🎙️ Join us for this week's episode with Katrin Zimmerman, CEO of TLGG USA, on "What is Innovation?"

Katrin shares her perspective on innovation types—evolutionary vs. revolutionary—and dives into innovation portfolios, values, and the delicate balance between investment and ROI. She also offers advice on navigating innovation cycles, confronting AI resistance, and applying innovation across various industries.

What's the impact of 'today's money' on innovation? Considering their innovation portfolios and values, how should companies balance investment and ROI?

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Katrin launched TLGG’s New York office. As Managing Director, she is responsible for consulting services with global clients. At TLGG, Katrin has served and mentored clients on business strategy, digital transformation, marketing transformation and innovation up to the C-suite. Prior to joining TLGG, Katrin co-created the Lufthansa Innovation Hub (named as best digital lab by Capital Magazine in 2017 and 2018) with global responsibility for business innovation where she developed ventures in the services and mobility field from Seoul to Berlin. She has a deep knowledge of digital marketing and growth hacking techniques which enabled new ventures to scale quickly and incumbent players to strategically maximize their ROI.

Know more about her here:

• Katrin Zimmermann
• Company: TTLG

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Episode Guide:

0:00 - Intro

0:49 - What is Innovation?

1:20 - Defining "New"

2:53 - Innovation portfolio and values: Investment vs ROI

4:33 - Innovation cycles and evolution

6:59 - Artificial Intelligence: resistance, fear, and legislation

9:57 - Nuclear power, AI, and GMO

13:04 - Innovation for cross functional teams and environments

15:22 - Innovation cycles in modern large organizations

18:50 - Innovation in different industries, consumer expectations, and Wall Street expectations

24:28 - Katrin's impact to companies

26:44 - Money and Innovation

28:08 - Advice to Innovators
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management

Doug Howarth—CEO of Hypernomics, Inc.- discusses the concept of innovation, why it matters in today's world, and practical ways to drive innovation in your business

More about our guest:

Doug Howarth's life is a story of remarkable challenges and groundbreaking discoveries. From his fascination with coordinate systems to a life-saving kidney transplant, his journey led him to uncover the concept of Hypernomics—a field that explores uncharted dimensions in market analysis. Driven by newfound clarity, Doug founded Hypernomics Inc. and collaborated with industry giants like NASA and Lockheed Martin, developing innovative software capable of analyzing markets in four or more dimensions. His upcoming book, "Hypernomics: Using Hidden Dimensions to Solve Unseen Problems," will revolutionize conventional thinking. Doug's story inspires us to embrace unconventional thinking and unleash extraordinary breakthroughs.

Know more about her and his affiliations here:

• Doug Howarth

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Episode Guide:

0:00 - Intro

1:30 - What is Innovation?

2:30 - What is "society's next step?"

7:35 - Manifesting over different domains

9:57 - Importance of understanding capacity and price

12:03 - Personal opinions, biases, and hypothesis

15:52 - Space tourism industry

19:16 - What isn't innovation?

23:24 - Increasing value by cost reduction

26:32 - Advice for innovators
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.

What if the true barrier to innovation isn't a lack of ideas, but how we manage them?

In this episode of What is Innovation?, Jared Simmons sits down with Steve Hinch — award-winning author, high-tech executive, and innovation consultant — to uncover the overlooked mechanics of corporate and startup innovation. Drawing on decades of leadership experience at Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies, and startup ventures, Steve breaks down innovation into four clear categories, reframes failure as a learning opportunity, and explains why managing innovation demands a radically different mindset.

Whether you’re in a Fortune 500 boardroom or an early-stage startup, this conversation delivers insight on how to build repeatable innovation processes, manage risk with purpose, and make sure your great ideas don’t die at the delivery stage.

Guest Bio:
Steve Hinch is the author of Winning Through Innovation: Lessons from the Front Lines of Business, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award. With a long career spanning senior R&D, marketing, and general management roles at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies, Steve has also served as CEO of TeamLogic IT. He now consults with senior leaders across industries to design innovation strategies and processes that work, from product launches to corporate transformations.

What You’ll Learn:

• A simple 4-part framework for classifying innovation: product/process + incremental/disruptive

• Why innovation in large corporations fails — and how to fix it

• How to manage innovation differently from traditional projects

• Why failure is critical to innovation (and how venture capitalists accept it)

• How to protect innovation from corporate reporting cycles and quarterly pressure

• What support really looks like in a thriving corporate innovation culture

Highlighted Insight:
“Innovation is not just about seeing opportunity — it’s about delivering it profitably. Without delivery, even the best idea is useless.”

Quote to Remember:
“In the startup world, 80% of ventures fail. But that 20% that succeed? That’s where the real return is — and failure is part of the learning.”

Resources & Links:

• Winning Through Innovation – Book by Steve Hinch

• Steve Hinch on LinkedIn

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

Nathan Stuck, is the creator of B Local Georgia, a Georgia based nonprofit that focuses on helping companies get B-Corp certified, and use their business as a force for good.

More about our guest:

Nathan is an award winning leader in the B Corp community. In addition to his role as the Director of Corporate Culture & Strategic Impact at Ad Victoriam Solution, a certified B Corp, he founded and runs B Local Georgia, a nonprofit dedicated to growing the number of purpose-driven businesses in the Peach State. Nathan also teaches an experiential MBA course on B Corps at the University of Georgia and is the founder of Profitable Purpose Consulting, which helps for-profit businesses certify as B Corps. He has appeared on multiple podcasts and spoken at events across Georgia and the Southeast.

His unique background provides both an authentic and genuine story that resonates with audiences and inspires them, and their businesses, to be a force for good.

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Episode Guide:

1:42 - What is Innovation?

2:58 - In the B-Corp space

3:40 - Company Case Study: Advic (Ad Victoriam Solution)

4:50 - What is a B-Corp?

5:41 - B Corp Assessment

10:06 - Placing workers first

12:18 - Recertification and scores

14:38 - Impact assessment and business impact

16:27 - B Local Georgia

19:55 - Starting B Local Georgia: Capitalism and ROI

22:13 - B Corps in the South

25:32 - Working for B Corps

28.02 - The capitalist system and B-Corps

31:20 - Creating a playbook

32:40 - Reverse engineering your career

34:30 - Advice for innovators

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Resources Mentioned:

BCorp:

• B Corp (B Corporation) - certified by BLab
• B Corp Certification
• B Local Georgia

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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.

Annabel Mendez, founder of Aromalief Vegan Pain Relief Creams, shares how to shift from a problem-focused self into an outcome-focused self.

More about our guest:

Annabel Mendez, Founder of Aromalief Vegan Pain Relief Creams.

Episode guide

1:17 - What is Innovation?

2:33 - Expanding the definition of Innovation

4:51 - What Isn't Innovation

8:04 - Innovation From A Scientific Standpoint

8:45 - Problem-focused and outcome-focused (A 2005 or 2020 Annabel)

13:31 - Uncertain vs. Unknowable

15:19 - Becoming An Entrepreneur

16:42 - Launching Her Business

24:21 - The importance of support In An "Emotional" Business

25:12 - Dealing With Business Problems

27:36 - Advice To Innovators

29:37 - Staying True To Oneself And Your Business

Featuring:

Annabel Mendez, Founder of Aromalief Vegan Pain Relief Creams.

Host:

Jared Simmons (@outlastllc), Founder and Principal at OUTLAST Consulting LLC

Thanks:

Theme: “This Must Be Heaven” by Buzz Amato

Editing and Production: Buzz Amato

Marketing and Visuals: Naomie Oplado

Follow us:

• LinkedIn
• OUTLAST Insights
• Twitter

Quinn Osha is the founder of Topmarq, an innovative online platform that allows car owners to get the best price for their used car. Quinn shares how his company applies the aggregator concept common in other industries to transform the private seller experience in the automotive industry. He also discusses the differences among the four types of innovation he sees in the business world.

More about our guest:

Quinn Osha is the founder of Topmarq, an innovative online platform that allows car owners to get the best price for their used car. A car fanatic since he was young, Quinn saw room for disruption in the trillion dollar automotive industry that would allow people to get better deals when selling cars. Despite starting with no co-founder and minimal funding, Quinn took Topmarq to revenue within 6 months and the company now covers dealerships with a combined volume of over 1 million vehicles per month.

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Episode Guide:

0:00 - Intro

1:43 - What is Innovation

3:44 - Innovation: influencing business-building

5:21 - The automotive industry and Topmarq's search engine-esque feature

7:20 - Differentiating Topmarq from competitors

11:54 - Role as the aggregator

13:25 - Staying away from heavy research projects

15:04 - What isn't innovation

17:14 - Working on patents and eureka moments

18:09 - Engineering background standpoint

22:12 - Engineering and Sales: different perspectives

24:30 - TopMarq today

26:56 - What's next for TopMarq?

28:30 - Advice for innovators

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Resources Mentioned:

Book Mentioned:

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant

Services compared:

• Kayak - Online Travel Search Engine
• Google Flights

Previous episode mentioned:

• Episode 7: Innovation is more than invention

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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.

Join us this week for a conversation with Shanil Ebrahim, Partner and National Life Sciences & Healthcare Consulting Leader at Deloitte Canada! We challenge the common misconception that innovation requires constant efficiency. Shanil shares why some "wasted work" is inevitable, and even essential, for groundbreaking ideas.

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Episode Guide:

0:00 - Intro

0:42 - What is Innovation?

2:20 - Technology in Innovation

3:55 - Innovation: Solving Problems

4:51 - Not (inherently) efficient

7:12 - Innovation, Efficiency, and Problem-Solving

10:40 - Internal usage of innovation processes

13:47 - What isn't Innovation?

17:09 - Dangers of Gen AI

20:26 - New Technology, New Hype, Wrong Implementation

22:38 - Advice to Innovators
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Shanil Ebrahim is a Partner and the National Life Sciences and Healthcare Consulting Leader at Deloitte Canada. He is a senior advisor for clients in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and retail and special pharmacy sectors, and has supported a diverse set of public and private stakeholders in innovation-based business transformations and technology implementations. Shanil held roles as a Clinical Epidemiologist, Faculty Member and Researcher, and also serves as a Board Director in multiple non-profit organizations focused on vulnerable patient populations.

More about our guest:

• Shanil Ebrahim
• Company: Deloitte Canada

OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management

Innovation isn’t just new. It’s radical — and when we treat it like a minor update or a clever tweak, we undermine its potential. In this episode, Jared Simmons speaks with Stefan F. Dieffenbacher, founder of Digital Leadership AG and author of How to Create Innovation, to challenge the status quo around innovation strategy and execution.

With experience leading major transformation projects for companies like Amazon, BMW, and Google, Stefan outlines how most organizations fail by mislabeling incremental improvements as innovation — and by applying the same tools and processes across all types of change. He explains why innovation requires its own distinct mindset, resource model, and methodology, and how most companies neglect the “accelerator” side of innovation, leading to promising ideas being crushed by their own systems.

This episode explores topics like the Three Horizons of Growth, how to structure incubators and accelerators, and how applying engineering principles to innovation can drastically reduce the failure rate. Stefan also shares insights from his global community of 60+ contributors, whose work has culminated in the most comprehensive innovation framework currently available.

If you’re looking to better understand what makes innovation succeed — and why so many companies get it wrong — this conversation offers clear, actionable insights rooted in years of hands-on experience and research.

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Introduction to Stefan F. Dieffenbacher

• 01:00 — Innovation, transformation, and radical change

• 02:13 — Why “new to us” is not innovation

• 04:13 — Aligning methods with the type of innovation

• 06:45 — Incubators vs. accelerators

• 09:59 — The danger of putting $1M ideas in $1B portfolios

• 11:28 — When a business is ready to integrate innovation

• 12:29 — What happens when we mislabel change as innovation

• 13:22 — Why most innovations fail — and how to change that

• 16:10 — Innovation as an engineering discipline

• 18:49 — Underinvestment and innovation’s ROI potential

• 22:05 — Integration > excellence in individual domains

• 25:14 — Is innovation an industry or a project type?

• 27:04 — Focus innovation where you differentiate

• 29:54 — Why finance probably isn’t the place to innovate

• 31:45 — Advice for innovators and free access to tools

Resources Mentioned:
➤ How to Create Innovation (book + open source toolkit)

About the Guest:
Stefan F. Dieffenbacher is the founder of Digital Leadership AG and lead author of How to Create Innovation. With more than 20 large-scale innovation and transformation projects under his belt, Stefan helps global organizations mature their innovation capabilities and drive strategic growth. His open-source innovation platform has reached over 100,000 users worldwide.

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.