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Letter from the Editor
Caroline Scotter Mainprize
2 min read
Innovation is the lifeblood of organisations.
At the simplest and most recognisable level it helps companies to develop new products and services that enable them to stay ahead of competitors by better meeting customer needs and desires.
But more sophisticated enterprises understand that this basic product innovation goes hand in hand with organisational adaptability and reinvention. Market intelligence connects with strategic foresight to anticipate and prepare for challenges, developments, and disruptions. Business processes are redesigned; different resources are identified and acquired; cultures are refined; and continuous learning and improvement embedded. Employees at all levels are encouraged and empowered to contribute creative solutions.
While chiefs of staff tend not to be directly responsible for new products and services, they do have an important role in supporting leadership and shaping their organisations to make them more flexible and open to change.
This issue of the Chief of Staff journal therefore looks at the different ways in which chiefs of staff connect with and facilitate innovation.
We profile two members who combine their chief of staff duties with another role in their organisations. Sikander Hazir combines the role of Head of HR with being Chief of Staff to the Chairman of Engro Holdings, one of Pakistan’s foremost industrial conglomerates; and Michael Cohen, who pivoted from his position as CFO at CalPERS to become Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Investment Officer.
Our featured article by Anoushka Healy gives a broad overview of why chiefs or staff are well positioned to practise innovation leadership, arguing that the ‘superpowers’ that make them so effective as the connective tissue and glue in organisations are also fundamental to empowering others to think differently and introduce new ideas.
Mike Jernigan, The Consigliere, draws on the diverse examples of iconic fictional intelligence agent MacGyver and historic polymath Leonardo da Vinci to show the different ways in which innovation may present itself to chiefs of staff. And Stew Whitehead explains how he envisages his position in the forensic science-based company Oritain as bringing some ‘law and order’ to the creative process. Meanwhile, Evan Billings is both innovation and innovator, as one of 12 chiefs of staff introduced to the HP Legal business and working to build a chief of staff community there.
It would be remiss of us to commission a journal on the theme of innovation without mentioning the highest profile novelty of the moment: AI. Opinion is divided as to the merits of this relatively new technology – particularly perhaps when it comes to the consumer-facing generative AI tools based on large language models. I offer my views and would be interested to receive responses and challenges from readers, which will be considered for publication in the next issue.
Finally, we wanted to throw the net as wide as we could and draw contributions from across the Chief of Staff Association community. What does innovation look like in all the different sectors that our members represent, and how does it affect the role of the chief of staff? There could be no better way of achieving this than asking the winners of the inaugural Global Chief of Staff Awards. We are grateful to them and to all other contributors for their time and their astute insights.
Author Bio
Caroline Scotter Mainprize
Chief Editor
Caroline is a writer, editor, and communications advisor, working mostly for organisations involved in research and education. Clients have included Oxford University Press, Saïd Business School, Bayes Business School, and the international development and publishing organisation CABI. She has edited a number of books, annual reports, and journals, and written practitioner-focused research reports, including Oxford’s The Museum Leaders Report and Understanding Chief Digital Officers.Before freelancing she was responsible for the corporate communications at Oxford University Press. She had previously worked for a London PR consultancy and as a journalist on a business newspaper.
