Innovation Storytellers
Did you ever wonder how an innovation got to its finish line? How innovators saw the future, made a product, and created change – in our world and in their companies? I did. Innovation Storytellers invites changemakers to describe how they created their innovation and just as important – THE STORIES – that made us fall in love with them. Come learn how great innovations need great stories to make them move around the world and how to become a better storyteller in the process.
I’m Susan Lindner, the Innovation Storyteller. But I wasn’t always. I’ve been a wannabe revolutionary, an epidemiologist at the CDC and an AIDS educator in the brothels of Thailand helping to turn former sex workers into entrepreneurs. Trained as an anthropologist and the Founder of Emerging Media, I’ve spent the last twenty years working with innovators from 60+ countries. Ranging from cutting edge startups to Fortune 100 companies like GE, Corning, Citi, Olayan, and nine foreign governments, helping their leaders to tell their stories and teaching them how to become incredible advocates for their innovations.
Great innovation stories make change possible. They let us step into a future we can’t see yet. I started this podcast to shine a light on our generation of great innovators, to learn how they brought their innovation to life and the stories they told to bring them to the world.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 40 minutes
- Episodes
- 112
- Years Active
- 2023 - 2025
224: Mandates, Metrics, and Momentum: How Enterprises Innovate with Itonics
Mandates, metrics, and momentum decide whether great ideas ever reach the boardroom. In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Jonathan Livescault, Managing Director at Ito…
223: Tech for Good: Consumer Reports’ Fight for Digital Consumer Rights
I sit down with two innovation leaders from one of America’s oldest and most trusted consumer brands. Leah Fischman Hunter, Director of the Innovation Lab, and Ginny Fahs, Director of Product R&D at …
222: How Hensel Phelps is Diverging from the Construction Pack with New Innovation Strategies
In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Thai Nguyen, Managing Director of Diverge, the corporate venture and innovation arm of Hensel Phelps. With more than 20 years of e…
221: How to Use “Inception” Strategies to Win Over Stakeholders And Create Quick Wins
This week, I sat down with Naftali “Naf” Jaman, a man whose career has stretched from engineering roles in the U.S. Air Force to leading open innovation programs for global giants like GM, Airbus, an…
220: How Medical Innovation Really Works: Friction, Failure, and Forward Motion
On this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Dr. William Pao, physician scientist, former Chief Development Officer at Pfizer, and author of Breakthrough – The Quest for Life-…
219: How 3Daughters is Changing Women's Contraceptives for Better
In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Mary Beth Cicero, co-founder and CEO of 3Daughters, a clinical development company determined to transform women’s healthcare. Mar…
218: How Venture University Teaches Corporate Giants to Innovate
What does it take for corporate innovators to stop killing startups and start working with them productively? In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Andy Goldstein, Part…
217: The Babson Research that Shows How Successful Corporate Innovation
This week on The Innovation Storytellers Show, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Gina O’Connor, Professor of Innovation Management at Babson College. If you're in the corporate inn…
216: How Austin is Innovation’s Newest Hot Spot
What does it take to turn an entire city into a thriving innovation hub? In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Callie Taylor, Vice President of Economic Development at …
215: How Microsoft Garage Harnesses the Innovative Power of 70,000
What if getting your big idea across the finish line wasn't about pitching harder, but about thinking like a storyteller… or a mastermind?
In this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit d…
214: Does Corporate Innovation Actually Create Real Innovation?
Do corporate innovators truly innovate, or are they trapped inside systems that make real transformation impossible?
On this episode of The Innovation Storytellers Show, I speak with Elliott Parker, …
213: How She Unlocked Incredible Process Innovation at Southwest Airlines & the DoD
What does it really take to fix a billion-dollar bottleneck inside a company famous for saying no to new spending? And how do you translate that same problem-solving into one of the world’s largest b…
212: NASA Retiree and Leader/Speaker on Open Innovation, Open Talent, and the Future of Work
Steve Rader returns to share how open innovation has transformed from an experiment to a mission-critical tool inside NASA and beyond. As a newly minted retiree from NASA’s Center of Excellence for C…
211: How the Blue Horizons Is Innovating the USAF from the Inside Out
What does it take to shake up one of the largest and most complex organizations in the world from the inside out? On this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I invite you to buckle up for a …
210: How Therapy Brands Hit a $1.25B Exit in Alabama And Grew the Innovation Ecosystem
In this episode, I sit down with Shegun Otulana, founder and former CEO of Therapy Brands. His journey from arriving in Birmingham, Alabama at 18 to leading one of the largest software exits in the s…
209: How Stanford University Is Inspired By Nordic Sustainability Methods
In this special episode of Nordic Visionaries, I'm joined by Lincoln Bleveans, Senior Sustainability Executive at Stanford University. He is leading one of the most ambitious real-world experiments i…
208: How BIG Is Architecting Sustainable Structures from Earth to the Moon and Back Again
In this special Nordic Visionaries edition of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I am joined by one of the most influential architects of our time, Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG, Bjarke Ingels Group. …
207: Beyond Profit: How Gen Z Leaders Are Creating a Circular & Sustainable
What does building a business with climate responsibility at its core look like, not as an add-on but as a starting point?
In this episode of Innovation Storytellers Show, we're heading to the Nordic…
206: The Icelandic Blueprint: How Videntifier and NATO Innovation Fund Are Shaping a Safer, Smarter Future
In this episode of Innovation Storytellers, part of our Nordic Visionaries Pocket Podcast series, we explore that connection with Ari Jónsson, COO of Identifier Technologies and Director at the NATO …
205: Regulating the Future: Innovation, AI, and Global Tech Power
What does it mean to innovate with principle in a world of complexity, volatility, and accelerating change? This week, I spoke with Anu Bradford, Professor of Law, Director of European Legal Studies…