This is a book about successful Corporate Explorers – leaders who build innovative businesses inside existing corporations. That may strike some as an unlikely topic. Corporate innovation is often understood as an oxymoron, a phrase that contradicts itself like a “deafening silence” or a “working vacation.” Our view is that it need not be. We will describe how Corporate Explorers build successful, disruptive businesses using the assets of existing companies to accelerate their work. It is hard work, and some fail, but it is happening now in corporations around the world.

The four sections of this book explain the difference between these successes and failures. In this first section, we describe why and how corporations have learned to use corporate advantages to lead disruptive innovation. We meet our first Corporate Explorer in action, following Krisztian Kurtisz at UNIQA as he drives innovation from within a corporation. We then explain how having a scale of strategic ambition is equal to the opportunity that inspires Corporate Explorers to action.