Do companies need a Chief Innovation Officer?

It is becoming more and more important to look into the mix of the two ecosystems – execution and innovation: how you organize the in-novation side versus the execution side, and how it all comes together. For example, in the context of a large software company, on the execution side there could be a product board facilitating the process of product development and management – ensuring that they keep executing, performing well, and scaling. On the innovation side, the focus would be on new ideas and the overall process - the innovation funnel. Hence, there needs to be somebody managing the governance, the structure, the responsibilities, the process, and the supply of ideas.

The two sides – execution and innovation - require different capabilities, skills, and resources. For example, at IKEA, there's one team responsible for the process and there's another one responsible for the teams and together, they make sure that ideas scale much faster. How-ever, you must have somebody to manage and steer the innovation side and also connect with the execution side.
And this is precisely the role of the Chief Innovation Officer (CINO): He/she manages the innovation side, to ensure fast pace and rapid iterations towards a product-market fit, and also networks and communicates with the execution side – so they eventually take control over the innovation artifacts that mature throughout the innovation process [...]