EP 22 - Live at the Intersection of Urgency and Patient

Innovation Metrics Podcast

About the Episode

Corporate innovation pioneer and former Citi Chief Innovation Officer Amy Radin joins host Elijah Eilert 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

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 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 downside than disciplined experimentation. Strengthen the risk-management function so it actively champions sustainable innovation: build a balanced portfolio of stage-gated bets, cycle each through tight learning loops, and invite risk professionals in at the concept stage to co-design safeguards. Turning them into allies early prevents them from becoming project-killing gatekeepers later and ensures capital flows to the most promising ideas while weak bets are retired quickly.

[40:07] Urgency plus patience: Amy says innovators must “live at this intersection” of intense drive and deliberate listening. She freely admits her own very high sense of urgency and great passion, yet explains how she learned to slow down, hear stakeholders first and adjust before charging ahead. Balancing stubborn conviction with openness to feedback, she likens the practice to walking a tightrope where keeping your footing requires constant attention to both speed and reflection.

[42:28] Lessons from the corner drugstore: Working in her father’s Brooklyn pharmacy taught Amy two fundamentals she still applies until today, respect the P & L (“money in the till paid for dinner”) and obsess over customer experience.

[51:30] Future of innovation education: Amy predicts that traditional four-year degrees and full-time MBAs will fade as people stack low-cost, hybrid certificates throughout their careers. University learning will become “à la carte,” interdisciplinary and hands-on, giving learners just-in-time modules in design, business modelling and leadership rather than one-size-fits-all curricula. Continuous upskilling will be essential because technology and markets move too quickly for static credentials.

Resources & Links

• Amy Radin on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyradin/
• Amy Radin's Website - https://amyradin.com/
• The Change Maker’s Playbook – https://www.amyradin.com/book/
• Fast Company – “Innovation: An Essential Investment in Times of Uncertainty” – https://www.fastcompany.com/91316488/innovation-an-essential-investment-in-times-of-uncertainty
• Columbia University Executive Education – Strategic Advocacy – https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/courses/emba/2025/spring/emba7037
• Turning Experiments into Numbers - https://innovationmetrics.co/workshops/innovation-accounting-course/

Amy’s Bio

As one of the corporate world’s first Chief Innovation Officers, Amy Radin built Citi’s global innovation practice, then drove customer-centric expansion at American Express and AXA. Today she advises boards and senior teams, teaches in Columbia University’s M.S. Technology Management programme, and speaks worldwide on how “strategic advocacy” converts stakeholder resistance into support. Her award-winning book The Change Maker’s Playbook distils lessons from 50 innovators and captured the 2019 Silver Axiom Business Book Award. Amy’s insights appear in Forbes, Chief Executive, and other outlets, and she serves on advisory boards for several early-stage fintech and insurtech ventures.