Stephen Parkins
Innovation strategist & Founder @ Culturedge
Haarlem, The Netherlands
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If you're comfortable with the status quo, you won't enjoy listening to Stephen Parkins.
Stephen is a seasoned innovation strategist, executive coach and business leader with over two decades of experience turning uncertainty into opportunity.
With a career spanning roles as an energy trader, global head of innovation, and startup founder, Stephen has worked with companies of all sizes—from nimble one-person ventures, to European scale-ups, to multinational corporations with over 100,000 employees.
As the founder of Culturedge, Stephen advises medium to large enterprises on building the structures and strategies they need to embed innovation, take manageable risks and achieve exponential growth.
Known for pushing boundaries and telling executives what they need to hear, Stephen has helped redesign flagship products like ABN AMRO Bank's Tikkie and established global innovation frameworks at organisations like SGS.
A polyglot and global citizen, Stephen has lived in five countries and speaks five languages, bringing an international perspective to every new challenge.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Can't Innovate without a Mandate
Companies expect a lot from their corporate innovators today.
We're being asked to perform a whole shopping-list of difficult tasks: introduce AI to the business, create the products of the future, re-invent the company's business model, and –at the same time– please foster a "culture of innovation".
👩🏻💻 Innovation professionals complain there's not enough budget, or their company's risk appetite is too timid, or that senior leaders aren't sufficiently future-focused.
👨🏻💼 Meanwhile, corporate execs lament the lack of transparency of their innovation unit. They worry that so many of their innovation projects are disconnected from company strategy.
And nobody enjoys difficult conversations about ROI.
When you tolerate ambiguity in your innovation governance, you expose your organisation to a whole range of serious problems:
👌 Zero accountability
🎭 Conflicts of interest
🥚 Poor risk management
🐌 Snail-paced decision-making
🤹♀️ Inconsistent project execution
😔 A stagnant Innovation Culture
But – implementing an Innovation Mandate can offer an almost-immediate solution.
👉 Because it has one core job to do: It eliminates internal ambiguity.
In this session, you'll learn about:
- How most companies' innovation efforts are sabotaged by unclear governance
- Why a 'Mandate to Innovate' is indispensable – especially in the age of AI
- How implementing such a mandate demands that leaders make a few difficult, but clear choices
Lead Innovation Day 2025 Sessionize Event Upcoming
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