Cynthia Hansen (Innovation Foundation): 4 lessons from scaling social innovation

Most innovation programmes start with reasonable assumptions. The challenge is that reality often proves them wrong.

In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm and Jeppe Høier speak with Cynthia Hansen, Managing Director of The Innovation Foundation, empowered by the Adecco Group, about four lessons learned from building and scaling employment solutions for people often excluded from the labour market.

Cynthia shares how her team moved from designing programmes around demographics to designing around trends, why technology became central rather than supportive and what it takes to build venture teams capable of creating scalable social impact inside a large organisation.

The conversation also explores the evolution of the Foundation's Scan, Build, Scale methodology, the challenge of finding people who can operate across business and social impact and how Foundry is helping create the next generation of innovation talent.

Highlights

• Why designing around demographics led to repeating patterns
• How trend-based innovation changed the team's approach
• The evolution of the Scan, Build, Scale framework
• Why technology became essential to scaling impact
• The challenge of finding the right venture builders
• How Foundry is creating a pipeline of innovation talent
• What corporate innovators can learn about designing for scale
• Why scale should be built into a solution from day one

Timestamps

• (00:00) Introduction
• (02:00) What The Innovation Foundation does and why Adecco created it
• (03:00) Learning 1: Why demographics were the wrong place to start
• (08:00) Moving from audiences to trends
• (10:00) How the team identifies emerging labour market shifts
• (14:00) Learning 2: The Scan, Build, Scale framework
• (18:00) The challenge of finding the right venture builders
• (20:00) Introducing Foundry
• (23:00) Learning 3: Why technology became central
• (26:00) Technology, scale and the digital divide
• (29:00) Measuring impact beyond reach and job placement
• (31:00) The flywheel behind scaling social innovation
• (35:00) Learning 4: Building the right teams
• (38:00) What entrepreneurs can learn about working with corporates
• (39:00) Closing thoughts

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