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This year, I learned that innovation doesn’t live in brainstorms, labs, or offsites. It lives in the operations - in the systems, rituals, and rhythms that turn inspiration into something repeatable.
When I started the year, innovation in our department was an idea. A good one - but still an idea.
Today, it’s a working function. We’ve built credibility, embedded frameworks, and proven that innovative ideas, experimentation and delivery don’t have to compete - they can coexist.
It’s been a shift from exploration to enablement:
- Ideas becoming live initiatives.
- Frameworks embedded into product teams.
- New rituals built to make learning continuous.
The biggest lesson? Innovation isn’t about being first - it’s about being consistent.
When people trust your process, they stop seeing innovation as disruption and start seeing it as delivery.
Personally, I’ve had to unlearn the instinct to drive everything. Leadership in innovation isn’t about being the loudest creative voice in the room - it’s about being the quietest confident one.
Creating space for others to experiment, codifying what works, and keeping the engine human, sustainable, and influential.
Next year, my focus is on scaling sustainably: turning influence into structure, and making innovation a force multiplier for the business - not a separate track.
Because creativity alone can inspire people. But operationalised creativity?
That’s what changes companies.