10 Things I Know
Katherine Manuel & Gautam Jain, innovation leaders at Thomson Reuters
On innovating inside a 50,000-person company, why culture change has to come from the top, and the books that shaped their thinking.
Thomson Reuters is a multinational media, information and technology company operating in more than 100 countries, with over 50,000 people. Global Innovation Magazine spoke to Katherine Manuel and Gautam Jain about embedding a culture of innovation across the organisation.
Katherine: I ended up running the technology strategy area. After a few years I wanted to try something different. When Jim Smith became CEO I came back to work in the office of the CEO as a Vice President of Strategy. After some time working on the transformation programme I was asked to head up innovation.
Gautam: I grew up in a small town near Mumbai, India. I studied computer technology, then joined the country’s largest IT consulting firm. I then pursued my MBA in Finance from Mumbai University and joined the Business Graduate Programme at Thomson Reuters.
Katherine: Innovation definitely needed to come from the top, from our CEO. One of the key messages was that we are changing and we are not going back. So this is not a phase, it is reality.
The MENA Innovation Lab was inaugurated in July 2015 by HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The purpose of the lab is to foster a culture of innovation in MENA.
Katherine: Identify innovation change agents — people who can stimulate and highlight opportunities. As long as the person has some level of sponsorship, then you can take forward that idea.
Gautam: It’s a lot easier to innovate and pivot in a smaller company. Most of the truly great ideas often originated when organisations were really small. It’s about having an open culture, being willing to fail, and valuing everyone’s opinion.
Katherine: From a work perspective, the Second Machine Age was phenomenal. The other one I have been reading on a personal front is Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman.
Gautam: One of the movies I really like which links to innovation is Her. One of the scary things about this film is that I don’t think we are really that far away from this.
"Innovation definitely needed to come from the top. One of the key messages was: we are changing and we are not going back. This is not a phase, it is reality."
From the Archive — This interview was originally published in Dubai Special, May 2016 (May 2016). Roles, titles, and views expressed were accurate at the time of the original interview and may have since changed.
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