Human Innovation | The Jens Heitland Show
Human Innovation explores leadership where decisions, responsibility, and scale intersect.
Hosted by Jens Heitland, CEO of Heitland Media Group and former Global Head of Innovation at IKEA Centres, the show features long-form conversations with CEOs and senior leaders from international organizations.
Each episode focuses on how leaders think, decide, and navigate complexity, not just what they have built. The conversations move beyond surface level success stories to examine judgment, trade offs, and the human realities of leadership at scale.
© All Content 2020-2025 - The Jens Heitland Show - Produced by Heitland Media Group
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EP 89: Own your experience with Pride
Ron Thurston Founder of TAKE RETAIL PRIDE. Ron is bestselling author and is celebrated as one of the Top 100 Global Retail Influencers in 2021. We dive into his retail experience and he tells the story how he grew personally and professionally from studying design, leading retail stores for Gap, Apple and many more to then further take large responsibilities in some of the most iconic brands in the world.
EP 88: Innovation Space
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship around the innovation space. Werner Puchert, Dennis Luijer and Joshua Nuttall and I explore what an innovation space can be if it is physical, digital, mental or something completely different. After defining it we look into how you can create and explore the space to enable innovation in organisations.
EP 87: Intersection of brilliant minds
In this episode we connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship around people
Mercedes Vidal Werner Puchert, Joshua Nuttall, Debora Labusch, Ulrike Spang-Lessnow, Dennis Luijer and I explore the importance of leadership, community, engagement and many more topics around people.
EP 86: Emotions change choices
Sara Westbrook is an Emotional Resilience Strategist. Sara and I explore how emotions can change company culture, how emotional awareness, emotional management and emotional resilience can enable businesses to flourish, and many more topics.
EP 85: Bringing the magic home
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship together with Anthony Rocco strategist and experience designer, his current project is called architecting curiosity. Anthony and I explore his view on innovation culture, experiences and how to architect curiosity.
EP 84: The ROI of community revitalization
Storm Cunningham the Director of the RECONOMICS Institute. Storm is the worlds thought leader on community revitalization and natural resource restoration. We dig deep into the process of community revitalization, his story and how his businesses evolve over time.
EP 83: TikTok for Business
Marketing Expert Keenya Kelly has build over 450 thousand followers on the social media platform TikTok and we dive deep into how businesses small and large can utilize the innovative spaces of social media.
EP 82: The future of Venture building
Katarzyna Krolak-Wyszynska CEO of Innovatika an international venture building company based in Poland. Together we explore how corporations can innovate thorough corporate venture building. She tells the story how Inovatika came to live and how she learned from the early failures to build out the future of Innovatika.
EP 81: Collective problem solving
Matt Toner Partner of the venture capital company Shred Capital. Together we explore how important the founder spirit and team is while founding a startup, how we can/should collectively solve problems through innovation and more.
EP 80: Vertical Collaboration
Lina Safstrom, Stephen Brooks, Brian Kilkelly and I explore sustainability as an opportunity the importance of vertical collaboration and system change needed in the Retail and Real Estate industry and more.
EP 79: The innovation compass
Werner Puchert, Dennis Luijer and Joshua Nuttall and I explore what a compass is, where it comes from and how it can be used for organisations.
EP 78: Conquer Indifference
Dennis Geelen on innovation business foundations, Customer centricity, innovation and more.
EP 77: Experience design for the people
Andrew Lacanienta on Experience design, intention, changing organisational culture and more.
EP 76: Everyday University
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship around the topic or Education. Debora Labusch, Ulrike Spang Lessnow , Mercedes Vidal and I explore formal and informal educations how and from whom we learn and what all of that has to do with Innovation.
EP 75: The dimensions of innovation
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship together with
Roel van den Berg Owner of Access to Quality. We explore his passion for mountain climbing, traveling and his view of innovation, change, culture and transformation.
EP 74: Critical thinking in innovation
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship together with Jeff Parks Director of User Experience. Together we explore his story on being early in the podcasting game. His view on innovation, how important critical thinking is, the impact of leadership on culture and many more topics.
EP 73: Gender Equality in Business
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship together with Leanne Mair Managing Director of LM Consulting. Together we explore her definition of innovation, how she is helping corporations changing their Gender Equality culture and how culture shifts are important for long term profitability of every business.
EP 72: Innovation is like playing Poker
I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship together with Frederik van Deur CEO at the GREEN INNOVATION GROUP A/S. We explore his definition of innovation and how Poker is playing a role in that. He shares stories of incremental and moonshot in the field of sustainability and how he supports corporations with his company to accomplish new ways of strategic thinking.
EP 71: Africa's innovation leap
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship together with Ibrahim Bashir , Founder and CEO at Dillali an Income and expenditure management for African SMEs. We explore the startup ecosystem in Africa his perspective on the history and future of innovation on the continent and how we all can learn from each other.
EP 70: The Myth of Experimentation
In this episode I connect the dots of innovation and entrepreneurship around the myth of Experimentation. Werner Puchert, Dennis Luijer and Joshua Nuttall and I explore the definitions of Myth, Experimentation, Prototyping and testing and dig deeper into examples of experimentations we experienced in our career before we wrap up and share our learnings.