Innovation Ahead by IRI

Panel discussion with Steven Montgomery, R&D Vice President, Bioindustrials, Cargill and Zara Summers, Chief Strategy Officer, LanzaTech
Moderator: Sean Ammirati, CEO and Co-Founder, Growth Signals
Many industries are going through transitions that mean the customers, partners, and suppliers of tomorrow may not be the same as those of today: Auto OEMs are working with electric utilities, polymer makers with waste management firms, and CPGs with biotechs. This session looks at how to identify and engage the new value chain partners you will need in the future.

Facilitator: Lou Gritzo, Chief Science Officer, FM
We are navigating a complex landscape where growth, sustainability, and supply chain resilience must coexist. This session invites you to share how you’re adapting your strategies and guiding your teams through uncertainty, regulatory shifts, and stakeholder demands. Together, we’ll explore emerging gaps and practical tools to strengthen decision-making and future-proof operations. 

Panel discussion with Jose Miguel Bejarano, Innovation Development Lead, Siemens Energy, and Judodine Nichols, Chief Technology Officer, Principal Mineral
Moderator: Amy Thorn, CEO, Supply Chain Leaders in Action
Innovation teams have been challenged to not only deliver on growth drivers, but also to support sustainability efforts. On top of this, global trade disruptions have given them another urgent reason to further rethink how their firms source materials, components, and energy — a trend that’s now shifted into overdrive this year. This session explores how leaders can incorporate sustainability and supply chain into their processes and frameworks in this environment. 

Facilitator: Seif Hagag, Enterprise Account Manager, Uncountable 
Discuss your team-building strategies and brainstorm on how to develop the skills, attributes, and experiences that your teams will need to flourish in the future.

Fireside chat with Jeff Goldman, Vice President, Enterprise Data Science, Procter & Gamble and Katie Trauth Taylor, CEO and Co-Founder, Narratize
AI and other disruptive trends are challenging leaders to re-think the way they staff, build, and train their teams. Still, the robots aren’t ready to replace us all just yet, which means for the foreseeable future our teams will be made up of humans working with AI. Jeff Goldman will discuss the joint study between Harvard and Procter & Gamble, looking at the impacts of AI on collaboration, outlined in The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise in conversation with Katie Trauth Taylor of product innovation platform developer Narratize.

Facilitator: Mike Holman, Senior Content Director, IRI
This working session will help attendees to explore learnings from Andrea Kates’ keynote and begin to think through how to apply them in their organization. In light of the insights and 5-step model from the keynote, where do you see the biggest challenges for your organization right now — and where do you believe you need to go next?

Opening Keynote with Andrea Kates, Corporate Growth Strategist & Former Tech CEO
In an era of unprecedented uncertainty, the greatest risk isn’t failing to innovate—it’s failing to scale innovation. Too many high-potential ventures die on the vine. We’re overwhelmed by the opportunities to innovate, and challenged by the pressure to get ahead of risks we can’t control. We need to be resilient. We need to navigate the chaos and uncertainty. We need to lead with a completely different mindset. We need to get talent on board. We need to collaborate in ways we’ve never done before. And, we need to unlearn a lot of the innovation disciplines that worked in the past.

In this episode, host Lee Green talks with Sean Amirati of Growth Signals about three trends R&D leaders should prepare for in 2026: proof-of-work artifacts that both humans and agents can use, the AI collaboration stack, and agentic workflows (including co-scientist systems). They discuss moving beyond pilots to deliver real value, strategies for workforce adoption and culture change, and practical ways to evaluate and scale AI-driven innovation within R&D.

This IRI podcast episode features Colin Scott of Innventure discussing how R&D leaders can reduce risk, be highly selective, and decide when to stop projects before committing major resources.

Colin explains the needs‑led approach, critical factor assessment, and prioritization techniques, and shares the PureCycle case as an example of successful external commercialization. He closes with a mindset shift: let the market problem, not the technology, drive your decisions.

In this episode Lee Green interviews Lori Austino, DuPont’s global technology leader, about how the company defines and manages substances of concern. Lori explains the shift from acute to chronic toxicants, the development of internal standards and substance lists, and the principles that guide existing products versus new innovations.

She reviews practical tools, alternatives assessment methods, and a workbook to support R&D decisions, and discusses challenges around supplier disclosure, waste streams, circularity, and avoiding regrettable substitutions. The episode closes with next steps for integrating sustainability into strategic value and ongoing cross-functional collaboration.

Link to the database mentioned in the webinar