Marie-José van den Boomgaard is the Liaison Manager for Start-ups and Scale-ups at KPN, a Dutch telecommunications company. MJ has demonstrated her passion for open innovation throughout her role as Liaison Manager and through the 300 deals she has closed between KPN and scale-ups. In addition to her role at KPN, MJ is an active board member of Costa, an initiative from VNO NCW where the 25 top brands in the Netherlands exchange information on working with scale-ups. In September, MJ will be launching The Innovation Cast—a podcast sharing and discussing personal stories from innovation heroes—with Kirsten van Rijn. MJ joins me today to discuss her role as the mediator between KPN and scale-ups. She offers advice to people new to the scale-up world. She explains how COVID-19 has changed the relevance of telecommunications. She describes why process optimization is the easiest innovation type for scale-ups. MJ also reveals how top-level commitment has helped her create successful collaborations between KPN and scale-ups and highlights the importance of assessing your organization’s internal processes when working with scale-ups.   “Experiment and fail fast. Optimize your processes, get a coalition of the willing, experiment, and use a CRM.” - Marie-José van den Boomgaard   This week on Innovation Talks: ●     The responsibilities of the Liaison Manager KPN ●     Why open innovation is highly valued at KPN ●     How to create impactful collaborations between your organization and a scale-up ●     The types of innovation that work best with scale-ups ●     Engaging with scale-ups and the importance of the culture of collaboration ●     Speeding up the deal-making process and the emphasizing strategic relevance of deals ●     Finding, hiring, and developing interns   Resources Mentioned: ●     Magnet.Me (https://magnet.me/jobseekers)   Connect with Marie-José van den Boomgaard: ●     KPN (https://www.kpn.com/) ●     KPN on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/kpn/) ●     Marie-José van den Boomgaard on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-jos%C3%A9-van-den-boomgaard/) ●     Email: [email protected] This Podcast is brought to you by Sopheon   Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Innovation Talks. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.   Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/innovation-talks/id1555857396) | TuneIn (https://tunein.com/podcasts/Technology-Podcasts/Innovation-Talks-p1412337/) | GooglePlay (https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ibHVicnJ5LmNvbS9mZWVkcy8xNDY1ODg1LnhtbA) | Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=614195) | Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/1dX5b8tWI29YbgeMwZF5Uh) | iHeart (https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-innovation-talks-82985745/) | Amazon (https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6e12f112-fdc6-499e-be27-bcdd18505859/innovation-talks)   Be sure to connect with us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SopheonCorp/) , Twitter (https://twitter.com/sopheon) , and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sopheon/) , and share your favorite episodes on social media to help us reach more listeners, like you.   For additional information around new product development or corporate innovation, sign up for Sopheon’s newsletter where we share news and industry best practices monthly! The fastest way to do this is to go to sopheon.com (https://www.sopheon.com/) and click here (https://info.sopheon.com/subscribe) .