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Looking for podcasts about innovation and leadership? We believe that learning from others’ insights and breakthroughs can provide you with a fresh perspective on your own organization’s challenges. Hearing an expert’s take on an emerging technology can also clarify its potential impact and relevance to your business.
Whether you’re interested in fostering a culture of innovation, understanding the impact of AI on profitability, or figuring out how to partner with smaller startups, there’s no shortage of podcasts out there to keep you busy. But you likely don’t have time to explore all of them. So, we’ve curated a selection of established and lesser-known shows to provide you with this list of the top innovation podcasts for 2025:
#5 Culture of Innovation
At a time when many podcasts start to sound AI-generated, it’s refreshing to hear one with a straightforward, raw quality, hosted by someone with a long track record in the tech industry. Nancy Ridge was Executive Vice President at Technology Source, a tech advisory firm with nearly 4000 clients in 60 countries, before she founded Ridge Innovative. In her podcast Culture of Innovation, Nancy puts special emphasis on business ecosystems: networks of interlinked companies that interact with each other to cooperate, innovate, and grow sales.
In one memorable interview, platform economics expert Sangeet Paul Choudary tells Nancy an anecdote about his daughter playing with LEGO. He uses this to illustrate his Building Blocks Thesis: traditional industries are like incompatible LEGO sets, but today’s web services function like standardized modular building blocks. This makes new business models possible that Sangeet says can “drive exponential value creation in an ecosystem.”
#4 Innovation Answered
We’re fans of podcasts that don’t just treat innovation as the pursuit of solo geniuses, but look at it from a larger organizational perspective. The people behind the Innovation Answered podcast recognize that innovation at big established companies is hard, so they’ve made a show for corporate innovators. Listeners appreciate how the podcast provides insights from large corporations on managing innovation across different phases. The show has featured leaders from companies like Walmart, Lyft, Google, Kellogg's, Fitbit, and Lucasfilm.
We recommend the episode with Bob Weis, former president of Disney Imagineering, the R&D division of the Walt Disney Company. He led design teams for Disney resorts around the world, including a fleet of cruise ships, with a capital budget of more than $30 billion. Bob explains why it's important that the Imagineering division isn’t located at Disney's HQ campus: Walt Disney wanted it to operate like a separate lab.
#3 Technovation
Peter High has advised chief information officers for three decades, so that expertise naturally translates to the topics covered in his podcast. Technovation boasts “the largest collection of interviews with elite CIOs, CTOs, and CDOs.” Listeners of the show appreciate the breadth of topics related to driving digital change in an organization and hearing from innovation leaders who’ve walked the path.
Don’t miss Peter’s conversation with Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick about his book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI. Mollick proposes that AI can benefit entrepreneurs and business leaders by serving as a co-founder, co-worker, tutor, or coach. He cites a recent study in which 640 Kenyan entrepreneurs were randomly assigned a GPT-4 AI business mentor via WhatsApp. High performers benefited from AI advice, with the equivalent of a 20% increase in profits, whereas low performers did 10% worse with AI assistance.
#2 Talk innovation: unlocking technology
The Talk innovation: unlocking technology podcast speaks to experts to get their perspective on technology trends and groundbreaking inventions. Since the show is produced by the European Patent Office, most guests and examples are from Europe. You'll see the appeal in getting a scientific perspective on the potential of new innovations, such as robotic exoskeletons for children, offshore wind energy, and graphene in energy-efficient data centers.
In their recent episode titled Rocket science 101: inside space propulsion, host Johannes Schaaf talks to Lars Petzold from the European Space Policy Institute. Lars pitches the economic benefits of the space industry:
“Space is transforming society. The wider benefits of space on the overall global economy by 2040 is estimated at about 7.9 trillion dollars, comparable to multiplicators in other high-innovation sectors, like, for example, semiconductors.”
#1 Innovation Rockstars
Sure, we’re biased. But we love the Innovation Rockstars podcast because of our interesting guests and their perspectives. We launched this podcast in 2020 to give our customers and partners a stage to share their stories. Host (and CEO of ITONICS) Dr. Christian Mühlroth often puts guests on the spot to describe lessons learned from the day-to-day reality of innovation.
We’ve welcomed the who's who of innovation leaders from companies such as PayPal, Intel, Dolby, PepsiCo, ERGO, BCG X, McKinsey, PWC, Aerospace, Thales, Citi, Audi, Bosch and many more. With them, we’ve covered a wide range of topics, including corporate foresight, emerging technologies, startup collaboration, venture clienting, AI in innovation, the future of work, and even the future of aging!
We got PJ Mistry from Unilever on the show to talk about impact accelerators and how a mighty multinational like Unilever partners with agile startups. In the episode, PJ makes an impassioned call to finally move beyond endless conversations and never-ending meetings and rather prioritize action:
“I've really had to accept for myself that I'm going to take fewer meetings, [...] but as a trade-off making sure that for the rooms that I am in, I leave them and I immediately get to work on creating action and doing something about all the great ideas that might have emerged.”
Whether you're an entrepreneur, foresight strategist, or innovation leader, we think you'll find value in learning from the guests on our show. So grab those headphones and jump into Innovation Rockstars!
The all-in-one innovation platform
Once you’re done listening, you may be wondering why our clients from around the world use ITONICS software for their innovation processes—from strategy to implementation. Innovation leaders know that staying ahead requires a centralized platform where different departments can easily connect insights to innovation initiatives. With built-in AI features, our software helps you stay ahead of change, boost human creativity, and speed up time-to-market. Intrigued? Book a demo with our experts to see it in action.
