Who Should Lead Corporate Innovation? Five Models and Their Hidden Risks
The organizational design of corporate innovation leadership can make or break your innovation efforts. Yet most companies get it wrong - not because they lack commitment, but because they don't fully understand the trade-offs.
TL;DR: Five Corporate Innovation Leadership Models
Innovation embedded in CxO roles (CTO, CDO, CSO) - Risk: becomes secondary priority with tech bias
VP/Head of Innovation below C-suite - Risk: lacks authority and resources for real change
Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) - Risk: unrealistic expectations, political friction, inadequate metrics
Innovation councils/committees - Risk: diluted accountability, slow consensus-based decisions
Embedded innovation teams - Risk: fragmentation, inconsistent methods, siloed results
The solution: A Federated Model that centralizes corporate innovation strategy while distributing innovation capability across the organization. The Chief Innovation Officer orchestrates - not owns - the innovation function.
"Who should be leading innovation in the organization?"
This is one of the most frequent questions I receive from business leaders. And my answer is always the same: it depends - on your industry, size, innovation objectives, strategy, and critically, your company's level of Innovation Maturity (a concept I explore in depth in Innovation Mode 2.0).
The truth is, there's no universal answer to corporate innovation leadership. What works for a technology company facing disruption won't work for a traditional manufacturer exploring adjacent markets. But understanding the trade-offs of each approach is essential for any CxO making this decision.
The Five Models of Corporate Innovation Leadership
Across research, industry practice, and conversations with innovation leaders, five models emerge - each with challenges worth understanding.
1. Innovation Embedded in Other CxO Roles
Many companies don't have a dedicated position for corporate innovation - they embed it in other roles. For instance, in technology companies, it's often the CTO who leads innovation efforts. Some organizations view innovation leadership as the responsibility of the Chief Digital Officer or even the Chief Strategy Officer.
This can work. But here's what often happens in practice: innovation becomes a secondary priority to the executive's core responsibilities. When the CTO undertakes this responsibility, corporate innovation is frequently approached with a narrow focus and a tech bias that neglects other types of innovation - business model innovation, for instance. Or, when the CPO assumes responsibility, there's a real risk of being overly focused on existing products and missing opportunities beyond the product landscape.
There's another issue that's rarely discussed: CxOs don't necessarily have the expertise or the holistic understanding of corporate innovation methodologies required to orchestrate a company-wide innovation function. Balancing strategic innovation orchestration with day-to-day operations is tough - and it introduces the risk of limited organization-wide innovation success.
2. Corporate Innovation Leadership Below the C-Suite
Other companies create dedicated innovation leadership roles that don't sit at the executive table - a VP of Innovation or Head of Innovation reporting to the CTO or CSO.
The challenges here are different but equally significant. Roles like VP or SVP of Innovation typically struggle to secure adequate resources without C-suite approvals. In many cases, they simply aren't empowered or authorized to drive significant organizational change.
When corporate innovation isn't directly represented at the C-Level, the overall program may be perceived as an isolated effort - not strongly sponsored by the executive team. Thus, achieving general alignment and support becomes more difficult. This model can weaken the message of innovation and damage its culture and potential outcomes.
3. The Chief Innovation Officer (CINO)
The Chief Innovation Officer is the most senior formal role dedicated to corporate innovation. It's typically found in large enterprises facing industry disruption or corporations where innovation is acknowledged as critical - driving significant investment in innovation and digital transformation programs.
According to recent studies, approximately 30% of Fortune 500 companies now have a senior Innovation Executive or Chief Innovation Officer role, with higher frequency in technology, healthcare, and financial services sectors. The CINO reports directly to the CEO and has the authority and resources to drive corporate innovation initiatives across the company.
Having a Chief Innovation Officer signals the organization's top-level commitment to innovation as a strategic priority. It provides space and support for organization-wide transformation by ensuring the provision of necessary resources, visibility, and strategic alignment.
But the CINO approach comes with its own risks - often associated with false expectations or misconceptions about the Chief Innovation Officer role itself.
Unrealistic expectations for rapid transformation - from within the C-Suite and the broader company - can undermine corporate innovation programs that, by design, deliver results over long timeframes and are supposed to embrace certain types of failure. Innovation isn't a quick fix. It's a capability that compounds over time.
Political friction is another reality. It's not unusual for the Chief Innovation Officer to experience conflicts with other C-suite roles over ownership of certain initiatives or prioritization of investments. CINOs may find themselves dealing with skepticism from business leaders who don't value the potential of corporate innovation programs and question their contribution.
Organizational inertia can be a significant obstacle when innovation leadership is concentrated in a single role. Other leaders may not feel part of the effort and, as a result, show limited engagement and support.
As Tom Goodwin shared in my 60 Leaders on Innovation: "Sometimes Chief Innovation Officers are given a microphone with no actual support." Without a team, budget, and genuine executive sponsorship, even the most capable CINO becomes passive - or leaves.
And then there's the metrics problem. Chief Innovation Officers are often under constant pressure to demonstrate measurable returns on innovation investments. While this is reasonable, it becomes problematic when their outcomes are measured by inadequate or incomplete metrics that fail to capture all aspects of the innovation function and the opportunity discovery process. In Innovation Mode 2.0, I dedicate an entire chapter to this challenge - defining how to properly measure corporate innovation performance across its multiple dimensions.
Understanding these dynamics is essential when selecting a Chief Innovation Officer or evaluating the skills and talents required for the CINO role.
4. Shared Responsibility Through Innovation Councils
Some companies take a drastically different path - they approach corporate innovation leadership as a shared responsibility through "innovation councils" or "cross-functional committees" with increased decision-making authority.
This model is inclusive by design. It invites multiple departments into the process, making it easier to achieve buy-in from leaders across the organization.
But shared responsibility often means diffused and ultimately diluted accountability. Decision-making slows down because consensus becomes the mechanism. Without clear accountability and authentic drivers for innovation and change, companies may experience increased innovation activity but limited results - introducing the risk that corporate innovation efforts are perceived as "innovation theatre."
There's also a practical challenge: members of such councils tend to prioritize their primary roles over innovation responsibilities, especially during periods of operational pressure. When Q4 targets are at risk, innovation council meetings get cancelled.
5. Embedded Innovation Teams
Finally, some organizations inject innovation expertise directly into business divisions, creating innovation cores that contribute and coordinate aspects of the corporate innovation process within their teams.
This approach introduces significant risks - or rather, certainties: inconsistent innovation methods, gaps in knowledge sharing, and limited cross-team collaboration. Innovation results typically stay within teams or divisions, which worsens the feeling of isolation and organizational fragmentation.
Companies following this route face frequent disconnects, overlaps, missed opportunities, and partial results. The lack of orchestration makes it challenging to innovate systematically - as a single "system" - impacting the company's corporate innovation performance overall.
The Federated Model: Centralized Strategy, Distributed Execution
So what actually works for corporate innovation?
An effective organization design for corporate innovation centralizes innovation strategy and orchestration while arranging a network of innovation cores throughout the company. This is the Federated Model I describe in Innovation Mode 2.0 - an approach based on a dedicated innovation team accountable for steering the efforts and enabling the organization to innovate with autonomy, yet in alignment.
The key insight: corporate innovation capability should be present and accessible across teams and divisions - but it needs orchestration. Without it, you get fragmentation. With too much centralization, you get the "innovation bubble."
The Chief Innovation Officer's mission in this model is to empower the company to thrive through the discovery and pursuit of new business opportunities - not to own innovation, but to enable it systematically across the organization.
Does Having a Chief Innovation Officer Create Innovation Silos?
This brings me to a misconception I encounter constantly: the belief that appointing a Chief Innovation Officer signals a centralized approach where the corporate innovation team becomes isolated from the rest of the company.
This limited understanding of the Chief Innovation Officer role makes organizations hesitant to establish formal innovation leadership, fearing the creation of an "innovation bubble" disconnected from core business realities.
The concern manifests in several ways: executives worry that corporate innovation will become the exclusive domain of a specialized team rather than an organization-wide capability. Business units are concerned about being underrepresented in the innovation process. Employees believe they'll be less empowered to innovate. And many organizations have witnessed the failure of standalone innovation labs that produced impressive prototypes but minimal business impact - further reinforcing skepticism about formalized corporate innovation functions.
Here's the truth: the "innovation bubble" is a real risk that companies should be mitigating. But it's not a result of having a Chief Innovation Officer - it's the strategy and the overall corporate innovation program that makes or breaks silos. Not the presence of a CINO or an innovation team.
On the contrary, a Chief Innovation Officer who is educated in innovation methodologies and organizational design can bring the exact opposite: they can utilize innovation methods and capabilities to unite the organization and break down silos.
A skilled Chief Innovation Officer and their team serve as enablers and orchestrators of the global, company-wide corporate innovation process. Instead of centralizing innovation, they do the exact opposite: they provide powerful capabilities, methods, and consistent tools for everyone to innovate across departments and teams. They promote a culture of collaboration and knowledge exchange and reward behaviors that support it. Rather than owning or containing innovation within a specific department, they focus on empowering others to innovate more effectively.
In fact, this should be one of the key, formal objectives for the Chief Innovation Officer role.
This is precisely why the Chief Innovation Officer role is becoming even more important in an era of AI and rapid technological change. When AI can generate ideas in seconds, the differentiator becomes the organizational capability to discover, validate, and pursue the right opportunities systematically.
Practical Tools for Corporate Innovation Engagement
Regardless of your corporate innovation leadership model, you need mechanisms to engage the broader organization in innovation. Corporate hackathons remain one of the most powerful tools for democratizing innovation and breaking down silos - when designed and executed correctly.
With AI tools making corporate hackathons more inclusive than ever (non-developers can now prototype alongside engineers), they're worth reconsidering if you've let them fall by the wayside. If you're planning one, I've compiled 50+ corporate hackathon ideas that actually work for driving meaningful outcomes - organized by innovation type and designed to attract diverse teams.
The Bottom Line for Corporate Innovation Leaders
The question isn't whether you need corporate innovation leadership - you do. The question is how to design it for your specific context.
Having a Chief Innovation Officer or dedicated innovation leadership signals the organization's commitment to corporate innovation as a strategic priority. But the title alone isn't enough. What matters is how the CINO role is designed, empowered, and integrated into the broader organizational fabric.
The goal isn't to centralize corporate innovation - it's to orchestrate it effectively while empowering everyone in the organization to contribute. Get this right, and innovation becomes a capability that compounds. Get it wrong, and you'll join the long list of companies that confuse innovation activity with innovation results.
This article is based on Innovation Mode 2.0: Designing Innovative Companies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence (Springer, 2026). For a complete treatment of corporate innovation organizational design - including the Federated Model, the Innovation Maturity Index, and 70+ interventions for building an AI-powered innovation function - see the full book.
References
Krasadakis, G. (2026). Innovation Mode 2.0: Designing Innovative Companies in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00835-0
Krasadakis, G. (2026). Innovation Performance Measurement. In: Innovation Mode 2.0. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00835-0_9
Krasadakis, G. (2026). Innovation Workshops and the Impact of AI. In: Innovation Mode 2.0. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-00835-0_5
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