21 Jul 2025
EP 22 - Live at the Intersection of Urgency and Patient
About the Episode
Corporate innovation pioneer and former Citi Chief Innovation Officer Amy Radin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyradin/) joins host Elijah Eilert (https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijahteilert/) to explain how large, regulated organisations can move quickly without losing control. Amy shares how to turn likely vetoes into informed sponsorship. The conversation covers why disciplined, low-cost experiments generate decision-ready evidence, how strategic advocacy helps innovators win allies, and why partnering with finance and risk teams can convert uncertainty into competitive advantage. Amy also predicts that modular, interdisciplinary certificates will soon displace traditional MBAs as the preferred path for innovation leaders. From growing up in a small family business to navigating corporate boardrooms, Amy shares both the lessons she has learned and unlearn, insights every innovation leader can put to work today.
The Change Maker’s Playbook (https://amyradin.com/the-book/)
Topics & Insights
[00:20] Introducing Amy Radin: One of the first corporate Chief Innovation Officers in the world, dedicated to solving real customer problems.
[01:03] Defining innovation: New and viable solutions that meet unmet rational and emotional needs within legal, ethical and commercial limits.
[02:35] The innovation spectrum: “New” is relative to your company or market; incremental changes can be transformative internally.
[03:53] Metric pitfalls: Mature-business ROI (https://innovationmetrics.co/workshops/innovation-accounting-course/) hurdles choke exploration, focus first on learning milestones and evidence.
[05:24] Listen before you survey: Qualitative observation often outperforms data sets when desirability is uncertain.
[06:43] Empathy for CFOs: Understand that finance leaders are paid to protect cash flow and manage certainty. Apply the same discovery techniques you use with customers to CFOs: frame proposals as stage-gated micro-bets with clear spending caps, predefined kill criteria and measurable learning goals. Translating risk into the language of liquidity, runway and downside protection builds their confidence to fund experimentation.
[09:31] Budgeting experiments: Treat rapid tests as investments that generate decision-grade data.
[13:50] The corporate tax: In a big organisation, persuading decision-makers and influencers is not a side task, it is a huge part of the job. Innovators must decide whether they are willing to invest that time and energy to win sponsorship and move ideas forward.
[16:48] Strategic advocacy: Treat innovation like a social movement. Systematically map champions, fence-sitters and blockers; tailor value propositions and small “next step” asks for each group and build a visible coalition that tips policy, budget and culture from maybe to yes.
[22:25] Risk Review Committee: While piloting peer-to-peer mobile payments at Citi, Amy assembled a cross-functional forum brand, legal, compliance, cyber-security and enterprise-risk, before any contracts were drafted. By surfacing objectives early, walking through “what-if” scenarios and co-designing safeguards (smallest viable test, rapid-exit plan, advance regulator briefings), the team cut approval time, tightened controls and converted risk leaders from potential blockers into active sponsors.
[26:14] Innovation as risk management: In fast-moving markets, clinging to the status quo can expose the business to greater...
