AI Transformation Fund (2020-22) - Innovation Lead
The Customer: Internal Business Units & Strategic Enterprise Clients
The Users: Internal Innovators, Partner Teams, and Sales & Bid Teams
The Challenge
Our approach to innovation was fragmented and ineffective. Without a central strategy, different business units were duplicating spending on similar AI projects, while a lack of internal alignment meant one hand didn't know what the other was doing. This chaos led directly to missed opportunities in strategic bids and funded projects that ultimately failed due to poor user adoption. Most critically, this environment was demoralizing our brightest talent; innovative staff were leaving out of frustration as their ideas were ignored or lost in bureaucracy.
The Approach
As the lead, I was tasked with operating a £7m AI Transformation fund to overhaul this process. The goal was to translate promising ideas into tangible solutions that could be co-sold to clients. My approach was to introduce a disciplined, collaborative, and commercially-focused innovation framework:
- Centralized Governance & Lean Funding: I consolidated disparate investment budgets into the central fund. To maximize returns, I implemented a governance model based on Eric Ries' 'Lean Startup' methodology. This introduced stage-gated funding, forcing projects to prove value at each step and allowing us to 'fail fast' on ideas that lacked traction, radically improving capital efficiency.
- Breaking Down Silos: We replaced isolated development with cross-functional collaboration. We ran internal hackathons and co-developed MVPs with business units, ensuring solutions were built to solve real-world problems. This hands-on approach fostered a culture of shared ownership.
- Strategic Partnerships: We deepened our relationships with key partners like Microsoft and Google, leveraging their specialist skills, co-development resources, and joint funding programs to amplify the impact of our own investment.
- Fostering Open Innovation: We actively engaged with cutting-edge startups, creating a fast-track to help them navigate corporate red tape. We also hosted regular 'show & tell' sessions with sales teams and leadership, connecting our R&D efforts directly to commercial opportunities and securing ongoing buy-in.
The Outcome
The introduction of this structured, 'Lean Startup' model had a transformative effect on our innovation pipeline and business performance. The fund delivered a 300% improvement in ROI compared to the previous decentralized model. More importantly, innovations nurtured by the fund became key differentiators in our client proposals, directly contributing to $50 million of signed contracts between 2020-22. Finally, by creating a clear and rewarding pathway for ideas, we significantly improved retention of key innovative staff, who now felt empowered to drive the future of the business.