Episode 5: Scaling Innovation from the Inside Out: Day 2 Insights from the CVC Open Innovation Summit

In Episode 5 of Inside CVC, we continue our deep dive into the 2025 CVC Open Innovation Summit, this time focusing on highlights and takeaways from Day 2. Co-hosts Steve Schmith and Philipp Willigmann explore how Miami took center stage as an emerging hub for globally connected innovation—spanning Latin America, Europe, and beyond.

We spotlight the city’s growing influence in sectors like climate tech, logistics, and healthcare, and unpack the critical role public-private partnerships play in fueling scale-stage innovation. You’ll hear reflections on key sessions, including:

• The Miami economic development panel featuring voices from Greenberg Traurig, the Beacon Council, and Vatsco Ventures
• A powerful keynote from innovation strategist Kaihan Krippendorff on intrapreneurship and moving early on transformation
• Insights on mobility, talent-driven innovation, and the cultural foundation needed to build a future-ready organization

Plus, hear behind-the-scenes takeaways from conversations with thought leaders that challenge the status quo of corporate venture capital.

Whether you’re a corporate innovator, ecosystem builder, or curious policymaker, this episode offers rich perspective on what it takes to drive meaningful innovation—internally and across borders.

Transcript

Steve: 0:00

Welcome to Inside CVC, a podcast series exploring the latest trends, business issues, and geopolitical disruption and uncertainty impacting the business of corporate venture capital. I'm your host, Steve Smith, and along with fellow host Philip Willigman, we're bringing together leaders in corporate venture capital, entrepreneurs, traditional venture capitalists, educators, and leaders in public policy to talk about how vast ecosystems of partners from corporations to startups are working together to drive and scale cross border open innovation. Our show is brought to you by U-Path Advisors, specializing in corporate innovation and strategic growth and helping bridge the gap between corporations and startups in ways that drive sustainable growth. To learn more, visit upath.com. That's the letter U-Path.com. Inside CVC, insights helping shape tomorrow. Today we pick up the conversation from our last I think it certainly will be an important thing to do before listening to this episode. So I'm excited about today's conversation.

Philipp: 1:39

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as we talked about the last time, 2025 Summit was the second year of the event, which was two days of conversation, workshops, networking, touching on a number of important critical topics for corporations, but also for society. And yeah, we brought together leaders from Corporate Venture Capital, Open Innovation, Selected, venture capital funds, as well as startups. And, you know, most importantly, also the ecosystem, you know, with representation from the University of Miami and the state of Florida and the city of Miami. So incredible. And let's dive in.

Steve: 2:26

I have to say, one of the things I enjoyed most about day two of the summit was how Miami took center stage for most of the morning. You've spent a lot of time in the city, as you mentioned, you live there, spend part of your time there. What's your view of the city as a destination for investment in innovation? And what are some of the key takeaways from that opening panel that featured both business leaders and those economic developers, those policy leaders that we've talked about as part of the setup for today's conversation?

Philipp: 3:00

Thank you, Steve. And yes, you're right. I think day two really put Miami at the center of the conversation for good reasons. I've called Miami home since 2019, before the pandemic was a bit of a trendsetter, I guess. And what I have seen over the last few years is a city that not just is growing, but it's also maturing into a truly global innovation hub. especially at the intersection of Latin America into the US, as well as into Europe, and now also into the Middle East. And what makes it special is that it's not trying to be the next Silicon Valley. A lot of folks from Silicon Valley came and some are still there, but Miami is not really trying to recreate Silicon Valley. It's really building its own model. One that's more diverse, more globally connected, and deeply, deeply rooted in real world industries like logistics, construction, climate, and health. And just to be in, you know, one of the topics of the opening discussions we had on day two, which, you know, I'm very, very excited about, was that the city supported us. And so we had... Jared Davis from Greenberg Traurig and Roderick Miller with the CEO of the Beacon Council. Their focus is really on driving partnerships, corporate growth in the region. And they gave a fantastic overview on how public and private leadership are working together to attract capital and talent and why corporate venture is essential to that. Because Miami isn't just for early stage startup. It's specifically also for scale innovation that needs market partners from international markets. Then we heard from Ivan Rapinsmith from Vatsco Ventures, who I'm very honored. He's one of the co-hosts of the days. He gave a powerful perspective on what it actually takes to build and back real companies in Miami. Vatsco is in the air conditioning space, and he shared some of the experiences on how do you kind of drive things around energy efficiency and industrial tech from a venture perspective. And then we had James Conestam join us, who provided a broader view on the economic development in Florida, as well as in Miami-Dade, investing in infrastructure, semiconductors, space tech, workforce application, and giving a broader overview of some of the incentives corporates will have if they actually work with the city of Miami or the region. So where does CBC fit into the Florida ecosystem? Well, it's right there, really building world-class innovation, especially around climate, logistic, energy, space tech. It's a huge hub for healthcare transformation. And as I mentioned at the beginning, it is really helping to scale regions like Latin America, the US Southeast, and helping founders with their growth. So Miami is where corporates are learning to move faster and where startups get real customers. It's not just about funding. And that's really what I'm loving about Miami. And we had an opportunity to hear from.

Steve: 6:37

Well, much like my first time being at the CVC Summit, that was actually my first time ever being in Miami. And certainly I saw those things that I think are synonymous with Miami. But I learned so much about the city, enjoyed some good food. But specific to CVC and investment, et cetera, I heard a term frequently during that open conversation. So number one, I learned something. I understand that there are two sort of ports in the United States where these big giant telecommunication wires that run along the seabed come into the United States. And I understand, I learned that Miami is one of those. And so when you talk about this notion of cross-border sharing of information, digital information, again, one of those themes that we talked about with Ben in terms of the impact of terrorists. But for me, I just thought it was interesting that Miami is only one of two cities on the East Coast where those wires come in from the other side of the Atlantic. The other thing that I learned, and I heard it referenced multiple times, was describing Miami as an international city. Certainly, it was a very international crowd that was part of the agenda. You are certainly an international business person, executive that chooses to live in Miami where to spend some of your time. This notion of Miami, and you've touched upon it here in terms of the help and that being a hub towards Latin America, et cetera, was something that I'd never heard about, you know, describe Miami as an international city. And, you know, I think it fits.

Philipp: 8:22

Yeah, I mean, of course, there's not everything is, you know, perfect. You know, Miami definitely still has, you know, a very strong party scene. And a lot of people talk about it, you know, just, you know, that people just go there for clubbing and partying. But on the other hand side, we talked about this in one of our last episodes, you know, the creativity, the culture, the diversity is really, you know, really happening in Miami. The music scene, you know, the art scene. And it really put, you know, Miami is really on the map globally, not with, you know, things only like Art Basel, which is drawing a lot of, you know, capital, but also people from all around the world. So Miami has really worked on standing out and creating their own brand for, you know, the innovation side, the investment side, as well as for arts. And, you know, you also, you know, you never want to miss a good party. And that's... What

Steve: 9:28

you can all have in Miami. that he shared as part of the summit agenda. So why don't we listen in and hear a little bit from Roderick and what's going on, the things that he's focused on, and why those things he's focused on are important to bringing investment to the area.

Philipp: 10:08

So one of the things is we believe in being deep, not just surface level. And so we've really worked diligently to make sure that we've got real sectoral expertise and competencies. So the Beacon Council, we run a variety of industry councils. We run industry councils. These are 10 to 15 of the most senior execs, as well as some of the most innovative firms in areas like tech, financial services. We have a family office group. We have a group that's focused on the aviation sector, life sciences, and health care. What these groups have is there's a body of work. One is around how do we actually make our market more competitive in that sector, and the other body of work is what are the talent needs of that sector. So in all of those sectors, we have a very clear strategy. So for example, in the aviation space, we're working on electric vertical takeoff and landing infrastructure, what do investments in that look like, and we're working on sustainable air fuels. For example, in the tech sector, we're working on things related to green data centers because of the massive demand for that, and we're working on things related to the microchip and semiconductor space. So those are the kinds of, and of course, there's all the AI stuff that's happening, and fintech. And so, in each of these sectors, we've got a clear strategy, and we've got industry leaders that are coming together to say, how do we make our market better, how do we bring more companies here, and how do we focus on talent? So that's one. The talent is the, I often say talent isn't part of the equation, it's all of the equation. Every company that I know, the leading execs will tell me, if you get me the right people, we will make money. And so Miami's become a real magnet for talent. And there's a lot of reasons for that. But one of the reasons why it's become a magnet for talent is because we look like the world. We believe that one of our biggest strengths is that it doesn't matter where you're from or what you look like. If you come to Miami and you want to roll up your sleeves and work, we are going to work with you.

Steve: 11:55

Obviously, Miami is a water city. It is one of those things that are synonymous with the city and the entire area. J. Carl Ganter had talked about water and scarcity and the strategic need to understand water scarcity and security in our first episode. He talked about it on stage here. So rather than take time out of today's conversation, I would encourage people to go back and listen to not only episode one that featured Carl and his perspectives on water, but also another person on the agenda was Ben, talking about a whole host of things relative to cross-border investment, cross-border innovation. Very challenging, very uncertain time right now, giving a lot of policy changes in the U.S., but also featured on the two-day agenda. We talked with Ben deeply on episode two, so if you're listening to this, we won't dive much into it today. But if you're listening to this, please go back and listen to episode one and two. You'll get much, much deeper perspective from both of those experts and would encourage you to watch. Overall, Philip, when you think about the perspectives that Carl brought to the stage, when you think about what Ben and the other panelists talked about, any key insights, any key things that you sort of reflect on and were interesting to you?

Philipp: 13:25

Well, I mean, First of all, I agree with you. I mean, the insights were really, really deep and very important topics. Unfortunately, we don't have time today to go into detail on all of them. But I think one of the panels which stood out to me, and I was also really happy that we had it on the agenda, was around geopolitics and how we have to think through the geopolitics between China, Europe, Israel, United States. And we had a terrific panel on it. We had the, you know, a counselor of Germany. We had an expert with Benjamin, who some of you may have heard on our podcast on the tariffs, really talking about this. But I think you interviewed Michael Grenoff from Mount of Mobility, who has been a long-term friend of mine. And yeah, what were some of the things for you in the conversation which stood out?

Steve: 14:29

Well, I've known of Michael for several years, dating back to when you and I actually spent some time working in that very rich, very vibrant eco-motion, future of mobility startup ecosystem that is just flourishing in Israel. So I've known of him for a few years, and it was wonderful getting to meet him in person and actually spend a few minutes with him, interviewing him and talking to him outside of his participation in the panel. And I think when I think about those conversations, two things sort of come to mind, right? We've been talking about the future of mobility for a long time. these ecosystems of shared, autonomous, electrified modes of transportation that appeal and are seamless for anybody, regardless how they choose to move from one place to another. In my role, in the time that I spend in automotive, right, we've seen sort of the promise that, for example, as electric vehicles and how, at least in the United States, and when you look around the world, adoption of that or indifferent A little bit more in Europe, a little bit more in China. Certainly, you know, while we have a lot of choices for electrified transportation here in the U.S., consumer adoption still seems to be a little bit lukewarm. But when he talked about autonomy, when he talked about all of these things where the future of mobility continues to be innovative and offer this sort of vision of a utopian future, one of my key takeaways from our conversation that he is still very passionate about, about where that is going, that that sort of future is still a very promising future of mobility for people around the world. And so sort of his passion, his continued passion in this as we navigate consumer adoption, regulation, all of those things was something that was very interesting as I thought about that conversation. The conversation in late February that was maybe in the midst of when some of the policy changes here under the current administrations were really just starting to perhaps be communicated. People were just starting to hear them, start to digest them, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things that we talked about was how some of these things work in a free capital market versus other markets like China. And so we talked a little bit about how a free market society like the United States and how that differs when it comes to innovation and adoption and subsidizing some of these new innovations, how that sort of changes and is a different model and a different scenario when you're talking about those things in a market like China. And I thought these were relatively new, at least current conversations. But on that topic specifically, he pointed out, he goes, if you go back, and I think he said, go back 10 years and you'll find an article I wrote exactly on that topic. It's clearly something that he has been thinking about and has been a thought leader for a long time.

Philipp: 17:52

You know, I think, Steve, we should see if we can actually maybe get him on the show and do a podcast just with him and talking through the Israeli ecosystem and his experience. experience in this space. Just fascinating. But yeah, moving on, I think, you know, one of the sessions that resonated most with me on day two was the keynote of Kajan Krippendorf. Many of you may know Kajan. You know, he is a professor, a researcher, a speaker around the topic of innovation and corporate strategy and transformation for many, many years. And, you know, I've known him since, you know, 2020. I was part of a one of his groups called the OutThinkers. And we both align very much on the thinking, which is great when it comes to innovation and how you have to innovate. And he did a keynote and just wanted to highlight a few of the points, if that's okay with you, Steve.

Steve: 18:57

Yeah, absolutely. I think I was sitting forward in my seat as I was listening to him speak, not only in terms of engaging, but what he was saying was just things that I had not thought of myself in a very insightful conversation from Kahim.

Philipp: 19:16

No, I agree very much with you. And I think one of the pretty provocative thesis he put out there, which was based on research he interviewed, I think over 50 innovation leaders of big corporations like Amazon, Microsoft, and you name it, was that 70% of breakthrough innovations actually come from intrapreneurship, not intrapreneurship, but really from within the organization. And, you know, Steve, you and I, when we were back at Deloitte, we drove a lot of innovation from the inside. You know, we were entrepreneurs when it comes to this. But there was kind of like, I think, a big aha moment where Kayan reminded us that many of the most transformative innovations, you know, didn't come from startups. They actually came from organizations, which, you know, being in a corporate venture capital summit, you know, had quite some conversation in the break afterwards. Absolutely.

Steve: 20:17

Yeah. And let me, yeah, I mean, the world that, you know, I live in automotive. And when I think about this notion of entrepreneurship, I think one of the most near term, I think, you know, there's going to be business case studies around this is, you know, the new tailgate that you on various GMC and Chevy trucks, right? The multifold tailgate. The stories are pretty abundant relative to that was, you know, a group of engineers working in a, you know, a basement or some sort of, you know, back area of a facility. And what has come out of that is this innovative groundbreaking design that is appealing to consumers. So this notion of entrepreneurship, I think, resonates with me. Certainly, but I think we've seen a lot of that in automotive specifically.

Philipp: 21:08

Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, sparked great conversations. There were so many, you know, insights from there, but let me talk another one. I think one other topic, you know, me being a former, you know, chief strategy officer was a point about strategists must move early, right? It's really not about waiting for proximity or AI or sustainability to be mainstream, right? When it comes to strategists and corporations Being the first mover doesn't mean that you always win, but last movers almost always lose, given the times and the speed we are living in today, which I found a great takeaway as well.

Steve: 21:54

Yeah, absolutely. I think with the speed of all of this is... How fast all of this innovation is going. You certainly cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. I do think part of that, though, there has to be a measured balance of risk, right? You can't jump right in with everything. There has to be some risk mitigation in those areas as well. So I have to believe they're finding that sort of balance is hard. And I got to imagine you're going to get some things wrong before you get them right.

Philipp: 22:26

Yeah, I mean, certainly. And, you know, we talked about it in one of our previous episodes, right? I mean, right now we live in times with a lot of uncertainty. Many corporates have paused or reduced the efforts around innovation, you know, because they may not have seen the immediate return, which, you know, I'm always saying, you know, well, hopefully you have put in the right KPIs, but also don't only have the short view on things because, you know, the cost of not innovating, which was another point Karin mentioned, innovating eternity is kind of like rising and time silos, short-termism and we know the talk about, we tried that before and holding back all these platitudes we are known to is extremely, extremely costly and it's created a lot of risks of organizations are stopping to do it. It has a very, very bad performance And he pointed out that really driving innovation, specifically internally, is driving real performance, not only because it also helps you to change the culture and the organization, and you're driving this entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial spirit. But his research has shown doing this shift and driving it drives cultural change, drives transformation, but also long-term financials, which obviously I'm not only a believer, I I know this, I've seen this in my work over the last nearly 20 years, but it was a great reminder for the whole group.

Steve: 24:02

Culture is such an important theme, right? Research that I've been a part of over the last several decades with the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, with the World Economic Forum, all around manufacturing competitiveness. We have asked, or I've been part of conversations and surveys with hundreds of manufacturing CEOs worldwide, business leaders, policy makers, university leaders, national lab leaders. And every time they say, when you ask, what is the number one factor that drives competitiveness, particularly in manufacturing, it's talent driven innovation. And to your point on culture, right? If you're looking for talent to drive that innovation and to come from inside the organization, having that culture that allows experimentation, I believe is core and such an important theme to this topic.

Philipp: 24:57

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And also, Karan mentioned that culture matters so much more than just process. Maybe two other points which stood out to me, and it goes back to the conversation we had on day one with the chief strategy and chief technology officers, because not one side fits all. Therefore, really thinking about what are the right organizational models. Kayhan mentioned that, you know, he looked at various structures, you know, like marketplaces, ecosystems, you know, and pointed out that a company, you know, a European company called Hire, which is kind of like creating micro enterprise networks, really, really kind of drove, you know, entrepreneurship. And I think the main takeaway here is like, you know, Really, there is no one size fits all and organization needs to be open that, you know, for your organization, there might be a very different model, which doesn't work for somebody else. Or you come up with a, you know, completely new, innovative idea, doing something outside of the organization. Just be open to it that, you know, you may find a new model, which has great impact. And then the other topic, and this is something I have always mentioned in my previous work and in my work today, the future of innovation is not only inside out or outside in, it is really about the end. You need to drive innovation from within the organization and encourage the employees to share ideas and then help them to actually work on them. But you also need to make sure that you are in market, seeing what is happening in your ecosystem, that you can also connect with startups, invest in startups to drive innovation outside in. So, you know, Steve, any thoughts from you before I close out this summary?

Steve: 27:01

I think you summed it up nicely, right? It seems like it's move early, move intentionally and move from within. Sounds like those are sort of the key points of what we heard from Kaheen.

Philipp: 27:14

No, absolutely, you know, and happy to share more with everybody and feel free to reach out.

Steve: 27:23

You know, I got to tell you, Philip, one of the most I think shocking is probably too hard of a word, but the most unexpected interview that I had, and I interviewed him before he went on stage, was with Dalip Rao. Now, Dalip is a clinical professor of entrepreneurship at Florida International University. To me, and I don't know him very well, and we only spent a few minutes together, so I'd love your point of view. To me, he brought a point of view to CVC and entrepreneurship that I thought was disruptive, right? As I walked away and I thought about what he shared with me, the word contrarian came to mind. And I mean contrarian in a way that is doing things differently the way that they've always been done. Thinking, why are we doing it this way when it doesn't make a lot of sense?

Philipp: 28:57

No, certainly. And Dilip has been with us a second time. He was a keynote speaker in the first summit. And I mean, he has been... a venture capitalist. He has been a gross equity provider and obviously been a professor now and really kind of like pushing the thinking of CVCs and VCs and what CVCs can learn from VCs and that CVCs should sometimes be more than a VC and really think about what are the strengths a CVC can bring to the game. But he also has some very contrarian views, you know, where he says the ecosystem should be engaged very, very differently. You should spend much more energy on training, on educating founders to increase the odds that more and more starters are successful. And not everybody needs to be a unicorn. which is a very, you know, very, I think, you know, makes a ton of sense. And also not everybody needs venture capital. And I think his perspective are, you know, thought-provoking. D-Lib and I, we actually wrote a piece together, which was featured in Forbes. And so I was glad he was there. Maybe we can also get him on the show for a small episode with him one-on-one.

Steve: 30:21

Oh, we need him on the show. And if you're listening to this, we'll make sure to include the link to that article that Philip mentioned in the show notes. Well, my friend, that about wraps up highlights from this year's CVC Open Innovation Summit. As the individual that was inspired to bring this summit together and you think about what you set out to achieve and the corporate partners set out to achieve with this year's summit, do you think you succeeded? Did you set out what you accomplished to do?

Philipp: 30:59

Well, obviously, I'm, I guess, the wrong person to ask, you know, I'm a bit biased. However, we did, you know, send out a survey and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and obviously great suggestions and great ideas on how to make it better. I'm generally just very honored to be part of this community and being able to convene this group and address some of the critical topics which all, you know, all matter for us. And so I was, you know, I was very proud, very happy, very thankful for all the incredible support we had along the journey from the co-hosts as well as from our sponsors. And yeah, so everything worked out well and it was a ton of work. But, you know, I think we had all a good time.

Steve: 31:52

Look, Philip, I appreciate your humble approach to this. I get it. You know, you are always one in your your about holding up others you are about positivity you are helping about other things grow whether they be people whether they be businesses whether they be families i'm proud of you this is the first time that i that i was at the show and we're at the summit and i at one point i was sitting and watching and you know actually thought to myself i'm proud of philip he is really building something fantastic here in the camaraderie so if you allow me to tell you if you friend to friend, partner to partner on this podcast. You did good. It was awesome. You created a lot of impact, both you and the partners, and looking forward to what's on tap and the vision for next year. So think about that. You look about in February of 2026, what are you hoping to achieve? What comes next out of this summit? And what do we have to look forward to next year?

Philipp: 33:01

Well, first off, I hope we can share the ideas and the thought-provoking conversations with a broader audience. And we'll do this in due course over the next couple of weeks. And then we'll reconvene as a team to think through what we want to do next. As you know, this is not about scaling. This is not about creating a huge event. It's really about quality, having the right people in the room, creating a trusted environment. And so I would be excited to do it again next year. We would be excited to also bring it to other geographies. But quality first and having a strong support model. And then we'll see.

Steve: 33:52

That's amazing. As always, I'm sure if anybody is interested in learning more about this year's summit or might be interested in sort of perhaps taking part in joining this intimate, very curated group of people that gets together, please reach out to Philip. You can find him on LinkedIn. Find me as well if you've got any ideas or speakers, etc. If you actually want to go out and see and take a look at the agenda from the 2025 Summit. You can find that online at cvc-summit.com. The entire agenda is out there from 2025. Take a look and delve a little bit deeper into the topics and the speakers we have talked about over the last two episodes. Philip, one more critical, important question for you, my friend. Are you having fun? I'm

Philipp: 34:49

having a great time, man. This is awesome. And I can't wait for future episodes and for other folks coming on the show and sharing some of the critical thinking about new topics, bringing in experts, professors, scientists, making this a great show and really bringing some of the most important topics to the CVC community, as well as maybe have some voices from the CVC community also on the on the show. Um, so yeah, um, I, you know, couldn't be more proud and more humble to have you as my, my cohost. And also thank you very much, uh, for your nice words. Um, my friend, um, means a lot to have you and, um, looking forward to creating, creating some impact and having some fun.

Steve: 35:37

Yes. Lots of fun on important topics, critical insights for anybody working in corporate venture capital, and I think the broader eco-innovation ecosystem. So with that, we will close episode five of the Inside CVC podcast. Thank you, as always, for joining us. You can catch all of the episodes of Inside CVC on upath.com. That's the letter U hyphen path. or your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for joining us for Inside CVC, Ideas Shaping Tomorrow.