From innovation bubble to Business-critical partner.
Most innovation teams operate in a bubble: scouting startups, running pilots, producing decks… but disconnected from what the business actually needs. This live session shows you how to close that gap, and make innovation be seen as a strategic enabler, not a cost center.
February 5th, 2026
2:00 PM GMT
Head of Open Innovation Ecosystem @ Ferrovial
Ciro Acedo Boria leads Open Innovation at Ferrovial, where he builds partnerships with startups, corporates and investors to turn emerging technology into business impact. He has evaluated 500+ startups, runs 40+ pilots per year, and supports projects from scouting to scale-up. He holds an Executive MBA from IE Business School and is also a startup mentor and investor.
In 45 minutes, you will learn how to turn your innovation unit into a partner business leaders proactively call first with real-world examples from Ferrovial.
Why many innovation teams focus on scouting and pilots that look great on slides but aren’t anchored in concrete BU priorities, KPIs, or P&L reality, so their work is easy to ignore when budgets tighten.
Why even strong startup deals fail to gain traction when there is no clear link to revenue, margin, risk reduction, or strategic differentiation, and how that keeps innovation labelled as “nice-to-have.”
Why business units don’t proactively bring problems to innovation teams, and how ad‑hoc requests, one‑off “innovation days,” and unstructured scouting erode trust instead of building a repeatable partnership.
Step inside the reality of corporate innovation teams that moved from “interesting side-show” to trusted partner, and see exactly how they rebuilt credibility with business units.
In this webinar, Ciro will share with you:
• Why innovation teams so often end up operating in a bubble, disconnected from BU priorities and real P&L impact.
• How leading innovators reframed their role and engagement model to become strategic enablers that BUs proactively seek out
• How to use data, foresight and startup intelligence to surface only those opportunities that hit real business pain points.
• Main objectives of corporations with open innovation.
• Stories from the field: concrete examples of pilots and partnerships that built trust and opened the door to bigger bets.
Complete the following form to register your place today.
"Innovation only becomes strategic when business units trust that you understand their priorities better than any startup can—and that you will only bring them opportunities that move the needle on their real KPIs."
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The TLDR; Corporate deal sourcing strategy often fails not because of market conditions, but because of internal behaviours. When M&A, R&D,
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