/ all work
/ part of: pizza & pitch
the challenge
Innovation came on the map as one of three pillars of Ventia's strategy in 2021. The new CEO wanted to get people excited and the 'Innovation Founders' were tasked with coming up with a way to 'drive a new era of innovation' across Ventia.
the solution
A simple idea of inviting employees across the business to share a good idea whilst eating a slice of pizza became a wildly popular internal innovation movement that everyone wanted to be part of.
highlights
pizza & pitch
It started simple. Arranging an event for our people to pitch their most innovative ideas in front of their colleagues and sharing some pizzas and some laughs. The event idea wasn't groundbreaking; it followed a popular format of making innovation down-to-earth and accessible to everyone.
What happened after that is what really took off. In a company of 15,000 employees and 20,000 contractors across Australia and New Zealand, what hit the spot was the simplicity, inclusivity and fun - paired with the famous 'Clap-o-Meter' - which allowed everyone to compete regardless of hierarchy; whoever got the loudest applause won the event. This meant that the vote of an executive team member didn't have more sway than the field worker sitting next to them, and it encouraged active participation from everyone.
It was endorsed by the CEO and the executive team took part in all events as audience. A Board member mentioned that the events "fostered innovative confidence in our people". The CEO said it was "one of the best things he'd seen at Ventia".
the impact
'Pizza & Pitch' sparked excitement, curiosity and innovative confidence across Ventia, winning the company an Australian Business Award for 'Most Innovative Company 2023', and earning senior leadership recognition.
fostering a culture of innovative confidence
organising the events
The format was one of friendly competition. Each region in Australia and New Zealand was covered by a team of employees driving local engagement and sponsored by an executive team member. A regional team would put up their hand for hosting an event, and I would lead them through the practical organisation in collaboration with the Group Manager of Innovation.
Organising an event ranged from booking rooms, ordering pizzas, encouraging employees to send in their ideas, setting up Microsoft forms to capture all ideas and audience, selecting final pitches from the pool of ideas - ensuring wide diversity in idea content and people, coaching the pitchers in their presentation, communicating to the region and wider company about the event, and putting together the final presentation for the event itself.
Each event improved upon the former; the friendly competition aspect invited the teams to surpass each other, so the format kept building and improving with the ingenuity of the organising teams, and adding motivation for each team to create the best event ever.
The ingenuity included inviting university students to pitch (and win an internship), pitches from some of our partners, special prizes and following up on all pitch ideas locally once the event was over.
co-creating, communicating, delivering and following up on all events
creative project lead
how to create a culture of tomorrow's innovators
From Microsoft Teams backgrounds and email signatures to digital signage, Viva Engage posts and the presentation slide deck for the final event and bumper-edition newsletters, I created an eco system of communication for Pizza & Pitch across Australia and New Zealand.
what I did:
award-winning storytelling
wrote the case study that became the basis for Ventia winning the 2024 Australian Business Award for "Most Innovative Company"
co-founder
of the program across Australia and New Zealand
I ghost-wrote the case study about 'Pizza & Pitch' which became the basis for the award application that won Ventia the Australian Business Award for 'Most Innovative Company 2023'. Click image to read the article.
"A culture of innovation is not enough. A culture of inclusive innovation is needed."
- Michael Carden, co-founder of Joyous, after attending Pizza & Pitch in Auckland, 2023 - LinkedIn.
award-winning innovative culture
recognised by senior leadership and invited partners, the event also awarded Ventia #3 in our category in Australian Financial Review's 'Most Innovative Companies Boss List 2023'.
The stats in early 2024 - across regions, sectors and teams, the event series kept evolving and increasing in popularity. Impressively, out of 42 pitches, 14 ideas had been implemented and 10 ideas were under further development -truly a testament of innovating from the ground up.
ideation, delivery, follow-up
From the regional teams putting up their hand to the final delivery of the event, I was an essential part of the process. I participated in every planning meeting, guiding the teams along, designed communication and campaigns and ensured we kept a wide diversity, both in pitchers and ideas. Once the pitchers were selected for an event, I helped them with their slides, coaching them in what to present and to do it within a three-minute window - a key element to avoiding 'death by PowerPoint'. On the day of the event, I would be behind the scenes, running the presentation in with the local hosts and delivering a high-energy event.
Once the event was over, I collected the ideas and added them to the database I had created on the INSPIRE innovation hub on the company intranet. Knowing how events like these can become a 'quick high' that fades after the event is over, I made sure the ideas were followed up.
Some ideas were selected by the executive team and encouraged to be developed further, in order to improve the way things were done in the business. Impressively, out of 42 pitches in total at the beginning of 2024, 14 ideas had been implemented in the business and 10 were under further development - truly a testament to a culture that fosters innovation from the ground up.
At the end of 2023, I created a 'Pizza & Pitch' edition of the innovation newsletter, summarising every single pitch of the year and checking in with each individual pitcher to see where the idea had gone since the event.
I ghost-wrote case studies on several of the implemented ideas that were published as articles on the Ventia website, as well as an overarching case study about the event itself - "How to create a culture of tomorrow's innovators". The article became the basis for the award application that won Ventia the Australian Business Award for "Most Innovative Company 2023".
At the end of 2023, I initiated a newsletter about Pizza & Pitch, going over every single pitch of the year and checking in with the pitchers as to how their idea had progressed.
A quick little learning booklet to support the LinkedIn post announcing the above article - six key takeaways from Ventia's Pizza & Pitch series.
A culture of innovative confidence: From field-based to office-based workers and executive team members, the Pizza & Pitch program got everyone excited about finding better ways.
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