When Experian’s Eric Haller put his 5-slide proposal for an innovation lab in front of his boss’s boss back in 2010, the exec stopped him at the second slide and said, “I’ve wanted to do this for years, so I’ll give you the money if you can find the people.”
“I can’t remember what was on that first slide,” admits Haller, who now runs Experian’s DataLabs in San Diego, London, and San Paolo. “It probably talked about product cycles, and the competencies we needed to build it out.”
Haller’s experience managing products, strategic partnerships, and M&A for the credit bureau had made him think about the time it took to find the right acquisitions, the risk inherent in those relationships, and the overall inefficiencies inherent in the “buy” approach to innovation.
“Even though M&A will always be an important and fundamental part of our strategy, high risk, growth R&D opportunities were not always organically funded within the company,” he said.
With that in mind, that boss’s boss (Kerry Williams, now global chief operating officer and Haller’s boss) convened the presidents of Experian’s four business units over dinner, let Haller get through all of his slides, and then hit them up for the funding. Each committed to three years, with the requirement of a monthly status meeting.
Literally the next day, Haller started working his network to recruit what he calls “navy seals of data science…the kinds of folks you find in startups,” and had his core team of 8 staff in place three weeks later. Each got an assessment of Experian’s businesses and strategic goals, and was given a week to come up with questions for meetings with the units less than a week later.
“We skipped the overviews, and fast-forwarded to Q&A and conversation,” said Haller. “It let us compile a list of opportunities for our existing data, which we distilled into a dozen or so initiatives that could get to market the fastest, and have the highest likelihood of success.”
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