We’re building The Innovation Circle because senior leaders working on the future inside large organizations need a better peer set.
There are already plenty of places to access content, frameworks, trend reports, and future-facing conversations. Some of those are useful. But they only go so far.
What is harder to find is a consistent room of true peers: leaders who have held the seat, managed the pressure, navigated organizational drag, and understand the judgment required to turn possibility into progress inside a complex organization.
I know this, because I’ve lived it.
At AT&T Foundry, I worked with startups and emerging technology partners to explore what could become commercially relevant for the enterprise. At VSP Vision, I built and led a global innovation function focused on growth strategy, new business models, AI, and transformation. At Before Alpha, I helped global companies design their own innovation programs, giving me a rare vantage point across industries, business models, leadership teams, and operating constraints.
That experience taught me a pattern I have seen again and again: innovation rarely fails because organizations miss the right trend. More often, the who and the how determine whether ambition becomes a real capability or just more theater.
And this space has no shortage of theater. Corporate innovation attracts plenty of big language, glossy decks, and predictions. Some of it helps. But leaders doing the work need more than inspiration from the stage. They need people with lived experience, operational scars, and enough judgment to separate signal from noise.
Across every innovation leadership role I’ve held, the challenges have been different, but the role itself has remained uniquely difficult and constantly evolving. Innovation leaders operate in roles that are highly visible yet often poorly understood. They navigate ambiguity, influence executives and boards, work across functions, manage external ecosystems, build credibility with operators and keep teams energized through constant change. They need enough distance from the core business to challenge legacy thinking, but enough understanding of the organization’s structure, incentives, politics, and operating levers to actually get things done.
This is a very particular kind of leadership.
Most senior executives have peer circles built around their roles. Leaders working across innovation, transformation, AI, ventures, futures, and growth deserve one too — and increasingly need it. They may lead an innovation center, shape an AI roadmap, build new growth platforms, or help the organization rethink how it competes. Titles differ, but the work cuts across functions, time horizons, and operating models.
For years, many innovation teams focused on startup partnerships, venture activity, and long-range bets. Today, many sit closer to the core business, shaping AI adoption, operating model change, growth, and near-term performance. The work has shifted from spotting what is next to helping the organization move now — which makes peer judgment even more valuable.
Some of the most useful conversations I’ve had in my career happened with other corporate innovation leaders: in the hallway at SXSW, over coffee after a session, or in an early-morning text exchange with someone facing a similar internal challenge. Those real conversations cut through the noise because both people understand the work from the inside. You can pressure-test a decision. You can compare patterns across industries. You can admit what feels hard. But those moments happen too randomly.
The Innovation Circle turns those ad hoc conversations into a consistent, intentional forum.
The founding cohort will be selective by design because the quality of the room matters. The right members will challenge each other, offer candor, share useful patterns, and help one another lead with more clarity and confidence.
The Innovation Circle is the room many of these leaders wish they already had. A place to talk honestly about AI, governance, and executive alignment. A place to stay externally aware without losing sight of internal execution. A place to be both future-facing and practical.
Silicon Foundry already sits at the intersection of corporations, startups, investors, and emerging technology ecosystems. The Innovation Circle builds on that connective tissue with a more intimate, peer-led format for the leaders carrying this work forward inside the enterprise.
If any of this resonates, it may be because you have lived some version of it.
If you are a senior enterprise leader actively shaping innovation, transformation, AI, strategy, growth, futures, or new business building inside a complex organization, we invite you to Apply for an Invitation Here
And if someone comes to mind who would elevate this room, someone thoughtful, credible, generous, and deeply engaged in the work, please Nominate a Leader Here
Learn more about The Innovation Circle here.
The strongest circles are built with intention. This one is no different. Get in the Circle.
Ruth Yomtoubian is a Venture Partner at Silicon Foundry and a leader in corporate innovation and emerging technology strategy. She previously held innovation leadership roles at VSP Vision and AT&T Foundry, where she helped global organizations integrate emerging technologies, startup partnerships, and AI-driven initiatives into long-term business strategy.
