Role / Accountability

Innovation Consultant — Delivery & Adoption Leadership
Owned execution, stakeholder alignment, and adoption outcomes for internal innovation programming across enterprise teams.

Environment

Large enterprise healthcare organization with multiple business units, formal governance, and internal change-management constraints.

Timeframe

May – October 2019

What I Owned vs. Influenced

Owned

• • Program delivery execution and cadence

  • Stakeholder alignment across departments

  • Adoption strategy for innovation initiatives

  • Internal communication frameworks and reporting

  • Event and program operations across multiple campuses

Influenced

• • Internal prioritization and resourcing decisions

  • Long-term integration of innovation practices into business units

1. The Challenge

The Surface Problem

Premera Blue Cross needed to increase employee engagement and more clearly communicate the value of its internal innovation lab across the organization.

The Real Constraint

Innovation work was happening, but adoption and alignment were fragmented.

Specifically:

• • Employees lacked visibility into what was being built and why it mattered
  • Innovation efforts were disconnected from day-to-day business understanding
  • Leadership needed a scalable way to align executives, teams, and contributors around innovation outcomes

This was not a branding or morale issue.
It was an internal adoption, visibility, and alignment problem.

2. The Approach

Designing a Repeatable Internal Engagement Operating Model to Drive Adoption

Rather than treating this as a one-time event, the solution was structured as a repeatable internal engagement model.

The approach focused on:

• • Making active innovation projects tangible and accessible
  • Creating a shared narrative that connected initiatives to real business outcomes
  • Enabling employees and executives to see how innovation translated into execution
  • Designing the experience to scale across multiple corporate campuses

The result was an operating model that could be reused to drive engagement and credibility over time.

3. What We Built (Operating System)

Installed capabilities included:

• • An internal innovation engagement operating model
  • A strategic messaging and narrative framework for innovation visibility
  • A repeatable event planning and production system
  • An internal video content pipeline supporting ongoing communication
  • A structured stakeholder engagement and participation model
  • A post-event content library extending impact beyond live sessions

These elements functioned together as a single adoption and communication system, not standalone tactics.

4. Execution at Scale

• • Designed and executed a 3-day internal innovation roadshow
    
  • Delivered across three major corporate campuses
    
  • Engaged more than 3,000 employees
    
  • Produced 13 internal project videos to reinforce continuity and visibility
    

Execution ensured innovation communication continued beyond the live experience.

5. Results

Enterprise Engagement

• 3,000+ employees engaged across three campuses

   

Internal Recruitment Signal

• Employees expressed interest in joining innovation teams

   

Content Assets

• 13 internal project videos distributed organization-wide

   

Executive Validation

• Described as “a new standard for internal engagement”

   

These outcomes demonstrate adoption, credibility, and momentum, not just attendance.

6. Endorsements / Validation

“I’ve never seen our employees this energized about internal innovation. For the first time, we had a way to show what we’re working on—across every level of the company.”
— Senior Innovation Leader, Premera Blue Cross

“This is not your typical internal event. People walked in and said, ‘Wow, are we really doing all this at Premera?’”
— Program Owner, Premera Blue Cross

7. Why This Matters 

This case demonstrates:

• • Internal client success at enterprise scale
  • Operating model design focused on adoption, not awareness
  • Stakeholder alignment across leadership and frontline teams
  • Translating innovation into visible, trusted execution

8. Key Takeaway

This wasn’t an event—it was a repeatable internal engagement model designed to drive adoption and trust around innovation work.

Supporting Material

Select materials used to support internal engagement and adoption: