Welcome to Faces of Innovation!

This podcast is dedicated to speaking to leaders across the innovation ecosystem, from Venture Builders to Chief Innovation Officers.

Faces of Innovation is hosted by Rachel Gordon. Rachel is a growth and innovation advisor to ambitious industry leaders in consumer packaged goods and pharmaceuticals. In her 20-year career, she's led innovation initiatives across Europe and North America in-house and as a consultant.

Today, she helps clients create internal structures for successful long-term innovation, enabling them to uncover market opportunities, build innovation capability and position themselves for large-scale growth. Rachel’s experience includes work with: ABInBev, AstraZeneca, Danone, General Mills, Harley-Davidson, PepsiCo and Virgin.

Today we're excited to be speaking to Heather Myers. Heather is the founder of Spark No. 9, a strategy validation firm. Heather’s passion is bringing new strategies to life and testing them in real-life, bias-free environments. With the Spark No. 9 team, Heather has developed an experimentation platform that uses powerful design and innovative targeting for multivariate testing of big ideas. By using ad platforms and other real-life forums for testing, Spark generates evidence to de-risk new product development, rebrands, and other strategic initiatives.

Heather is a strategic advisor to The Luupe, a platform for creators; Pluralytics, an AI-powered platform that customizes language to audience; and GOLD, an online comedy platform. She is also the president of the Harvard Business School Women’s Association. Prior to founding Spark, Heather led corporate strategy and development for Scholastic, a leader in K-12 educational technology and children’s book publishing.

Before joining Scholastic, Heather managed the $12 billion merger of Polygram and Universal and created a digital music division for the Universal Music Group; she also led strategy and business development efforts for Universal Studios’ television, motion picture, theme park, and music businesses. Heather holds a BA in English from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

This is a fantastic episode for anyone working in Innovation!