Agenda

Rockstar Insight:

Sobhan Khani
Partner and Vice President
Plug and Play

Why You Should Listen to Sobhan:
Sobhan manages 40% of Plug and Play’s business in verticals across Mobility, Insurtech, Fintech, Enterprise & AI, Health, Energy and Real Estate. With a background as a business analyst, Sobhan joined Plug in Play in late 2014 taking on a role as a Business Development Manager for Strategic Partnerships eventually launching a new program to connect leaders and startups in the Mobility industry. Since then, Sobhan has formed and led multiple innovation divisions as well as building and overseeing a growing Business Development team.

Abstract:
Startup tech organizations often rely on quick, transactional partnerships to scale – but these rarely unlock long-term value. This session explores how to shift toward transformational ecosystems rooted in trust, shared purpose, and co-innovation to accelerate growth and create sustainable competitive advantage.

Action Items:

• Identify ecosystem partners that complement your core capabilities and align with your strategic vision using a structured mapping approach
• Develop a partnership framework that defines roles, governance, and success metrics to foster trust and accountability
• Cultivate co-innovation opportunities by integrating joint roadmaps, shared resources, and collaborating go-to-market strategies

Headliner:

J. Cris Salinas, MD
Head of Industry Strategy, Healthcare and Life Sciences
Adobe

Why You Should Listen to Dr. Salinas:
Dr. Salinas is an innovator at the crossroads of medicine and technology, advancing the future of healthcare through strategic leadership and digital transformation. With 20+ years of global experience, including roles at Salesforce, Stryker, Pfizer, and Best Buy Health, he has helped organizations rethink commercial models and improve patient outcomes. Now serving as Adobe’s Head of Industry Strategy for Healthcare and Life Sciences, he partners with leading organizations to design impactful, tech-driven solutions. A frequent speaker and thought leader, he continues to shape the conversation on the future of health.

Explore strategic approaches to accelerate technology adoption and advancements through building, buying, or partnering. This session provides actionable insights for executives to evaluate options, optimize investments, and align technology decisions with business priorities, capabilities, and budget.

Action Items:

• Evaluate your current technology roadmap against business priorities to identify gaps
• Develop a structured blueprint for making build vs. buy vs. partner scenarios and finding the right partners
• Cultivate partnerships that complement internal capabilities and accelerate delivery

Rockstar Insight:

Lutz Beck
Chief Information Officer
Daimler Truck North America

Why You Should Listen to Lutz
Lutz is shaping the future of IT at Daimler Truck North America. By directing cultural change through digital activation, his visionary IT strategy, “Building the Intelligent Company,” guides digital transformation at DTNA, positioning the organization at the cutting edge of technology. Lutz champions IT Leadership, disruptive ideas and innovation by re-imagining the way business is done.

Many promising partnership pilots stall because the core business never truly owns them. In this peer exchange roundtable, participants will share approaches for overcoming resistance and creating business ownership, governance, and resourcing from the start to help partnership-driven innovation scale.

Action Items:

• Implement a consistent intake process that defines ROI and “return on implementation” up front, including who will execute, which teams must adopt it, and what resources are committed so successful pilots don’t die on the vine
• Build shared success metrics tied to core business outcomes (revenue, cost, risk, experience, quality) rather than pilot activity, and agree up front on what “success” means for the business owner/sponsor and the teams who will implement and operate it
• Integrate human-centered design from the start by involving end users and operators in discovery and testing, so pilots solve real workflow needs, reduce wasted effort, and launch with stronger adoption momentum

Rockstar Insight:

Omid Toloui
Faculty
UCLA Anderson School of Management

Why You Should Listen to Omid:
Omid is a healthcare leader with experience across care delivery, product management, and payer innovation. At Elevance Health, he led innovation, built the operating model, and scaled programs delivering nine-figure value, tripling run-rate impact, and launching AI-enabled growth initiatives. He previously drove the digital transformation of CareMore Health & Aspire and led product at Altegra Health, building solutions used by major plans and health systems. He is faculty at UCLA Anderson, teaching the Business of Healthcare, and focused on making care simpler, proactive, predictive, and personalized.

Innovation teams are under increasing pressure to justify investment, yet most dashboards track activity rather than value. Leaders don’t need to know how busy you are — they need to know whether innovation will materially contribute to future growth. Unfortunately, “vanity metrics” like number of ideas, challenges launched, or startup partnerships rarely answer that question. This interactive session reframes innovation measurement around value, risk, and learning. To understand whether you’re on track to meet value-creation goals over the next 1, 5, or 10 years, you need a practical way to assess early-stage opportunities when information is sparse and uncertainty is unavoidable.

Action Items:

• Surface the root causes behind ineffective innovation metrics — and why they persist
• Learn a structured approach for quantifying early-stage opportunities that embraces uncertainty instead of oversimplifying it
• Redesign your dashboard to communicate a credible, portfolio-level view of future value creation

Rockstar Insights:

David Matheson
President and Chief Executive Officer
SmartOrg

Why You Should Listen to David:
With over two decades of portfolio and innovation management experience, David is a leader in helping executives achieve better growth results. He holds a Ph.D. in organizational decision making from Stanford University, is a Fellow with the Society of Decision Professionals (SDP), and always has chocolate within arm’s reach (especially at workshops).

Doug Williams
Associate Director, Innovation
SmartOrg

Why You Should Listen to Doug:
An industry veteran with nearly 15 years of experience in the field, Doug leads the innovation practice at SmartOrg. He has helped over 80 organizations build and grow innovation programs through his work at Planview Spigit and a leading research organization.

Abstract:

Selecting the right partners is critical for corporate innovators and startups seeking to scale effectively and meet unique business needs. In this session, we’ll examine real-world case histories from Mastercard’s award-winning Start Path program, revealing how startups and corporates can accelerate growth through strategic alignment. Learn how corporates identify partners that fit their strategy while incorporating startups’ capabilities to jointly accelerate growth, co-innovate, gain both subject and technical expertise, as well as market access. Whether you’re a startup innovating, a corporate thinking about how best to work with growth companies, or you’re an investor seeking alternative paths for your portfolio companies to scale, this discussion will provide practical guidance on forging partnerships that deliver measurable impact.

Action Items:

• Evaluate partnership fit based on strategic goals and resources
• Design and leverage corporate accelerator programs to access enterprise customers and global distribution
• Build credibility and securing potential investment

Rockstar Insight:

Daniel Rich
Vice President, Startup & Venture Partnerships
Mastercard

Why You Should Listen to Daniel:
Dan has over 25 years of experience in product management, innovation management, and corporate strategy, holding senior roles at Oracle, FICO, and now Mastercard. In his current role, Dan oversees Mastercard’s award-winning startup engagement program, Start Path, driving partnerships and investments with growth-oriented tech companies. Dan is an advisor for several companies and serves as a Fellow for Mastercard’s Policy Center for the Digital Economy.

Abstract:

Unleashing the phenomenal potential of startups through integration into the innovation process is key to staying ahead of competition and disruptive technologies while addressing unmet market needs. Join us for an interactive panel discussion exploring how startups bring unique strengths—agility, innovation, and risk-taking—to the table. We’ll dive into best practices for aligning goals, navigating cultural and operational differences, and ensuring strategic fit to drive co-development, market access, and technology acquisition.

Moderator:

Greg Horowitt
Director of Innovation
UC San Diego

Why You Should Listen to Greg:
Greg is the Director of Innovation Design at UCSD in addition to his role as a lecturer in innovation, entrepreneurship and venture capital at both UC San Diego and Stanford University. Prior to this role, he was a founding managing partner of T2 Venture Capital and Kauffman Fellow in addition to being a Senior Fellow with the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils. He is the co-author of the best-selling book “the Rainforest; The Secret to Building the Next Silicon Valley” based on his pioneering work in the field of innovation ecosystem design.

Panelists Include:

Greg Chiocco
Chief Technology Officer
Taylor Farms

Why You Should Listen to Greg:
Greg has spent the last 25 years as a business and innovation leader focused on food, agriculture, AI and robotics at companies like Google, Amazon, Bayer and Taylor Farms. He has led cross-functional teams spanning startups to large enterprises, translating emerging technologies into real-world products with concrete financial impact. His work centers on partnering with founders and operators to create solutions that deliver meaningful value at scale.

Joe Epstein
Strategic Partnerships Lead
Lockheed Martin Space

Why You Should Listen to Joe:
Joe has three decades of experience in the Aerospace and Defense field executing projects and roles from the research side to the larger business and strategy. This research and development role has given technical depth Joe’s current responsibility as Space Strategic Partnerships Lead for Space in the Ignite organization. Responsibilities include owning SBIR/STTR portfolio, as well as working OTA and CRAD opportunities along with University Sponsored research. These activities are to identify, and champion emerging technology from sources outside of Lockheed Martin ecosystem for our Space business platforms supporting our DoD and NASA customer programs.

Jay Nakagawa
Director of Competitive Intelligence
Dell Technologies

Why You Should Listen to Jay:
Jay brings more than 40 years of leadership in competitive intelligence, product strategy, and executive management. For over 14 years, he has served as Director of Competitive Intelligence at Dell Technologies, helping drive more than $100B in annual revenue. His career spans executive roles across enterprise companies, high-growth firms, and startups, with global experience in sales, marketing, business development, and product management. Jay is a former Chairman of SCIP, a 2023 Fellow of the Council of Competitive Intelligence, a faculty member at the Academy of Competitive Intelligence, and a lecturer at SMU. He was recently named Co-Executive Director of SAICI, focused on applying AI to strategy and competitive insight.

Lesley Stolz
Head West North America External Scientific Innovation
Johnson & Johnson

Why You Should Listen to Lesley:
Lesley has spent the last 30 years working in corporate development and partnering in life sciences. She spent more than 20 years working for innovator companies partnering with multinationals, and she is now working for a multinational partnering with innovators. The only way that new solutions for health will get to families is through these partnerships.

Abstract:

Successful startups typically progress through three key phases: achieving Product–Market Fit, scaling, and ultimately exiting. At every stage, partnering with a Corporate can significantly accelerate success—provided the relationship is structured effectively. In this session, you will learn the key dos and don’ts, the critical questions to ask, and the questions you should be prepared to answer. You will explore how to align incentives between investors, founders, and Corporates to maximize value creation. Real-world case studies will bring these principles to life.

Action Items:

• For Founders: How to design an operating model with Corporates that enhances your attractiveness while preserving your independence
• For Investors: How to partner with single-LP funds that contribute far more than capital
• For Corporates: How to implement founder-friendly governance structures that ultimately strengthen your strategic outcomes

Rockstar Insight:

Gregoire Viasnoff
Global Head of Accelerator
SE Ventures

Why You Should Listen to Gregoire:
Gregoire is a senior leader with deep experience working alongside early stage startups, helping founders accelerate product market fit, scale breakthrough technologies, and successfully navigate the complexities of corporate–startup collaboration. He leads the SE Ventures Accelerator — part of SE Ventures, a $1B fund backed by Schneider Electric. Over his career, he has facilitated more than $1B in fundraising and generated tens of millions in revenue for startups ranging from pre seed to Series B.

Rockstar Insight:

Jenny Gusba
Vice President R&D, Global Beverage Strategy & Technical Project Management
PepsiCo

Why You Should Listen to Jenny:
Bio is forthcoming.

In the era of AI, partnership models must evolve into repeatable, scalable systems that adapt as quickly as technology shifts. In this session, Elaine shares the human-centered, AI-informed partnership approach and scalable frameworks she has developed throughout her career to help organizations build adaptive structures that accelerate innovation and sustained value.

Action Items:

• Identify high-value partners using AI-informed capability mapping, strategic alignment validation, risk evaluation, and assessment of their fit for human-centered innovation
• Build scalable partnership structures—governance, operating cadences, and KPIs—grounded in a modern human-centered AI partnership approach
• Integrate AI-enabled experimentation loops to validate value quickly, eliminate friction, and accelerate co-innovation at scale

Rockstar Insight:

Elaine Barsoom
Former Global Head, Tech Innovation Partnerships & Strategy
Nike

Why You Should Listen to Elaine:
Elaine helps companies turn frontier technologies into durable engines of growth. With more than two decades leading innovation at Nike, American Express, and Airbnb, she builds scalable frameworks that translate emerging tech into real enterprise value. Today, she advises Fortune 1000 leaders, VC-backed founders, and private equity firms on anticipating market shifts, mobilizing ecosystems, and enabling responsible, enterprise-scale AI adoption that accelerates competitive advantage.

Rockstar Insight:

Manav Narang
Head of Financial Services – APAC
Head of India
Engagement Director – GIFT International Fintech Innovation Hub