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5th International Symposium on Corporate, Policy & Wicked Acceleration

  • Thursday and Friday | 26th and 27th June, 2025.
  • Science Museum & Imperial College London, South Kensington
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Agenda and Speakers for the 2025 Symposium

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Interested in a complimentary ticket? Tell us who you are and why you want to attend

Our
speakers

 

C-Level executives, Corporate Innovation managers, R&D Chiefs, Venture Builders, Accelerator Managers and Founders, Open Innovation Experts and Leading Academics

Hugh Brady

Imperial President

Peter Todd

Dean of Imperial Business School

Steve Blank

Former Serial Entrepreneur, Godfather of Lean Startup & Adjunct Professor at Stanford

Alexander Osterwalder

CEO & Founder of Strategyzer

Tanja Kufner

Head of Ventures and Startups at Nemetschek Group

Cristobal Garcia

Imperial & Wicked Labs

Erkko Autio

Imperial & Wicked Labs​

Nicolás Rebolledo

RCA & Wicked Labs

Mike Pinder

Wicked Labs

Markus Perkmann

Imperial College Business School

Pru Ashby

London & Partners

Tanya Filer

Founder & CEO of StateUp

Andres Velasco

Dean, LSE School of Public Policy

Charlie Paton

Founder of Seawater Greenhouse

Chris Wise

Expedition Engineering & Commissioner of the 1851

Sharon Tal-Itzkovitch

Market Opportunity Navigator

Susana Jurado Apruzzese

Telefonica

Inma Martinez

Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence

Nick de Leon

RCA & Wicked Labs​

Peter Neufeld

Head of Customer, Innovation & Experience Design | EMEIA | FSO | EY Studio+

Suraj Vadgama

Nesta

Michael Nichols

Man-Hummer

Uwe Kirschner

Bosch

Angelie Moledina

Chief Impact & Operations Officer

Alyssa Gilbert

Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute

Sanjan Sabherwal

Head of Policy Design, Government of UK

Ellie Lusty

EY Seren

Federico Vaz

Royal College Of Art

Marc Gruber

EPFL

Hugo Spowers

MD of Riversimple

Dr Simon Hepworth

Director of Knowledge Exchange at Research England

Anna Tsiganchuk

Aleta Index

DAN TOMA

Innovation thought leader

Event Schedule

DAY ONE

8:00 am to 9:00 am

Registration at main entrance of Imperial College London (entrance via Exhibition Road)

9:00 AM - 9:15 AM

Welcome Remarks

Hugh Brady and Prof. Markus Perkmann

9:15 AM - 9:30 AM

Overview of the 2-day Wicked Symposium

Dr. Cristobal Garcia-Herrera and Prof. Erkko Autio

9:30 AM - 10:30 AM

How to Enable Resilience, Adaptation and Collaboration in a Wicked World

Dr. Inma Martinez & Dr. Peter Gloor

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM

Networking Break

Uwe Kirschner, Susana Jurado, Tram Trinh, Francesca Dean & Prof. Markus Perkmann

11:00 AM - 11:45 AM

What’s New Under the Sun in Corporate Venturing and Venture Building?

Dr. Uwe Kirschner, Susana Jurado, Tanja Kufner & Michael Nichols

11:45 AM - 12:00 PM

Coffee Break

Michael Nichols, Dan Kolodziej, Sylvia Stojilkovic, Tom Thompson, Tanja Kufner & Dr. Cristobal Garcia-Herrera

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Towards a Net Zero Society: Accelerating our Collective Path

Charlie Paton, Chris Wise & Pru Ashby

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Networking Lunch

2:00 PM - 2:45 PM

On Deep Tech Acceleration

Marc Gruber, Prof. Markus Perkmann, Sharon Tal Itzkovitch & Anna Tsiganchuk

2:45 PM - 3:30 PM

Surfing the waves of AI and Machine Learning

Inma Martinez, Steve Blank, Peter Neufeld & Erkko Autio

3:30 PM - 3:45 PM

Break

3:45 PM - 4:45 PM

Orchestrating Ecosystems and Sustaining Missions

Sanjan Sabherwal Suraj Vadgama, Ellie Lusty & Dr. Nicolas Rebolledo Bustamante

4:45 PM - 5:00 PM

Networking Break

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM

Fireside Chat with Innovation Pioneers : Steve Blank and Alexander Osterwalder

Alexander Osterwalder & Steve Blank

6:00 PM

Networking Drinks

18:00 pm GMT

Fire Fireside Chat: How Do We Get Corporate Acceleration and Digital Transformation Beyond “Innovation Theatre”

Steve Blank & Dr. Cristobal Garcia-Herrera

18:45 pm GMT

Closing Remarks: What Did We Learn, Call for Action and Next Steps

Dr. Cristobal Garcia-Herrera, Dr. Myrna Flores & Prof. Markus Perkmann

19:00 pm GMT

Networking, Drinks, & Reception

DAY TWO - INNOVATION TRACK

9:15 AM - 9:30 AM

Introduction

Dr. Cristobal Garcia Herrera

9:30 AM - 10:25 AM

Masterclass: Scaling Corporate Innovation from the Inside-Out

Dr.Uwe Kirschner

10:25 AM - 10:30 AM

Bio Break

10:30 AM - 11:30 AM

Masterclass: Venture Building as Corporate Innovation Strategy

Susana Jurado

11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Workshop: Finding the Sweet Spot: Market Opportunity & Innovation- (Part 1)

Marc Gruber, Sharon Tal-Itzkovitch

12:30 PM - 1:00 PM

Lunch Break

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Workshop: Finding the Sweet Spot: Market Opportunity & Innovation - (Part 2)

Marc Gruber, Sharon Tal-Itzkovitch

2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Masterclass: Implementing Lean with Purpose

Steve Blank

DAY TWO - POLICY TRACK

9:30 AM - 9:40 AM

Welcome & Introduction

Mike Pinder & Cristobal Garcia Herrera

9:40 AM - 10:40 AM

Workshop by the Royal College of Art (A): Future of Justice Systems

Federico Vaz

10:40 AM - 10:55 AM

Break

10:55 AM - 11:55 AM

Workshop by the Royal College of Art (B): Future of Justice Systems

Federico Vaz

1:00 PM - 1:55 PM

Systems Innovation Keynote by Joss Colchester, Founder SI Network

Joss Colchester

1:55 PM - 2:00 PM

Final thoughts + Closing

Mike Pinder

    Are you looking for answers, best practices and tools for Impact Venturing, Policy Transformation and Wicked Acceleration?
    Are you interested in any of the following questions and themes:

    • How does the world look like for corporate innovation during the ongoing AI revolution, geopolitical tensions and unstable economic scenarios?

    • What are the lessons learned from recent experiments in corporate acceleration, venture building and digital transformation in both established and nascent industries?

    • How do we get corporate accelerators, open innovation, and moonshot initiatives to achieve impact beyond the “innovation theatre”?

    • In times of Grand Challenges (climate change, geopolitical tensions, inflation, plastic pollution, energy transition), How might innovators in corporations, universities and policy use wicked acceleration tools to address such Grand Challenges?

    • How do we ensure sustainable digital transformation at the firm, value chain, and ecosystem levels?

    • How might we leverage Generative AI to enable and sustain corporate, digital & wicked acceleration initiatives

    Join us to learn about these and share best practices at the upcoming 2025 5th International International Symposium next 26 and 27 June at Imperial College London

    Contact us

    Imperial College Business School
    South Kensington Campus,
    London SW7 2AZ, UK

    +44 (0)20 7594 5926

    corpacceleration@imperial.ac.uk

    Interested in a complimentary ticket? Tell us who you are and why you want to attend:

    Mare Straetmans

    Founder Platform Zero

    Mare Straetmans has been activite in the sectors of maritime, energy and ports for more than a decade and focuses on making impact with entrepreneurship, corporate innovation and venturing. He is currently founder of the Platform Zero Climate & Energy Campus in Rotterdam (www.platformzero.co), where acceleration of innovation with corporates, startups and research happens in the field of hydrogen, emissions reduction, energy storage and ocean health.

    In the past he has been responsible for setting up both the Ocean Health business unit (https://www.linkedin.com/company/oceanhealth/) and the Digital Transformation at Van Oord (maritime, offshore wind corporate: www.vanoord.com), setting up innovation at the Port of Rotterdam Authority (www.portofrotterdam.com) setting up a maritime Venture Capital fund. Mare also was the founder and managing director of PortXL (www.portxl.org), the first maritime startup accelerator worldwide, building the company in Rotterdam, Singapore and Antwerp

    Tanja Kufner

    Tanja is passionate about helping entrepreneurs establish, grow, and scale their startups and has been an active investor in over 80 Startups since 1998 across various stages.

    After working for various Funds and Family Offices, she also co-founded and ran Wayra and Startupbootcamp Smart Transportation and Energy, where she helped clients such as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Airbus, Cisco, here, Vinci, Kühne + Nagel, SBB, EnBW, Telefónica, Siemens Mobile, and DB on their innovation journeys.

    Tanja is recognized annually, since 2016 and by EU-Startups, as one of the top 50 most influential women in VC and Startups in Europe and is also an expert advisor to the European Commission fund.
    Tanja joined the Nemetschek Group in 2021 and is responsible for Ventures and Startup Investments.

    Steve Blank

    Author, Former Serial Entrepreneur and Adjunct Professor at Stanford, Berkeley & Columbia and Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School

    Steve Blank has led one heck of an interesting life. He’s had three careers: First, in the U.S. Air Force for four years during the Vietnam War. Next, as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in 8 startups in two decades (with four IPOs). Currently as an academic teaching at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and NYU.

    Steve is the father of Modern Entrepreneurship. He has changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught worldwide; how science is commercialised in the U.S.; and how companies and the government innovate.

    Cristobal Garcia-Herrera, PhD

    Dr. Cristobal Garcia is a Senior Teaching Fellow, Researcher and Co-Founder of the Wicked Acceleration Labs at Imperial College Business School’s Management and Entrepreneurship Department. Cristobal conducts research on different modalities of acceleration such as corporate innovation, start-up scaling, ecosystem building, moonshot, and wicked acceleration, including frameworks and tools to orient practice. He has advised companies across the globe on new strategies, practices and processes for corporate innovation, industrial acceleration, and entrepreneurial engagement.

    Cristobal has published articles on Organizational Networks, Creative Spaces for Innovation and Corporate Acceleration as well as a Book on Lean Entrepreneurship Education. Cristobal has been the founder of three start-ups in the Smart City, EdTech and Data Analytics domains as well as of Jump Chile, one of the largest business model accelerators in Higher Education worldwide. Previously, he also advised Fortune 100 companies on change and innovation management as a Senior Consultant at PwC in New York City. Cristobal has held Faculty positions at Pontificia Universidad Catolica of Chile and Columbia University, and has been a Visiting Scholar at Delft University of Technology, the Royal College of Art (RCA), at the MIT Media Lab and at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP). Cristobal is a social scientist with an MSc from MIT and a PhD in Design Engineering from Imperial College London. Cristobal is a frequent speaker, corporate advisor, start-up coach, investor and academic intrapreneur who looks across boundaries and network to connect the glocal dots.

    Leyre Madariaga Gangoiti

    Director for Digital Transformation and Entrepreneurship at Basque Government

    Leyre Madariaga is Bachelor of Economics and Business Sciences in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration – Deusto Business School (Spain), and Master in European Studies in the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium).
    A great part of her professional experience has been directed towards International Relations and Foreign Trade, and especially those with high technological components. She started working for IDOM, an engineering and consultancy Basque company, as Responsible for Multilateral Projects and Director of the Office in Romania. From 2005 to 2009 she was the Deputy Chairman of SPRI, the Development Regional Agency of the Basque Country, belonging to the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism of the Basque Government.
    Since 2010, she was the International Development Director in Tecnalia Research & Innovation (Tecnalia for short), the biggest private technology centre of Spain and the fifth in Europe. This technology centre is a Spanish and European reference in scientific and technological research, through the generation of more efficient, profitable and competitive solutions that improves business opportunities for its customers.
    In January 2013 she was appointed Director for Foreign Affairs at the Basque Government President’s Office. Since October 2020 she is the Director for Digital Transformation and Entrepreneurship at the Basque Government and head of BIND 4.0 Open Innovation Platform.

    Erkko Autio

    Erkko Autio, FBA, is Chair in Technology Venturing at Imperial College Business School and one of the co-founders of Wicked Acceleration Labs. He is a globally leading authority on digital entrepreneurial ecosystems, digital innovation ecosystems, and comparative entrepreneurship.

    He has been cited in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Fortune, MSNBC, and in some 400-500 news media globally and close to 50 000 academic publications. He has worked widely with industry and government in Europe, Asia and South America. He has been recognised as one of the top 50 most impactful management scholars globally (Aguinis et al, 2012).

    Nicolás Rebolledo

    Rebolledo is a service and strategic designer based in London. His academic and professional practice is concerned with the development and implementation of design-led service innovation processes. An architect from the Catholic University of Chile, he holds an MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship from University College London (UCL) and a PhD in Service Design from the Royal College of Art, Nicolas is one of the co-founders of Wicked Acceleration Labs, a joint initiative between Imperial and RCA.

    He is the co-founder of UNIT, the strategic and service design unit behind the inception and first innovation strategy of the Laboratorio de Gobierno de Chile. He is Tutor in Service Design, Policy Platform Leader and Deputy Director of the AlphaRCA Studio-Lab at the Royal College of Art, a research partnership with Telefonica Alpha Health, looking at the use of AI and digital service platforms in the fields of happiness, mental health and wellbeing.

    He has been teaching fellow at UCL School of Management and visiting lecturer for executive education at Imperial College Business School. He also works as an independent consultant for a diverse range of start-ups, private companies, charities, public institutions and international organisations such as IDB, OECD, British Council, VISA and Amazon.

    Mike Pinder

    Co-Founder Wicked Acceleration Labs

    Mike Pinder is an expert on innovation who leads Explorer Labs. He is also one of the co-founders of Wicked Acceleration Labs. As former Expertise Lead at Board of Innovation, he consults cross-industry in B2B & B2C helping Fortune 500’s to innovate like start-ups. He applies a multi-disciplinary background spanning design, business & innovation management through hands-on consulting, training & facilitation of tailored innovation programmes. He regularly authors thought leadership pieces and gives international keynotes and lectures on innovation. Mike guides innovation strategy, designs and runs corporate accelerator’s, builds long-term cultural transformation programs and grows strategic innovation partnerships with corporates like: GE, World Economic Forum, AstraZeneca, Logitech, ING Bank, Fazer, ABInBev, Atos, Zeppelin Foundation and many others.

    For more info visit: https://www.mikepinder.co.uk.

    Markus Perkmann

    Professor Markus Perkmann is Vice-Dean (Research & Faculty) of Imperial College Business School and academic director of the Imperial Enterprise Lab. He also curates the Entrepreneurial Journey, Imperial College Business School’s experiential start-up programme across all on-site MBA programmes.

    He has published widely on subjects including the business of science, science-driven entrepreneurship and university-industry collaboration.

    Previously, he was head of innovation and strategy at technology start-up company Greychip

    Arnie Sriskandarajah

    Arnie Sriskandarajah is a multifaceted leader with a diverse range of experiences in the real estate and technology sectors. Arnie is the founding MD at Round Hill Ventures (RHV), an ealry stage VC fund focussed on the Built Environment; where he is responsible investment strategy and portfolio growth.

    With an impressive background, Arnie has established himself as a prominent figure in the tech and real estate industries. He has built corporate venture arms for major FTSE-listed companies like Capital & Counties (now Shaftesbury Capital) and has held senior executive positions at Bloomsbury AI (acq. Meta Inc) and Rocket Internet’s HelloFresh (IPO/DAX 40). He was also a key player in the success of The Collective, which raised over $400m in debt and equity financing.

    Arnie’s achievements have not gone unnoticed. He was recognized in Forbes 30Under30 in 2016 and was named one of Wired’s 100 Most Influential People in Technology. In addition to his professional accomplishments, he is an active angel investor in US & European startups (Cera Care, Lapse, Minimum Eco, Malloc Inc etc) and has advised the European Commission’s Startup Europe initiative.

    Arnie is a graduate of Imperial College London, where he developed a passion for deep science, technology, and human behavior. With a keen interest in the intersection of these fields, Arnie remains committed to driving innovation and change in the industry.

    Anis Nassar

    Lead, Resource Circularity, World Economic Forum

    Anis Nassar is a seasoned sustainability and international affairs economist with experience in the private, academic, and international organizations sectors. Anis started his career in brand management in the fast-moving consumer goods industry. At Procter & Gamble he led the global design of marketing strategies for Gillette Mach3 a multi-billion-dollar brand. He also managed 50 markets for Braun, spanning from Latin America to Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and ASEAN. Anis then pursued a PhD in Economics at the University of Fribourg, publishing peer-reviewed research on private innovation and public policies designed to safeguard our environment. Anis is now bringing this academic and private perspective to lead the Circular Economy activities of the World Economic Forum.

    Nick de Leon

    Executive Education and Knowldge Exchange Lead, School of Design, Royal College of Art (RCA)
    Co-Founder Wicked Acceleration Labs

    Nick is Executive Education and Knowledge Exchange Lead in the School of Design, where he leads the development of the School’s research and knowledge exchange relations.
    Nick received his PhD from Imperial College Business School, where his research addressed the impact of information and communication technologies on the social and economic vitality of cities. Nick has an engineering degree from Imperial College and a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the Royal College of Art.
    He began his career as an industrial designer at IBM, moving from designing products then services, through to developing entire new businesses in his role as Business Development Director for IBM’s Global Services division in Europe. He led the NESTA-funded joint venture between the RCA and Imperial College London, Design London, as director from 2007 to 2011.

    Paola Criscuolo

    Professor of Innovation Management and Head of the Management and Entrepreneurship Department, Imperial College Business School.

    Professor Criscuolo’s research focuses on the transfer of knowledge across both individuals and firms, on open innovation and on the strategic use of patents. Her research has been published in international academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science and Research Policy, and in practitioner journals such as California Management Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. She teaches innovation management and advises companies in these areas.

    Peter A. Gloor

    Peter A. Gloor is a Research Scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he leads a twenty-year project exploring Collaborative Innovation Networks, wellbeing and happiness. He is also Founder and Chief Creative Officer of software company galaxyadvisors, and Honorary Professor at University of Cologne, and at Jilin University, Changchun, China. He also taught at Universidad Cattolica in Santiago de Chile, Aalto University Helsinki, University of Rome Tor Vergata, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) and University of Applied Sciences Lucerne (HSLU). Earlier he was a partner with PwC and Deloitte, where he was head of eBusiness Europe, and the section leader for software engineering at UBS. He got his Ph.D in computer science from the University of Zurich and was a Post-Doc at the MIT Lab for Computer Science. His newest book “Happimetrics – Leveraging AI to Untangle the Surprising Link Between Ethics, Happiness and Business Success” appeared fall 2022 at Edward Elgar Publishing

    Prof. Christopher Tucci

    Christopher L. Tucci is Professor of Digital Strategy & Innovation at Imperial College Business School and Co-Director (Education) for I-X, Imperial’s new campus concept centered on AI/ML, data, and digital. Professor Tucci is Academic Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation at Imperial College Business School as well. He was Professor of Management of Technology at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where he held the Chair in Corporate Strategy & Innovation. From 2013-2018, he was Dean of the College of Management at EPFL. In 2018, he was Visiting Thought Leader at CEIBS in Shanghai, China. He received the degrees of Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School of Management, MIT; SM (Technology & Policy) from MIT; and BS (Mathematical Sciences), AB (Music), and MS (Computer Science) from Stanford University. He was an industrial computer scientist involved in developing Internet protocols and applying artificial intelligence tools. Professor Tucci teaches courses in Deep Tech Acceleration, Co-Creation in AI & Robotics, AI Ventures, Design Thinking, Digital Strategy, and Innovation Management.

    His primary area of interest is in how firms make transitions to new business models, technologies, and organizational forms. He also studies crowdsourcing, Internetworking, and digital innovations. He has published articles in, among others, Academy of Management Review (AMR), Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Research Policy, Communications of the ACM, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Academy of Management Annals, and Journal of Product Innovation Management. His article with Allan Afuah, “Crowdsourcing as solution to distant search,” won the Best Paper of 2012 for AMR. He has served in leadership positions in the Academy of Management (AOM) and the Strategic Management Society and was elected in 2023 to the leadership track of the Academy of Management’s Board of Governors.

    Dr. Myrna Flores

    Myrna Flores is the Executive Director of the Centre for Digital Transformation at Imperial College Business School and the co-founder and president of the Lean Analytics Association (LAA) which was launched in 2012 as a spin-off from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. 

    Myrna Flores has over 20 years of experience in driving process improvement and innovation initiatives, delivering training programs and organising hackathons, engaging and collaborating with key stakeholders and teams to solve strategic challenges. 

    Myrna collaborates with an ecosystem of partners on innovation projects, designs and delivers ad-hoc training programs, and diffuses the latest trends and best practices to inspire organisations to accelerate their transformation journeys. She is a Design Thinker passionate about working with organisations to implement new ways of working and design user-centric solutions. She is also very interested in designing new business models which integrate digital technologies and sustainability best practices to automate business processes and move from a linear delivery approach to a circular economy model aligned with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    She has a PhD in Open Innovation from Politecnico di Milano (2006), a Master’s degree in Manufacturing Science (1999) and a Mechanical Engineering degree (1996) from Tecnológico de Monterrey. She also carried out a postgraduate course in IIT Madras, India in Technologies and Sustainable Development. Myrna has published more than 50 articles in journals and presented at multiple international conferences. She is co-author of four books: Digital Factory for Human Oriented Systems (2010), Lean Product Development Best Practices, Ten Industrial Success Stories (2017), and DARE to Gemba Walk, A Practical Approach for Leaders and Teams Towards Collaborative Problem Solving (2020) and Lean Thinking Evolution, Getting Prepared for the Digital Era (2022).