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 Agathe Blanchon-Ehrsam. Agathe is VP of Plant-Based Growth Strategy and Innovation at Danone. She has had an incredible career and journey working both consultancy-side as Partner at Vivaldi, a global re-invention firm known for supporting some of the leading organizations in unlocking growth and transforming brands, through to her work today at Danone, where she focuses on growth & innovation strategy across the portfolio.

Agathe has had a career that has spanned multiple types of organizations and geographies and this is an incredible episode to hear more about her approach to building a career in brand and innovation. How she has approached growth and the decisions that have led her to her role today? The journey of going from consultancy side to an in-house role? What do decisions look like from the inside and how should consultancies be working as partners to innovation leaders? And so much more.

This is a fantastic episode for anyone building a career in innovation and for folks who really want to understand what decisions look like in-house when it comes to brand and innovation. There are so many insights and learnings jam packed in this episode and we hope you enjoy it!