In this episode of the AlchemistX Innovators Inside Podcast, host Ian Bergman sits down with Conrad Wade, Director of Strategy & Innovation at Moody’s, to reveal how a 100‑year‑old financial‑services giant keeps innovating at startup speed.

Here are the five main takeaways from their conversation:

1. Customer‑First Discovery Beats “Cool Tech” Every Time

Conrad’s team starts every initiative by mapping a day‑in‑the‑life of real users—before touching a roadmap. This boots‑on‑the‑ground research surfaces hidden pains and prevents the classic trap of “a solution in search of a problem.” The payoff? Faster product‑market fit and stronger internal buy‑in.

2. Treat Everyone as an Innovator—14,000 “Prompt Engineers”

When Moody’s leadership declared that all 14,000 employees are now “prompt engineers,” they democratized experimentation with generative AI. The message: innovation isn’t an ivory‑tower activity; it’s a company‑wide mandate. That shift accelerates adoption of new tech and turns change‑management headaches into grassroots momentum.

3. Friction Isn’t the Enemy—It’s Rocket Fuel for Breakthroughs

Innovation workshops deliberately mix product, sales, and customer‑experience teams. The inevitable friction surfaces blind spots, sparks creative tension, and refines ideas in days—not quarters. Managed correctly, those collisions transform siloed expertise into market‑ready concepts.

4. Startups Are Your Early‑Warning Radar

Conrad still leans on his accelerator background to track emerging founders. Even if a specific startup fails, its thesis often flags where the market is headed—ambient computing, mixed reality, quantum‑enabled risk modeling. Partnering (or simply listening) keeps Moody’s ahead of six‑month “horizon‑three” disruptions.

5. Quantify ROI—but Lead With Customer Impact

Executive support flows where value is clear. Conrad argues that improved customer outcomes—not theoretical revenue projections—are the fastest path to green‑light new projects. Happier customers drive stickier products, higher retention, and, ultimately, long‑term share‑price gains.

Quick Recap

Have a question for a future guest? Email us at innovators@alchemistaccelerator.com to get in touch! 

Timestamps

🧠 Introduction to Conrad Wade (00:00:00)

🔍 The Power of Customer-Centric Innovation (00:02:20)

🚫 Avoiding the “Solution in Search of a Problem” Trap (00:03:55)

🤝 Cross-Functional Collaboration as Innovation Fuel (00:06:10)

🚀 From Startups to Moody’s: Conrad’s Innovation Journey (00:09:27)

🌐 How Startups Help Corporations Spot What’s Next (00:12:35)

📈 Preparing for Disruption: GenAI & Quantum Computing (00:16:39)

🏗️ Innovation is Execution + Change Management (00:21:20)

⚡ Friction as a Driver for Cross-Team Innovation (00:24:06)

📣 How Moody’s Declared Every Employee a “Prompt Engineer” (00:26:01)

💬 Securing Executive Buy-In Through Customer Impact (00:28:14)

🏢 Why Innovation Teams Must Avoid the Ivory Tower Trap (00:33:27)

🎯 Final Thoughts on Culture, Leadership & the Future of Innovation (00:35:18)

Full Transcript 

00;00;21;15 - 00;00;44;03

Ian Bergman

Welcome to season six of Alchemist x Innovators Inside the podcast, where we explore the world of corporate innovation and dive deep into the minds and stories of innovation. Thought leaders crafting the future. I am your host, Ian Bergmann, and if you're an innovation agitator like me, then this is where you want to be. Conrad. Good afternoon.

00;00;44;06 - 00;00;45;19

Conrad Wade

Good afternoon. Ian, how are you doing?

00;00;45;22 - 00;00;48;13

Ian Bergman

I am so well. How about yourself?

00;00;48;15 - 00;00;50;28

Conrad Wade

Very good. Extremely excited to be here with you today.

00;00;51;02 - 00;01;05;08

Ian Bergman

Well, that's what I wanted to hear. Welcome to Innovators Inside. And honestly, thanks for joining us. It's a it's a Friday afternoon for recording kind of coming into a holiday period. So I really appreciate you taking some time.

00;01;05;11 - 00;01;07;17

Conrad Wade

Amazing. I'm super excited to be here with you today.

00;01;07;19 - 00;01;30;15

Ian Bergman

Nice. Well, for folks that don't know you, I want to say welcome to Conrad Wade. Conrad's a director of strategy and innovation at Moody's. And he's, you know, come into this role on I mean, you've come into this role on more than a decade, almost 15 years of experience at the intersection of strategy, technology and startup ecosystems. And like, I mean, clearly that's where you like to play.

00;01;30;16 - 00;01;33;07

Ian Bergman

I love to play there. So I'm really excited about this.

00;01;33;10 - 00;01;36;03

Conrad Wade

I am too. And I think like maybe just a quick background on myself.

00;01;36;03 - 00;01;36;29

Ian Bergman

So yeah.

00;01;37;01 - 00;01;57;07

Conrad Wade

You know, you mentioned I'm at Moody's I think most folks know Moody's as Moody's ratings or the investor service. But where I sit as I'm part of what was previously Moody's Analytics, just now known as Moody's, I mean, I'm part of the customer experience innovation team. So with the customer experience innovation team, I'm responsible for ideation across the business.

00;01;57;10 - 00;02;20;17

Conrad Wade

And I really work with different stakeholders to uncover hidden user needs and help teams come up with new concepts, breakthrough ideas that address these problems at teams. Have, identified. So when we look at my team being part of the innovation team, it's really about having teams really try to understand what are some of those bleeding edge ideas and technologies that we can develop.

00;02;20;18 - 00;02;29;08

Conrad Wade

So I like to think that we're really at the forefront of things, really working with stakeholders. Identify some of this horizon three opportunities we can capitalize on as a company.

00;02;29;10 - 00;02;45;04

Ian Bergman

I absolutely love that. And you're hitting on key words that make me kind of giggle happily inside. Right? But like, honestly, like user needs intersection with technology and capabilities that are out there, right? I mean, for me, that intersection is really where innovation comes from.

00;02;45;07 - 00;02;58;18

Conrad Wade

100%. Yeah. And I think like when we look at innovation, you know, the first place that it really began is really trying to understand, you know, what are the needs of the user. You know the sessions that I run, it's really about trying to understand, you know, what does a day in the life of our users or customers look like?

00;02;58;20 - 00;03;08;09

Conrad Wade

And with that understanding, be able to understand how we might be able to leverage technology to create some of these solutions to address these needs. So with that, we've. Yep. Go ahead.

00;03;08;12 - 00;03;27;12

Ian Bergman

No, I want to okay, I want to dive right in because I mean this is just such the meat of it. I think so many times when I'm talking to people who are trying to drive change or innovation in large organizations, which is which is a pretty significant base of our audience on this podcast, right? They feel frustrated about how to get started.

00;03;27;15 - 00;03;44;13

Ian Bergman

They feel a lot of kind of general pushback, etc. but also they see that their organizations are skipping over what feels like a really basic but important step understanding the day to day lives of the customers. The users, and the stakeholders.

00;03;44;17 - 00;03;45;10

Conrad Wade

100%.

00;03;45;10 - 00;03;54;28

Ian Bergman

Like it's so easy to skip over. So how do you do that? Are you are you sending them surveys to fill out? I'm pretty sure you're not.

00;03;55;01 - 00;04;14;10

Conrad Wade

Maybe I I'm now you're 100% right. It's about really understanding. What are those problems we should be solving. I think one of the biggest that we know is, is creating a solution in search of a problem. Yeah. And we see that so many, so many times. And that's great as a solution can be. It's not going to ever take off if there isn't necessarily any sort of problem solving.

00;04;14;10 - 00;04;34;06

Conrad Wade

So it's really about trying to understand where the needs of that user. And there's many ways that you can do this. I think like one of them is, you know, research getting out there and actually speaking with your users, your customers, really trying to understand what keeps them up at night, you know, how do they tech, you know, what are their problems or challenges today.

00;04;34;06 - 00;04;42;02

Conrad Wade

You know, what are they trying to achieve. And with this knowledge, being able to understand what are some of those key problems we should be solving as an organization?

00;04;42;04 - 00;04;58;29

Ian Bergman

Well, and I like that you said getting out there. I mean, I you know, I think we're going to use the words ivory tower in a few different ways, actually, in this podcast, if I had to guess. But, you know, I had an experience over a decade ago in my career that looking back on, it's kind of embarrassing for me, but actually it was a little transformational.

00;04;58;29 - 00;05;25;24

Ian Bergman

It was an experience where I got out of the office of the very large tech company I had been working at and working on an innovation project, and, and I went and I talked to humans and people and customers, and I watched them right. And I hadn't done that before. And I learned more. And, you know, a half day of, you know, fancy ethnographic stuff, not so great as customer discovery, just like watching and talking to people.

00;05;25;26 - 00;05;47;15

Ian Bergman

Then I think I had by doing six months of quote unquote research, market analysis, trend analysis, survey feedback, NPS telemetry. How hard is that to do when you are credentialed at a large enterprise and people might look at you and say, wait, why? Why are you out there talking to people in the street?

00;05;47;17 - 00;06;10;29

Conrad Wade

Well, I mean, I think it's absolutely necessary. And sometimes it's about I think one way that you can do it is it's about bringing together different teams within your organization, being able to bring together your product team. The sometimes are very focused on just the day to day of keeping the product going. Being able to iterate on the cycles, the roadmap, but they don't necessarily have that voice of customer in mind.

00;06;11;01 - 00;06;29;07

Conrad Wade

So being able to bring folks from sales, different parts of the organization that are already out there, speaking with customers and being able to provide them insights that might be able to drive those product decisions and product roadmaps. I think it's absolutely necessary to engage with customers, really try to understand how you can incorporate this into the product.

00;06;29;09 - 00;06;42;02

Ian Bergman

Yeah. Do you ever get really surprised engaging with customers in kind of that more human trying to walk a day in their shoes way and realizing like, you were either just really wrong about something or you had some key insight.

00;06;42;04 - 00;07;03;12

Conrad Wade

100%. Yeah. I mean, there's like many times where you, you the assumptions that you were making were completely wrong, but I think it actually makes you more excited because it's almost like, that's that why this finally being signed? You can really understand what it is they need. Yeah. So I think it's always an amazing kind of like moment that the teams have when they're actually able to understand, oh, this is what they are actually looking for.

00;07;03;13 - 00;07;04;27

Conrad Wade

This is what they're actually saying.

00;07;05;02 - 00;07;19;14

Ian Bergman

Totally. Well so I'm curious your thoughts I'll tell you about my favorite. I don't think I've told this story on the pod before, but like you know, for a period of time, I was working on, on hardware and we were working on touchscreens on laptops. So this is this is back in the days away when this was still a very novel thing.

00;07;19;16 - 00;07;48;03

Ian Bergman

And it was really interesting because we had all kinds of market data that told us two things. No one wanted to buy them, but everybody who had them was happy. And like that was a tough conversation when it added a lot of cost to touch screens and, you know, so we went out and watch people. And I remember, I just had the most delightful interaction with kind of, I don't know, probably, almost middle age woman using her laptop.

00;07;48;03 - 00;08;03;00

Ian Bergman

And we were just kind of watching and it was a really funny, she was using a touchscreen laptop and, you know, we were just watching what she was doing. And then at the end, I did ask her some questions. One of the things I asked her is like, how do you like the touch screen on your laptop? And she's like, what's that?

00;08;03;01 - 00;08;27;18

Ian Bergman

I never, I never use it. I never touched a laptop. She had touched it like 70 times and didn't even know it. And like, it's not a blame thing. It was a fascinating, stunning insight that we would never have gotten if we weren't actually just walking in folks shoes. And I think I think back on how hard that is for so many people in a corporate environment.

00;08;27;19 - 00;08;32;14

Ian Bergman

Maybe not an innovation moment of corporate environment to do it. I'm like, oh, how much are we missing?

00;08;32;17 - 00;08;52;25

Conrad Wade

Yeah. I mean I think right now, like you know when we look at some of the work that I'm currently doing, it's about gen AI enablement across the organization. So when we think of customers in the sense my customers are actually some of our internal users of the technology. So it's fascinating to see when we put the technology and, people's hands across the organization.

00;08;52;25 - 00;09;10;29

Conrad Wade

I know that we have, you know, different tools that we're rolling out when we think they address a particular use case. But you're able to actually understand all the different use cases that the technology is able to unlock that are even more powerful than the ones that you originally had identified or thought were relevant to a particular job function.

00;09;11;01 - 00;09;26;27

Ian Bergman

You just get surprised and you get to nerd out like crazy, I love it. Well, so kind of tell me how did you get to where you're at today? Like, how did you get into this world? And you know, what excited you about it? To kind of build a career in and around this broad space of innovation?

00;09;27;00 - 00;09;51;15

Conrad Wade

Yeah. So, I feel like my entire career I've been in the innovation space. I originally was on the West Coast, and I think what really sparked my interest in innovation was I was working at a boutique product marketing firm, and it was interesting. We worked closely with aerospace and defense contractors. So what was really interesting is we were working with the most brilliant engineers coming up with some of the neatest technologies.

00;09;51;15 - 00;10;09;04

Conrad Wade

You can think of things like wireless energy, but they really had no idea. You know, they understood where these had a place in the defense markets, but they really didn't have a sense of, you know, is there a commercial opportunity here? So we work with these teams on trying to understand product market fit when looking at commercial markets and commercial customers.

00;10;09;06 - 00;10;41;01

Conrad Wade

And also a piece of that was helping them trying to understand how can we innovate like startups. So we would analyze and assess and what was occurring in the commercial space startup ecosystem and help them understand how they might be, might be able to adapt or work closely with these emerging partners. I know at the time, like one of the interesting things to see was we saw some of these space companies, they were just blown away by Facebook or Meta Google, especially space X, and the speed at which it was able to bring its, you know, right market.

00;10;41;06 - 00;11;00;04

Conrad Wade

They were just blown away by these innovation. And so I think that's really what really this sparked my interest in the innovation space. And then after that, you know, I really wanted to try and pursue a career and, you know, the venture capital startup ecosystem so that now led to my move to San Francisco, where I ended up getting a job with a company called Rocket Space.

00;11;00;06 - 00;11;00;22

Ian Bergman

Okay.

00;11;00;25 - 00;11;03;21

Conrad Wade

Rocket space. At the not time, I was a pretty well known accelerator.

00;11;03;21 - 00;11;04;17

Ian Bergman

It's where yep.

00;11;04;24 - 00;11;27;27

Conrad Wade

Companies like Uber and Spotify have launched. I think just now, when you look at the pedigree of names that have launched on the rocket space campus, and that's what led to the creation of its Corporate Innovation Services division, it was almost like the consulting arm of Rocket Space. So with that team, I'd work with, you know, fortune 500 companies, and we'd really help them try and understand innovations that we were seeing across Silicon Valley.

00;11;27;27 - 00;11;35;21

Conrad Wade

I think we were meeting before. This is the time when people kind of looked at like innovation and this ivory tower existing only in Silicon Valley.

00;11;35;23 - 00;11;42;04

Ian Bergman

Right? You had to you had to go to where the ideas are. Otherwise you had no right to them. Right kind of idea.

00;11;42;10 - 00;12;04;12

Conrad Wade

We have companies setting up innovation labs and yeah. Yeah, the whole bit Jose Palo Alto. Exactly. That's you know, they thought that in order to innovate, you had to be in Silicon Valley, which is, you know, a completely different case today. But we work with them on really trying to understand trends that were shaping the, you know, innovation ecosystem, helps them identify what were some of those key concepts that could be developing.

00;12;04;12 - 00;12;29;25

Conrad Wade

And then we'd also try and help them understand some of those key startup partners that they could be working with. And then, you know, following rocket SpaceX, I ended up getting a career with Capgemini with its open, which is a consulting company at its open Innovation team. So we work with, again, fortune 500 clients. We work with them on idea discovery, really trying to understand what were some of those are the possible ideas that could be potentially bringing to market.

00;12;29;25 - 00;12;35;06

Conrad Wade

And then we also help them devise solutions. So helping design different concepts that could really change the game.

00;12;35;08 - 00;12;54;07

Ian Bergman

So oh, I want to pause you there for a second because there's a common thread here, especially kind of rocket space through what you're doing at Capgemini. And you know, you dropped you dropped this word earlier and talking about the work you do at Moody's. And that's the word startups. How do you think about startups as intersecting with innovation at these fortune 500 companies?

00;12;54;09 - 00;13;17;26

Conrad Wade

I mean, when I think about startups, I always like to think they're at the leading edge of innovation. I've spoken to so many startups, and I will say this, you know, regardless of whether or not the idea actually gains traction and works, I firmly believe that startup founders are really at the really have a pulse on, you know, where the industry is moving and how things are evolving.

00;13;17;26 - 00;13;25;05

Conrad Wade

So I think even when you have discussions with startups, they have a very firm understanding of where the industry is going to be in the next few years.

00;13;25;05 - 00;13;42;19

Ian Bergman

Can we can we just talk about how, you know, someone has an innovator's mindset when they're like, even if it doesn't work, they've got a pulse and I can learn something like, this is like iterative innovation. And so many people, I think, get so stuck in the oh, but it didn't work now.

00;13;42;19 - 00;14;02;02

Conrad Wade

And, you know, it's it's funny. It reminds me when I was in San Francisco, I was working with a large telecom company at the time on a project towards the future of entertainment. And so I remember working closely with startups. I was interviewing them. I'm really trying to get a sense of the new technologies that they were introducing.

00;14;02;03 - 00;14;27;03

Conrad Wade

You know, how are these going to really transform the market? And I remember speaking with, augmented reality or mixed reality startup at the time, their idea never actually gained traction. But remember speaking to one of its executives and they said, you know what? The future of augmented reality, it's actually this whole idea called ambient computing. So they pretty much said, you know, whether or not our idea takes off, this is where the industry is headed.

00;14;27;03 - 00;14;47;25

Conrad Wade

Yeah. So idea of ambient computing, where you have the intersection of, you know, mixed reality, AI, cloud, IoT 60. It's really the intersection of all these technologies so that users have this, you know, technology really wasn't ubiquitously in the background, and it's technology when and where you need it. Which is pretty exciting.

00;14;47;27 - 00;15;07;18

Ian Bergman

You know, there's, I don't actually know where this came from originally. I really probably should because I cited a lot. But I think there's a bit of a truism, right? That dissatisfaction comes from the gap between knowing what's possible and whatever experience you're having right now. Right. And that might be your neighbor's house being ten times your size.

00;15;07;18 - 00;15;26;19

Ian Bergman

It might be your shopping experience at a store or whatever it is. But one of the things that I love about what you just said is when you're immersing yourself in conversations with people who are pushing the art of the possible and are like, I know we're going to get there, it might be two years from now. I don't know exactly how, but I know what the world is going to look like.

00;15;26;22 - 00;15;36;02

Ian Bergman

I feel like that can spark that dissatisfaction. Or maybe there's a positive spin on it, that ambition to close the gap in people. Do you see that?

00;15;36;05 - 00;16;06;02

Conrad Wade

I don't know, I mean, I think it can certainly cause dissatisfaction when you understand the gap that exists. But I almost think I like to almost think of it as like an opportunity. Yeah. Like there's certainly like that's kind of the way that you really need to look at challenges. Those in turn pose opportunities. So I think like when you look at that Northstar or, you know, ideal vision of the future, you really have a pretty good sense of, you know, how you might be able to address that gap or different ways that you might be able to go about addressing that gap.

00;16;06;02 - 00;16;07;08

Conrad Wade

Until we actually get to that ideal.

00;16;07;12 - 00;16;12;25

Ian Bergman

You can kind of figure out how to, you know, I live in Canada, you can figure out how to skate to where the puck is going type thing.

00;16;12;27 - 00;16;13;05

Conrad Wade

Excel.

00;16;13;06 - 00;16;39;17

Ian Bergman

Okay, I love it. So before we, you know, before we started recording, we were actually talking a little bit about this theme of innovation being much more accessible. It doesn't have to be locked up in Bell Labs or Xerox Parc. It doesn't have to be locked up in Silicon Valley or, you know, university labs around the world. How has that idea changed for you over the last ten, 15 years?

00;16;39;19 - 00;17;01;15

Conrad Wade

I mean, I think it's been turned upside down and, you know, like we were saying before, I think innovation was almost seen as, you know, this thing that was in an ivory tower in San Francisco or Silicon Valley where you had to be part of that ecosystem to innovate. Yeah, but that's not the case anymore. And I think, you know, when we look at like Covid, that certainly helped kind of like accelerate, you know, the adoption of innovation, you know, from anywhere.

00;17;01;22 - 00;17;24;03

Conrad Wade

And so I think when we look at innovation today, it's actually a much more exciting environment because more like innovation, it can come from anywhere and anyone. You don't necessarily need to be in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. And I think it's evident when you look at just, you know, what we're witnessing today with, you know, things like generative AI, just the rate of change and the speed that, you know, which we're seeing innovation.

00;17;24;03 - 00;17;38;19

Conrad Wade

It's it's it's really exciting. I think, you know, I've spoken to you before about this, but, you know, when we looked at the horizon model, you know, you typically have horizon one, two and three. Sure. I think folks typically view that third horizon as almost being like, you know, a few years away.

00;17;38;19 - 00;17;44;06

Ian Bergman

Yeah, I think it was I think it was originally framed as like the 5 to 10 year research event.

00;17;44;08 - 00;18;04;00

Conrad Wade

Horizon three today. I would say, you know, you could look at it as almost six months to a year. It's, you know, we see new things coming out every week. And I think, you know, that's the really kind of prompted this need for organizations to be prepared. You know, you don't want to be blindsided. I think like many companies where when we saw like the emergence of Gen I.

00;18;04;02 - 00;18;35;13

Conrad Wade

Yeah. So I think, you know, if there's any point in time to be, you know, at the tip of innovation, it's right now and I think like mean look at my organization. We're focusing on things like Gen I but also quantum computing. Yeah. Think like cloud computing or why Moody's. But when you look at quantum computing that can completely turn around the way that you do like things like credit risk modeling to be able to like perform calculations and then run these models in an instant that can completely disrupt your business model and turn it upside down.

00;18;35;16 - 00;18;54;28

Conrad Wade

And then I think when you look at com computing too, I mean, there's also, you know, security implications when you look at like cyber and encryption. So I think that there's, you know, certainly innovations that, you know, companies should be taking note of today. But then also when we look at the future, these things that we thought were so distant, they might be much closer than we actually think they are.

00;18;55;00 - 00;19;08;20

Ian Bergman

Well, and and the thing is, they might be, but you don't know, you can see them coming, you know they're coming, but you don't know exactly when. And this is why. Like, I actually kind of love this because I feel like you're talking out of one of my pitch decks. But like, you know, you mentioned the word preparedness, right?

00;19;08;20 - 00;19;27;12

Ian Bergman

I think Quantum Machine is such a cool example. Right? Pretty sure it's coming. Pretty sure it's going to seriously upend what you're doing. I don't know exactly when, but it might be tomorrow. So what are you doing? You're investing and preparing exactly. So that you can, you know, react so that you know, the service you offered your customers doesn't fall off a cliff.

00;19;27;12 - 00;20;07;18

Ian Bergman

And I think, like, I think that's such an important I want I want the audience to pay attention to this, because I think that is such an important point about the role of innovation teams and innovation leads inside large corporations, right? I think I think we often conflate innovation with R&D, new product, developing new business creation, which, you know, it can certainly tie to these things, but innovation as a function that doesn't go off on its own and play around with the cool new toys, but that structurally helps, you know, Moody's be prepared for a changing future.

00;20;07;19 - 00;20;11;20

Ian Bergman

Yep. Like that. Sounds like you guys have your head screwed on straight now.

00;20;11;20 - 00;20;27;24

Conrad Wade

Yeah, I mean, I like to think we do. It's, you know, about how can you create that moat around your company? And I think to your point, you know, it's about making sure that you're prepared and that you aren't blindsided when, you know, quantum computing does actually, you know, transform industry in the way that people are doing things.

00;20;27;24 - 00;20;35;28

Conrad Wade

So I think you're 100% right. And thinking about, you know, animation and, you know, how can you better prepare yourselves for that not so distant future?

00;20;36;00 - 00;21;01;01

Ian Bergman

Yeah. Amazing. Well, so, you know, let's let's kind of build on this thread of organizational preparation, like, you know, obviously, Lee, actually, maybe I'm saying something stupid. I'm going to say it. I mean, it seems to me that, you know, obviously not everybody in an enterprise can be an innovator and a change maker. And, you know, I think there are job functions where you don't want people reinventing the wheel constantly.

00;21;01;03 - 00;21;20;09

Ian Bergman

For sure. So how do you think about your role in terms of bringing the rest of the company along, engaging stakeholders, you know, connecting with the rest of Moody's? Like how do you think about that and what problems do you run into and how do you how do you solve them? It's a big question.

00;21;20;11 - 00;21;54;13

Conrad Wade

Is a big question. You know, I, I would like to just start this off by saying, when I look at innovation, I really think it's two things. It's one, the idea itself, but the second, it's about execution of that idea. And I think that's where most companies fall short is in the execution. And I think when we look at the execution that might be in that story that you tell or narrative that you're, you know, pitching to the user or markets, but it's also helping folks adapt to new ways of working and being able to adapt to change.

00;21;54;20 - 00;22;19;07

Conrad Wade

So I think when I look at my role today, it's really about not only helping folks embrace a new technology, but helping them adapt to change and understand how this can actually, you know, transform the way that they work and do things across the organization. A huge piece of innovation is, you know, change management. I like to kind of think of that, you know, as my role today, Amadeus is being a change agent.

00;22;19;12 - 00;22;44;25

Conrad Wade

Yeah. So we'll take change across different teams and really break down some of the silos that exist. So when I look at, you know, the role of my team and movies, it's about working with stakeholders across different, you know, operating units, job functions and really being able to align them on you know, different ideas, concepts that teams are coming up with and helping them adapt to new ways of working.

00;22;44;27 - 00;22;48;09

Conrad Wade

The changes that are, you know, changes that exist.

00;22;48;11 - 00;23;05;07

Ian Bergman

Do you have any favorite models or tips and tricks to kind of create space for them to engage without feeling overwhelmed? Right. Because it is it is really easy to let me rephrase that. We're all very busy. It's very hard to step out of the day to day. So how do you think about that with your stakeholders?

00;23;05;09 - 00;23;29;01

Conrad Wade

I think being able to I mean, when I look at my role, it's it's really about bringing together, you know, folks from different backgrounds together through ideation. And when I look at the ideation sessions that we run, they are indeed a safe space. There is no right or wrong answer that's being able to bring together, you know, folks from different mindset backgrounds that had different mindsets and perspectives.

00;23;29;03 - 00;23;53;05

Conrad Wade

And I think what's important is being able to align them on, you know, what is the problem that we're currently trying to solve or that we want to try and solve. And then having folks, you know, take their expertise and try to understand how might we be able to potentially address this problem. And I think, like folks typically think of like friction as a bad thing, but I think friction can actually be seen as a good thing, or friction can be seen as a positive thing.

00;23;53;11 - 00;24;06;10

Conrad Wade

Interesting. And so I think when you have these, you know, ideation sessions, it's really about trying to take the friction that might exist and actually leverage it as a good thing that can actually help drive change, across the team.

00;24;06;13 - 00;24;22;10

Ian Bergman

Tell me more about that, because you're right. Like, so I mean, this is kind of classic innovator's dilemma. And some way. Right. Like organizations are all about reducing friction, increasing efficiency. Tell me more about the positive side of quote unquote, friction and pain.

00;24;22;12 - 00;24;38;27

Conrad Wade

Yeah, I mean, I think like without friction, I mean, if you think about it, without friction, you're not necessarily going to have that need to change. So I think with friction, that's actually what's needed in order to drive meaningful change. I think it's just really about how you manage that friction to ensure that you get to the point where you want.

00;24;38;29 - 00;25;11;06

Ian Bergman

And now we get into a nice philosophical argument about the comfort of steady state, you know, and and not change and balancing that against the, you know, the, the heavy weight of the status quo. But I think you're right. But I also wonder how much is on the leadership, the most senior leadership of an organization to kind of put a stake in the ground and say, no, like a little bit of friction, a little bit of pain, a little bit of awareness of either what's of what's hard in our today is important.

00;25;11;06 - 00;25;18;16

Ian Bergman

Otherwise, you know, we're going to sail our nice, comfortable couch off a cliff. I don't know how many metaphors I had in.

00;25;18;19 - 00;25;40;16

Conrad Wade

I love the metaphors. That's a good point. I think leadership, they play a pivotal role. You know, when you look at, you know, a company that wants to innovate, I think to successfully do it, you need to have innovation be seen as a strategic priority from the top down. So I think like a good example is when we look at generative AI.

00;25;40;18 - 00;26;01;17

Conrad Wade

I remember, you know, hearing leadership across the company. You say, you know, this is going to be bigger than the internet. Like we need to act now. And so, you know, Moody's, which has you know, 14,000 plus employees, you know, our leadership said you're now 14,000 innovators, you're 14,000 prompt engineers.

00;26;01;17 - 00;26;05;16

Ian Bergman

Wow. Did somebody actually wait, did somebody actually say that?

00;26;05;18 - 00;26;31;03

Conrad Wade

Yes. So I mean, I think that is, you know, it's really that what, you know, kind of sparked that fire under everyone and, you know, and look at the innovation team are the customer experience innovation team, you know, clearly the team is helping drive innovation, enable the different operating units across the business. But it's not we're not our own ivory tower within the company.

00;26;31;05 - 00;26;42;19

Conrad Wade

Or simply enabling folks with the power to be able to, you know, transform the different types of solutions and products that they create. Yeah, I think it's important to, you know, try, make, make sure that everyone can be seen as an innovator.

00;26;42;21 - 00;27;20;09

Ian Bergman

Yeah, well, and everyone can follow their curiosity etc.. There's so many different ways to do this, right? I mean, Google was famous, right? For the 20% time to do whatever. And, you know, I, I don't think there's any necessarily one answer for big companies, but I do I do actually love that a senior leader stood up and said or wrote in a message or whatever, like, you know, we're all prompt engineers now because it's not literally true, but it kind of is like it sets a tone, it sets a mindset for people who are maybe listening to this, but feel like they're operating in a culture that doesn't have that leadership.

00;27;20;09 - 00;27;28;06

Ian Bergman

Our culture. Do you have any advice that you'd give either to them or to their bosses on how to establish it?

00;27;28;08 - 00;27;51;26

Conrad Wade

That's a good question. I mean, I think, you know, when I look at my past, it's typically been the case with most companies is you have kind of like siloed teams that have, you know, great ideas, but they don't necessarily have the buy in from the rest of the company. But I think in order to get that by, and it's really about being able to try and demonstrate, you know, some sort of value or value proposition that you can take to customers.

00;27;52;02 - 00;28;14;01

Conrad Wade

So I think really the first step is being able to understand what is that potential value proposition that we can create that hey, I mean, I think most business leaders are going to know, like, what is the ROI should. So I think of ROI clearly, you know, where the financial benefits and impact. But I think just as important, it's, you know, what is the impact that we can have for our customers.

00;28;14;04 - 00;28;45;18

Conrad Wade

I mean, you always want to keep the customer at the center of what you do. So how can we improve the way that we engage with customers and really enhance the customer experience? So I think that, you know, buy in for innovation and, you know, being able to make change in organizations, it really first begins in being able to demonstrate some sort of strong value proposition where you can demonstrate ROI from both a financial point of view, but then also the customer point of view, which in my opinion, I think is, you know, just as important.

00;28;45;18 - 00;28;45;29

Conrad Wade

I think it's.

00;28;45;29 - 00;28;47;13

Ian Bergman

More important to be.

00;28;47;14 - 00;29;03;14

Conrad Wade

100%. I mean, I think it's like always about really trying. You always have to try to understand. And I think when you look at innovation, that's the thing that's difficult is ROI has always been extremely hard when you look at, yeah, when you look at measuring the ROI on innovation, that's always something I think companies have struggled with.

00;29;03;17 - 00;29;22;06

Conrad Wade

But I think immediate ROI, it comes down to how are we improving the customer experience, you know, how can we better engage our customers? How can we improve their satisfaction? I think like you mentioned before, you know, they see what's possible and they see what exists. And then, you know, they're disappointed when that gap, when it when they're when they have that gap.

00;29;22;08 - 00;29;35;26

Conrad Wade

So I think when you look at innovation, I think one of the easiest ways to create that value proposition is focus on customer impact. You know, being able to help help stakeholders understand, you know, by doing this we can really improve the customer experience.

00;29;35;28 - 00;29;50;07

Ian Bergman

You know, I had, a long, long time ago, I decided to do a little test in the public markets with just, you know, a basket of stocks. And I was buying a few shares of each. This wasn't a lot of money. I wish I wish I had put a lot of money in or had had a lot of money put into it.

00;29;50;07 - 00;30;31;06

Ian Bergman

It worked. But I had this, you know, I was sitting there and I'm like, what if you just invest in companies that have happy customers? Like genuinely. And at the time I was buying things like Netflix and actually I remember what else was in there, but there were a few and while it worked like because like, I don't know what the market level correlation is, but I, I always struggle with people who try and put too much quantitative rationalization around the belief that, hey, if you're doing the right thing for your customers, you know, you're you're probably on a good path.

00;30;31;13 - 00;30;54;28

Ian Bergman

And I think we sometimes forget that. And the reason, the reason I mention that is that in the world of innovation, I do feel like so often we can come out with, you know, some ideas that give us a high level of confidence that we will be doing right for our customers, but we don't. But a low level of confidence in terms of the financial impact on the business, like we actually just don't know.

00;30;55;00 - 00;31;13;20

Ian Bergman

And I think that is a really hard that is a really hard conversation to have right? In, in a business environment. But I don't know, this this might just be me being on a soapbox, but I think it's really important because I think innovation does actually provide a really solid framework for telling you how to serve your customers better.

00;31;13;22 - 00;31;18;24

Ian Bergman

And then you have to decide if you believe that the business results will follow or not.

00;31;18;26 - 00;31;40;09

Conrad Wade

Yeah, I mean, I, I'm not providing like financial advice this, but I mean, when you look at like startups, I mean many times, you know, they're not even, you know, they're not even breaking even when they, you know, when they IPO. Sure. Sometimes their stock prices, it's I mean, it's pretty unbelievable what you see. And I think like a huge reason for that is they have happy customers.

00;31;40;12 - 00;31;43;02

Conrad Wade

Yeah. And the market knows that they have happy customers.

00;31;43;06 - 00;31;47;14

Ian Bergman

And to be fair the market also usually knows the number of customers are increasing.

00;31;47;17 - 00;32;13;01

Conrad Wade

Yeah that that too. But I mean the startups have created their own moat. You know, to your point, they're not only increasing the number of customers that they have, but they're retaining customers. So I think like a huge piece of it comes down to, you know, customer satisfaction, user happiness. I mean, I think when you look at like startups and innovation, you know, when we when we look at some of these like innovations, it's kind of like a new way of like engagement that we're, we're seeing from these like companies.

00;32;13;01 - 00;32;13;09

Conrad Wade

Yeah.

00;32;13;14 - 00;32;34;28

Ian Bergman

Okay. So we've covered a lot of ground. This is this has been pretty fun. I have I have one more kind of serious question that and it's something that I think a lot of people struggle with. And then and then maybe we'll get into some fun stuff to wrap up here. But you know, a lot of people are looking out for the landmines, the the traps along the way as they as they try and do innovation in a corporate environment.

00;32;34;28 - 00;32;43;18

Ian Bergman

So what are some of the pitfalls that you think organizations should avoid when they're thinking about innovation?

00;32;43;20 - 00;32;47;23

Conrad Wade

Are you talking about like how organizations can set themselves better up for success or.

00;32;47;24 - 00;32;57;02

Ian Bergman

Well, no, like I really you know, I love how you're going to the positive side. I was going to the failure modes like, you know, what are the mistakes that people make along the way and how do we avoid them?

00;32;57;05 - 00;33;08;13

Conrad Wade

You know, I had said this when, you know, when we kicked off the podcast, but not necessarily focusing on where the needs of our users. Yeah, creating solutions that are in search of problems, where.

00;33;08;13 - 00;33;10;14

Ian Bergman

It should be. That's a big one. That's a big one.

00;33;10;17 - 00;33;27;03

Conrad Wade

Huge one. And we see it time and time again. But it's really about understanding your users, your customers, what makes them tick. And with that knowledge, being able to being able to translate that into the concepts that you might build. So I think that's probably the biggest one.

00;33;27;06 - 00;33;50;01

Ian Bergman

Yeah. You know, I think that is actually probably the biggest. And I think there's a lot of incentives and a lot of structural ways in which companies make make that very hard. Going back to the ivory tower, you know, I would say I've seen fairly frequently, actually organizations struggling with innovation because they have kind of, you know, locked up a quote unquote innovation team off to the side, right?

00;33;50;01 - 00;34;01;03

Ian Bergman

They've said, hey, like, you're eight people, you have you have, you know, a couple bucks go innovate. And they don't have any connection to the main business. I don't know if you've seen stuff like that happen in your career.

00;34;01;10 - 00;34;33;22

Conrad Wade

Yeah, 100%, 100%. You kind of teed me up right there. So that's you know, it's really kind of like what spawned my team is we're not meant to be operating in an ivory tower. We're meant to enable the business. And I think that's probably one of the, you know, one of the biggest pitfalls, I mean, to your point is when you have these innovation teams, you know, operating in their ivory tower, what happens is you you don't get buy in, but you also get pushback when you introduce new ideas to different stakeholders.

00;34;33;22 - 00;35;01;28

Conrad Wade

That's right. There's going to be a pushback. That's right. So I think it's about positioning your innovation team as an enabler for the business and making sure that it's not closed off or siloed, but that it works closely with, you know, the different stakeholders across the organization. And that's a huge piece of what I do. It's about bringing not only the voice of the customer, but voice of our stakeholders into the customer experience and innovation team.

00;35;02;00 - 00;35;18;23

Ian Bergman

That's awesome. And that's such a great note to wrap this segment on. Before we wrap the podcast, though, you know, we always like to play just a little fun game that sometimes some really interesting stuff comes out of it. So I hope you're willing to bear with me. Let's what would love to ask you just, you know, some rapid fire questions.

00;35;18;23 - 00;35;26;14

Ian Bergman

I'm just going to ask you to answer without thinking at least as quickly as you can. Okay, I'll give you an easy one to start with. You. An Apple or an Android guy?

00;35;26;17 - 00;35;28;11

Conrad Wade

Apple, of course.

00;35;28;14 - 00;35;37;24

Ian Bergman

You know, I love it. I get to hold up my beautiful Samsung phone and we get to fight. No, I hold course. Okay, okay. It was the. Of course that got me. What's the. Of course.

00;35;37;26 - 00;35;58;18

Conrad Wade

I mean, I think when we look at Apple, I mean, I am, you know, Apple all the way. I just love like the Apple ecosystem and how seamlessly all of the, you know, different Apple products, solutions, how they coexist together. And I also think, like, I'm a huge believer in Apple stance on, you know, security, trust, transparency in its products.

00;35;58;20 - 00;36;21;28

Ian Bergman

And they have both really good marketing but really good product truth. And I think it's really interesting. Like to your point earlier this, if you think about a company that I think consistently does a good job of putting itself in its customers shoes and saying, let's pick some things that matter, I think it's a good one. I don't know if you were surprised the way I was by the emphasis on AirPods as hearing aids, for instance.

00;36;21;28 - 00;36;39;03

Ian Bergman

I think that was just a few months ago with the new release. But I was sitting there and I was like, unexpected, obvious and awesome. So relevant. A use of possible technology for, you know, a subset of their population. I think that's really smart.

00;36;39;06 - 00;36;44;12

Conrad Wade

Yeah. When you think about augmented reality or I mean, if one of the biggest players.

00;36;44;14 - 00;36;45;22

Ian Bergman

Hang on, hang on, do you have the Vision.

00;36;45;22 - 00;37;11;23

Conrad Wade

Pro? I do not have the vision prop. I was going to say, you know, box delivery. Like when you see those, the Apple now whether it, you know the the headsets I feel like nearly everyone has them. But you think about augmented sound I mean I can only imagine like the future. You're walking down the street and you have your headsets in and you know, you can have your headsets, you know, navigating you I mean, everyone has their AirPods or earbuds.

00;37;11;23 - 00;37;15;16

Conrad Wade

And I mean, it's that's a great market play.

00;37;15;18 - 00;37;25;25

Ian Bergman

I mean, it's a little dystopian in one view and a little awesome and another and I don't know, I grew up, I grew up loving sci fi and still do. So I'm here for it. But yeah, we don't know.

00;37;25;26 - 00;37;41;14

Conrad Wade

Doing I mean, I've seen some pretty neat things. This is a completely sci, but I remember speaking with the startup, it was not sound, but we look at augmented reality was called. The company was called Mojo Vision. They had the did you see that the contact lens. Unbelievable.

00;37;41;14 - 00;38;08;22

Ian Bergman

It's coming like not on okay. So my my dad is constantly on me about when do we get her like from the movie. Like and you know for the first time I'm like, pretty soon actually. But there are these components of hardware in that case, kind of like, how do you have always connected, always on and powered kind of earbuds or ambient connectivity, but, you know, things like the contact lenses for constant ambient digital overlay, like it's totally coming.

00;38;08;29 - 00;38;11;14

Ian Bergman

Maybe not tomorrow, but it's coming.

00;38;11;16 - 00;38;36;09

Conrad Wade

Yeah. I mean, I was telling you about that book I had read that was a few years ago, but it's called Future Superhuman. And the whole idea of the book is, you know what? What is the idea of transhuman? And it's this idea of like the merging of technology with human beings not to be viewed as like a bad thing, but that's how we're going to actually have to evolve to continue our existence as, like, as a species.

00;38;36;09 - 00;38;47;02

Conrad Wade

And so something that we can embrace, but with our knowledge of, you know, where, you know, humans are heading, being able to understand, like, different things that we should be focusing on, like the societal impact.

00;38;47;05 - 00;39;01;11

Ian Bergman

Yeah. I haven't read that book, but I it's now absolutely on my list because I think it's really fascinating. But okay, this is going to take me somewhere a little philosophical. I wasn't I wasn't going to go here. But I think it's interesting. Can I tell you one of the things that drives me nuts?

00;39;01;14 - 00;39;02;13

Conrad Wade

Let's hear it.

00;39;02;15 - 00;39;25;06

Ian Bergman

I believe we live in an age of absolute wonder, like, genuinely right. We can have a conversation with an eye on our phone that's almost. It's indistinguishable from talking from a human. Unless you think about how actually smart it is. We have vehicles. You can get a Waymo and like drive around a city hands off. Right? Like we've got rockets landing themselves every week.

00;39;25;08 - 00;39;38;03

Ian Bergman

I think we live in an age of wonder. I think that's cool. Why is it that so many people become so blasé so quickly about this stuff? Like how does it get normalized so quickly?

00;39;38;05 - 00;39;56;19

Conrad Wade

You know, I think it's because like, it's because technology is just becoming more and more ubiquitous, which is a good thing. I think that's like, you know, when we look at also bring back Apple, I think was a Tim Cook. He had said, like, we shouldn't even know that we're using technology. Sure. Like it should live ubiquitous in the background.

00;39;56;22 - 00;40;15;24

Conrad Wade

And I think it's because, you know, technology has it's beginning to sink more and more into the background that folks are becoming more blasé. You're not really when we do have these, like, innovations coming out, it's not necessarily apparent, you know, what's actually going on and the rate at which things are changing.

00;40;15;26 - 00;40;40;03

Ian Bergman

I don't know, it's something I actually really struggle with because I think it leads to, to some, some of what's driving some of the tech backlash as well. But you talk about this book, right? You talk about future superhuman. I think to a lot of people, some of the concepts in the book actually sound terrifying. I right. But the flip side of that is they'll probably just become just as blasé and normal pretty quickly, you know, over at the limit.

00;40;40;05 - 00;40;55;11

Conrad Wade

Yeah, I mean, I think so when you look at some of the concepts that are discussed in the book, when you think, especially when you think of things like, I, I mean, we have to think about like, what are the societal implications of it, you know, where the and this goes to the top when we think about like policies that are enacted.

00;40;55;11 - 00;41;14;26

Conrad Wade

I mean, when you had mentioned like the movie her, I if, if I remember correctly, I think the book touches on actually like making like laws for AI, especially as like human beings become more connected to AI. I mean, I think that we're seeing in like some countries, like people are like falling in love with AI.

00;41;14;28 - 00;41;22;05

Ian Bergman

Yeah. Which and by the way, which has been going on for about a decade plus a decade plus in some places, actually, things like that have been happening.

00;41;22;08 - 00;41;37;10

Conrad Wade

Yeah. So I mean, I think in the past we thought like, well, when you think of like rules and regulations, it typically pertains to just like human beings. Yeah. But in the future it's it's probably something that we're going to need to think about. Like wars as they relate to AI. Yeah.

00;41;37;13 - 00;41;42;29

Ian Bergman

Are you an optimist? Does this stuff excite you or is this kind of like is there a tinge of nervousness?

00;41;43;02 - 00;42;01;12

Conrad Wade

It's it's a it's a combination of both. I like to think I'm more optimistic and excited than than nervous. I think it's about, you know, trying to maintain the momentum that we have as a society. I think when we look at where the world is going, it's like absolutely necessary that we try to understand how we can best leverage technology.

00;42;01;12 - 00;42;18;22

Conrad Wade

I think that there's like tons of different things that are occurring. When we look at like climate, it's necessary that we have like a good sense of how we can leverage technology that like, counteract this. But at the same time, we need to be like mindful of like, how can we do so in a responsible way?

00;42;18;25 - 00;42;25;14

Ian Bergman

100%? That's that's a tough balance. Okay. Space tech or ocean tech? What do you nerd out on more.

00;42;25;16 - 00;42;26;27

Conrad Wade

Space tech.

00;42;26;29 - 00;42;31;21

Ian Bergman

Outward facing vacation or staycation?

00;42;31;23 - 00;42;33;00

Conrad Wade

Vacation?

00;42;33;03 - 00;42;34;11

Ian Bergman

What does that mean to you?

00;42;34;13 - 00;42;37;20

Conrad Wade

The beach. I mean, you have to remember I'm in the ark. So yeah.

00;42;37;22 - 00;42;38;19

Ian Bergman

Getting out, getting some.

00;42;38;23 - 00;42;40;14

Conrad Wade

Weather here is tough.

00;42;40;16 - 00;42;46;02

Ian Bergman

Well, hey hey hey hey. Okay. God. Hang on. You have really nice beaches. Maybe not at the time of year. We're recording this, though.

00;42;46;07 - 00;42;49;00

Conrad Wade

Yeah, that is true. That is true.

00;42;49;03 - 00;42;54;21

Ian Bergman

Amazing. Okay, what about your favorite famous innovator? Do you have one?

00;42;54;24 - 00;42;56;15

Conrad Wade

I'd say Nikola Tesla.

00;42;56;17 - 00;42;57;11

Ian Bergman

It's a good one. Yeah.

00;42;57;11 - 00;43;10;18

Conrad Wade

When you look at this stuff, it almost seems like this is. It almost seems like. Almost like aliens came down and, like, gave him the technology. It was just like, it almost seems like it was like, way too far beyond his. It's beyond this time.

00;43;10;23 - 00;43;27;13

Ian Bergman

It's it's a little unreal. It's actually really cool to me. By the way, you're that. I've had a few guests I've asked that question to and almost everyone has come out with someone in kind of the 19th century, which really was, I think, kind of a forgotten age of wonder, like, like how much was changing then, just like it is now.

00;43;27;16 - 00;43;38;13

Conrad Wade

When he was coming up with back then, it was like things that were just starting, like some of the ideas that he had or things that were just starting to focus now on as a, as a society. It's pretty cool, pretty crazy.

00;43;38;19 - 00;43;43;13

Ian Bergman

Have you been to the Tesla Center at Weiden Cliff or something like that? It's, I think it's upstate New York.

00;43;43;16 - 00;43;46;07

Conrad Wade

I have not now. Okay, now it's on my radar. The check out.

00;43;46;07 - 00;43;57;01

Ian Bergman

You should totally check it out. And I'm saying that having never been there, but like, I love Tesla as well and got connected to them ages ago and like saw some of their online stuff. So I hope it's really cool. You should go.

00;43;57;03 - 00;43;59;16

Conrad Wade

Okay, 100%. I'm gonna add that to my list.

00;43;59;18 - 00;44;05;28

Ian Bergman

Amazing. Well, look, Conrad, thank you so much for joining us on The Innovators Inside. This was super fun.

00;44;06;04 - 00;44;08;09

Conrad Wade

Of course, I've really enjoyed this. And thank you so much.

00;44;08;14 - 00;44;19;22

Ian Bergman

Amazing. Well, the last question for folks who are interested in following your work professionally or personally, what's the best way to do so? You're on LinkedIn. Do they head over to Moody's? Like where do they follow you?

00;44;19;25 - 00;44;23;06

Conrad Wade

I think probably LinkedIn. I think it's just Conrad Way on LinkedIn.

00;44;23;06 - 00;44;24;13

Ian Bergman

We'll get it. In the show notes, you'll.

00;44;24;13 - 00;44;30;11

Conrad Wade

Get in the show notes 100%. But yeah, I'd say LinkedIn is probably the best place to connect with me.

00;44;30;13 - 00;44;38;09

Ian Bergman

Amazing. Well, awesome. So you heard it here. Connect with Conrad on LinkedIn. Conrad. Thank you so much. Looking forward to our next conversation.

00;44;38;12 - 00;44;41;07

Conrad Wade

And thank you and have a good one.

00;44;41;09 - 00;45;02;00

Ian Bergman

And that's a wrap for today's episode of Alchemists Dax Innovators Inside. Thanks for listening. If you found value in today's discussion, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and check out our segments on YouTube. Links and follow ups are in the show notes, and if you have questions you want us to feature in future episodes, email innovators at Alchemist accelerator.com.

00;45;02;03 - 00;45;06;23

Ian Bergman

Stay tuned for more insider stories and practical insights from leaders. Crafting our future.