expert in innovation strategy & management. He consults various R&D and C-suite leaders in designing their innovation program and underlying governance structures. As the Managing Director at AfCE, Stijn can build on his pragmatic experience of heading corporate accelerator programs at Fortune500 clients.

With over 12 years of experience in innovation consulting, he has been leading Verhaert’s business innovation team where organizations and intrapreneurs were supported in developing their breakthrough products and services, from ideation all the way to market launch.

Stijn is a regular speaker at innovation conferences and co-authored the book Building Tomorrow, a pragmatic and systematic approach to tackling innovation challenges in the public sector.



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