Summit 2021/2 - Connecting the Dots: Academics X Practitioners

Petrit Ademi

Petrit is a PhD Researcher and Teaching Associate at the Justus Liebig University of Giessen in Germany. His research focuses on corporate venture capital, open innovation, and digital transformation. He was a Visiting Scholar at Babson College (USA) and has previously worked in the Consulting practices of IBM and KPMG.

Vareska van de Vrande

Vareska van de Vrande is Professor of Collaborative Innovation and Business Venturing at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM)

Vareska joined RSM in 2007 after completing a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Management Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Her expertise focuses on the areas of corporate venturing and collaborative innovation, including external technology sourcing, corporate venture capital investments, strategic alliances, and corporate-startup collaboration. Other research interests include (corporate) entrepreneurship, patents, and venture capital. She has published articles in leading academic journals, including the Journal of Operations Management, Strategic Management Journal, Research Policy, the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the Journal of Business Venturing. At RSM, Vareska teaches courses and modules in Strategic Management and Corporate Venturing at the graduate and post-experience level.

In addition, Vareska is also the Academic Lead at Erasmus Enterprise and a certified LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator.

Ard-Pieter de Man

Ard-Pieter de Man PhD is a board room consultant and professor of Management Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in the areas of organizational forms, ecosystems, platforms, and alliances. As a consultant he advises organizations on these issues on a strategic level. He is the author of over a hundred articles and fifteen books. His most recent book How to survive the organizational revolution helps managers make sense of new organizational forms in a digital world.

Title of his speech:
What is your ecosystem play?

Summary:
Partner ecosystems are increasingly crucial to gain a strong competitive position. But how can companies profit from ecosystems? Ard-Pieter will guide you through the possibilities and pitfalls of managing your ecosystem.

Mirjam E. Ros

Mirjam E. Ros is a business strategist who believes in simplifying the complex and in making ‘common sense more common’. She is driven by a people-centric approach to Innovation & Intellectual Property, Commercial Contracting, Business Strategy and Organizational Development. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Law and a Master’s degree in Public Administration & Policy, and has twenty years of experience in the aerospace, oil & gas industries and in R&D.

Title of her speech: 
How to connect to the dots to let your innovation succeed?

Summary:
Technical invention depends for success on commercial innovation, as Joseph Schumpeter already said. Nowadays, a lone genius is a rarity. No one flies solo anymore. But how to make a commercial success of your innovative ideas, technologies, products and services in such a collaborative landscape? How to enable your eco-system and thrive collectively? In this talk we will offer you some new tools on how to connect the dots to let your technical invention become a commercial success.

Wendy Kwaks

Wendy Kwaks is the creative and enthusiastic Programme Manager for the transition of the armed forces. She works tirelessly on opening doors in the generally closed defence department, and focuses on building new partnerships for a resilient society. One of the frontrunners of an ecosystem approach in public service, she is a firm advocate of an evolving role of governmental organisations to find the way forward in today’s transitions. Her teams uses a startup mentality in the middle of a large bureaucratic organization, and experiments to put new found ideas into practice. After 2,5 years, the team has many results to show for, and proves that close cooperation with an ever growing network of companies and governmental organisations provides new solutions for all involved parties.  Solutions with a positive impact on the resilience of organisations ánd on the security challenges the defence department faces.

Wendy holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and a Master’s degree in International Relations| and Conflict management. She has twenty years of experience in the field of defence policy, execution and change management.

Title of her speech:
Connecting the dots – civil-military ecosystems  for a resilient society

Summary:
The defence organisation is not properly equipped to deal with future threats. It has a shortage of personnel and lacks adaptability. A transition team is set up to help the organisation find new ways to enhance adaptability. One of the key elements of their approach is to build networks and new partnerships (ecosystems) to integrate solutions from a range of new partners. In her speech, the programme manager of this project shares her catching personal story about the road she has traveled as an advocate for change and innovation in a large bureaucratic organisation. An organisation that both struggles ánd thrives in finding new ways to deal with red tape and bureaucracy. She elaborates on the solutions she and her team have found in the last 2,5 years. Their new ecosystems approach helps the defence organisation to better prepare for future security challenges and shows the enhanced competency of the armed forces to support civil organisations in becoming more resilient.

Francesco Di Lorenzo

Francesco Di Lorenzo is an Associate Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Copenhagen Business School in the department of Strategy and Innovation. He holds an MPhil and PhD in Management Science from ESADE Business School, a BA and an MSc in Business and Economics from Bocconi University. Before starting the academic carrier, Dr. Di Lorenzo worked as consultant for McKinsey&Co. and Accenture Strategy, focusing primarily on M&As operations in financial services. Dr. Di Lorenzo’s main research interests are in the areas of venture financing, technology strategy, strategic human capital, impact investing, primarily developed in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries and got published in leading strategy and entrepreneurship journals. Francesco is also an active economic and strategy consultant (also, research associate in Nordic Human Capital Advisory) and a former entrepreneur.

Title of his speech:
CVC and venture technology strategy: evidences and performance implications

Summary:
Beyond classical VC investing, Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) is a critical source of resources and assets acquisition for new ventures. A solid empirical tradition in the last decade has provide strong evidences to support the idea that both investee ventures and corporate investors benefits from their equity-based agreements, in terms of financial returns and innovation productivity. Yet, how CVC investors impact ventures’ technology strategy and what are the implications for ventures’ technological outcomes of CVCs are still under-studied questions. The talk will provide a sample research-driven overview on what has been recently done in this space up to date and what are relevant issues to keep exploring.

Caroline Witte

Caroline Witte is an assistant professor at the department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship. Her research interest cover international business, strategy and development economics. She is particularly interested in how firms manage their business in in fragile economies. In her research, she asks: ‘How can firms in fragile economies take advantage of a volatile institutional context?’ And more generally: ‘How can firms exploit the opportunities created by risk, uncertainty and discontinuous shocks?’.

Before joining RSM, Caroline was assistant professor of strategy and international management at the Department of Strategy and Innovation of the Copenhagen Business School. She has a PhD from the Erasmus School of Economics. Her PhD disseration was awarded the prestigious Dissertation Award of the International Management Division of the Academy of Management.

Ernst Hoestra

Ernst Hoestra is CEO of Erasmus Enterprise, the newly established community hub at Erasmus Woudestein Campus. After his graduation from the EUR, he moved through the corporate ranks and held VP positions with global responsibility for ao TNT Express and Pitney Bowes. Following this he joined a VC backed consortium, for which he ran the Cycleon reverse Logistics company (and 8 other portfolio companies), and held an Exec Board seat at Reverse Logistics group. Cycleon was recognized by INSEAD as a case and this led to several assignments at INSEAD, in parallel to the MD role at StartupBootcamp. Recently Ernst accepted several Supervisory and Advisory Board positions.

Title of his speech:
Corporate innovation framework applied to University

Summary:
Ernst will share his views and experiences around building innovation and entrepreneurship communities. Corporate strategy and startup thinking. How can this go hand in hand. 

Helen Kardan

Pursey Heugens

Pursey Heugens is a professor of organisation theory, development, and change at the Department of Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). His research interests include comparative corporate governance, business ethics, and bureaucracy, institutional, and demographic theories of organisation. Professor Heugens has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He currently serves on the editorial boards of six scholarly journals. His research has been published in academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, and the Journal of Management Studies. His most recent works argues that the field of organisation theory is locked into a state of permanent failure due to powerful centrifugal forces which prevent it from producing a unified theory of organisational effectiveness – while equally strong centripetal forces keep university administrators and policy makers from cashing in their chips. He offers three research strategies that might end the stalemate by increasing the integration, relevance and realism of current theories of organisation. He obtained his PhD from RSM in 2001.

Dirk Deichman

Dirk Deichmann is an Associate Professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Treasurer of the Department of Technology and Operations Management. In his research he focuses on the determinants and consequences of creative and innovative behavior, with particular emphasis on the question of how sustained and successful idea generation, development, and implementation can be achieved. Find here a link to his CV.

Bas Crombag

Corina Kuiper

Corina is the Managing Director of Corporate Venturing Network and auteur of the book “Corporate Venturing, managing the innovation family”. Over the past 25 years, Corina has held a spectrum of strategic management, business development and financial management positions. She has worked in different functional areas, in start-up environments as well as in established business settings. Her company the Innovation Family supports several large corporations on Corporate Venturing and New Business Creation. She regularly lectures as a guest speaker across several international universities and business schools and speaks at international conferences and seminars.

Frank Siedlok

Frank Siedlok is an Associate Professor in Strategy & Enterprise at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Predominantly using practice theories, his research spans individual and organisational levels, focusing on collaborative innovation and knowledge development. He has looked at the context of interdisciplinary research collaborations, industrial clusters, entrepreneurial ecosystems and collective action at the industry level – be it kiwifruit, ships or food sectors.