Abstract

Continuing to be innovative in the marketplace is a significant challenge for large enterprises.  With size comes increasing focus on financial controls, operational disciplines, and a need to protect existing business from disruption.  This can have the unintended consequence of stifling innovation, both those that serve external customers and those that make the operation more effective in new ways. 

This session will focus on a set of practices to unlock innovation in a large enterprise.  It will describe a set of organizational structures and financial practices that promote experimentation with external stakeholders, along with methods to give IT staff that are "close to the work" the freedom to innovate internally.

Biography

Bud Flagstad joined UnitedHealth Group in December of 2004 as part of the Definity Health acquisition. Prior to that, Bud spent 6 years in the Financial Services industry, leading the Professional Services organization for Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, a leading provider of content, compliance, technology and services to banking, indirect lending, insurance, mortgage and securities organizations in the United States. Prior to that, Bud worked in the private equity medical startup space and with Fingerhut Companies, a large direct mail marketing company. Bud earned his Bachelor of Science at Minnesota State University completing a double major in Computer Science and Business Administration.