A Bold Perspective on Innovation and the Power of Corporations
I’ve spent the last twenty years working at the intersection of corporate innovation, business design, and venture investing. I’m passionate about helping corporations move beyond the illusion of innovation to unlock radical progress.
I’ve partnered with global organizations for speaking engagements ranging from executive workshops, to keynote talks, panels and fireside chats, and virtual speaker series. If you’re looking to shake up your innovation strategy and infuse new capabilities into your business, let’s connect and see if I can help.
Recent Speaking Engagements
Alloy 2023 //
Built to Last: Why Creating Enduring Companies is Important to our Futures
The oldest corporations was founded 100 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. It was operated by the same family for more than 1400 years. What can we learn from the organizations that have endured the test of time and how can corporations use similar strategies to build resilient institutions. In the Alloy 2023 keynote, Elliott Parker explores the value of risk-taking through experimentation as a means for building resilient companies.
Alloy 2022 //
Manufacturing Serendipity
As companies grow, they optimize their operating systems for efficiency and predictability. But inefficiency often gives light to meaningful insights that can turn into transformative innovations. In this keynote, we explore ways large organizations can manufacture the serendipity necessary to build a more effective, impactful, and resilient organization.
Alloy 2021 //
Welcome to the future: It's about to get weird
Scaled organizations are better managed than ever, but simultaneously less capable of innovation because they’re too often optimized for the wrong objective: near-term efficiency at the expense of long-term resilience and opportunity. In this keynote we highlight the opportunity to run quick, cheap experiments to build transformative, market-creating innovations.
Alloy 2020 //
Innovating for Resilience
Old approaches to innovation, although still relevant and necessary, are less effective than they once were. Corporations still rely on internal R&D and M&A but are not driving the results scaled organizations are chasing. In this keynote we explore the opportunity for companies coordinate innovation externally in a way that creates resilience.
Satellite Series //
Planning for Greatness
The High Alpha Innovation Satellite Series highlights pioneering entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and expert builders as they share their insight and knowledge with the High Alpha Innovation network.
IN Chamber Podcast //
Episode 73. Innovation at a High Alpha Pace
Large-scale enterprises are built, in Elliott Parker’s words, to execute at scale. Start-ups, he says, are designed to learn, pivot quickly and move fast. Bringing the two together is the focus of High Alpha Innovation, with the goal of launching 100 start-ups within the next five years. It’s a venture studio playbook that High Alpha has used in creating its own portfolio of successful start-ups in recent years. Now, it’s bringing the advantages of existing companies to the mix with a co-creation approach. Parker first came to Indiana for an internship with Roche and returned two-plus years ago to join the High Alpha team.
The Disruptive Voice Podcast //
68. Remodeling Venture Capital, with Elliott Parker
In the early days of venture capital, investors played a dual role as financiers and innovators, partnering with their portfolio companies to design and develop their operations from the ground up. Nowadays most VC firms don't generate and pursue innovations but rather source and grow start-ups that already exist. For established businesses seeking to self-disrupt with autonomous units, these circumstances pose a distinctive challenge that contemporary venture capitalists are generally ill-equipped to solve. Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation, is using theory to guide him in rekindling an earlier, partnership model of venture capital in a new form: the venture studio. A former Innosight consultant whose work has spanned growth, strategy, and operations, Elliott is hosted by Anibha Singh, herself an Innosight alum and a current Research Associate at Harvard Business School. We hope you enjoy this fascinating conversation on the future of innovation and venture capital!
DIALed IN // Episode 1, A Conversation With Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation
Allan Gray, executive director of DIAL Ventures, a startup studio dedicated to advancing the food and ag system through digital innovation welcomes Elliott Parker on the first episode of the DIALed IN webcast. Parker is the CEO of High Alpha Innovation in Indianapolis. They discuss the concept of startup studios, why we need them, and what that means for the ag-tech space.
Ep. 233 - Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation on New Models for Transformative Innovation
Elliott Parker, CEO of High Alpha Innovation and Brian Ardinger, Inside Outside Innovation Founder, discuss why innovation is getting harder and what to do about it, as well as new models for tackling transformative and disruptive innovation. For a transcript and more innovation insight, check out insideoutside.io.
Let’s connect
Fill out this form if you are interested in booking Elliott for an event and we’ll be in touch soon.
You can also reach out directly to Lauren Kellum