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Dr. Ken Washington
Vice President
Research & Innovation
Ford Motor Company

BIO

Accelerating the Drive for Innovation and Collaboration at Ford

Dr. Washington currently manages Ford's research and advanced technology strategy - helping to lead the company's accelerated drive for innovation throughout all areas of its business. His keynote talk will cover how external collaboration, open innovation, creative partnering and technology advancement coupled with deep understanding of customer experience/needs have led to successful product and service innovation at Ford - going beyond vehicles into Mobility. He will also discuss where and how Ford plans to take these innovations and practices into the future.

Watch this video about Ford's use of Open Innovation to Innovate Mobility Platforms:

Dr. Michael J. Pcolinski
Vice President
Innovation & Technology
North America
BASF

BIO

Accelerating Innovation and Growth through Market Focused Collaborations

With ever increasing demands for improved product & service performance successful companies in the global market place are leveraging new ways to connect and collaborate with customers to drive innovation. Over the last years BASF has been building on new attitudes and platforms making open innovation a key cornerstone for market focused collaborations. To successfully engage employees in looking beyond current boundaries we are working on providing these valuable colleagues the tools and capabilities to build and strengthen their connections across functions & geographies. New approaches to facilitate exchange, build trust and accelerate growth between our customers and our employees are yielding impressive returns on our investments in people & technologies designed around creating chemistry for a sustainable future. Mike Pcolinski will share insights into what & how BASF is doing to further strengthen innovation capabilities for customers' success.

Thomas E. Carson
President &
Chief Executive Officer
Axion Health, Inc.

BIO

You Can't Always Get What You Want...at least not alone. (with apologies to Mick Jagger)

As Axion Health, Inc. has progressed on their OI journey, the role of internal relationships and external partnerships to support getting new, better products to market faster and the organizational structure to support them have also evolved. In this presentation, you will hear Tom Carson, the CEO, describe the importance of foundational infrastructure and how the functions are now working collaboratively inside, and with the right partners outside, to drive their growth agenda. With clear accountabilities and expectations, they have been able to more quickly progress projects, identify the best path forward, and leverage current suppliers and new partners. In addition, both successes and lessons learned will be shared regarding implementing partnerships internally and external to the company.

Open Innovation at the Enterprise Level:
Developing a Framework

Over many decades, The J.M.Smucker Co. has built a strong business primarily through acquisitions, traditional innovation and several strategic partnerships. The
company is now increasing its outward focus to better understand needs and more effectively find innovative solutions.

An Open Innovation Task Force was established to bring more discipline to
this external focus and to develop a process framework for Open Innovation
so it becomes a key enabler of business growth.

What you will learn:

• How to build your company's Open Innovation capability and process framework across the enterprise.

• How to successfully engage key stakeholders and sponsors from the start.

• The role of an Open Innovation Advocate in championing Open Innovation at the enterprise level.

• The importance of vision, mission, strategy and language to enable Open Innovation.

• Balancing the culture and its evolution to advance Open Innovation.

Guest Presenter:
	Rosemary Pennington Senior Manager, Marketing Innovation The J.M. Smucker Company BIO

Rob Mirabella
Senior Director,
Leader - Office of Alliances
The Clorox Company

BIO

Maximizing the Value of Partnerships and Alliances to Achieve Corporate Growth

Clorox has been putting a strong emphasis on partnered innovation and developing outside relationships that not only amplify the work of their researchers, but also deliver results through new business models that are aligned with the objectives of their businesses. The presenter, Rob Mirabella who leads the Partnership Group at Clorox, will share their approach to partnered innovation that will continue to influence how the company grows over the next few years. You will learn about how they have accessed a lot of good ideas outside the four walls of their organizations and are seeking the best ways to go about finding and securing them. Rob and the team are leveraging Open Innovation to provide more solutions, and provide them faster to their consumers and customers through partnership and alliances.

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