Human Innovation with Jens Heitland · 2026-06-04 · 47 min
Why Innovation in Large Organizations Has Almost Nothing to Do With Ambition A conversation with François Jacquemin There is a version of the innovation conversation that happens in boardrooms that sounds like this: move faster, think differently, embrace disruption. The language is confident. The direction feels clear. Then someone goes back to their desk inside a company that has operated successfully for forty years, and none of it is quite as simple as it sounded. François Jacquemin has worked inside and across large insurance organizations across Europe and globally. In this conversation we get into what innovation actually looks like from the inside, and what really drives it. The answer is less romantic than most accounts suggest. Innovation Follows Pressure, Not Vision Change clusters around problems that can no longer be ignored. In insurance, that might mean a shift from thermal to electric vehicles, or legislation that forces an entire market to respond at once. When that pressure arrives, focus follows. Budget follows.
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