How Three Corporate Purpose Leaders Are Innovating to Meet Rising Expectations
Speakers
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Jocelyn Zierenberg
Teisha Kaiser
Kathleen Brennan
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Brittin Haury LaMar
Why attend
Why watch
Impact leaders are now accountable to more stakeholders than ever - executives, employees, legal - each with their own definition of success. 91% say trust is now the top reason their company invests in purpose. That's a higher bar than ever before, and old playbooks won't get you there. The impact leaders getting real results are the ones willing to test new approaches, adapt what they've learned, and rethink old processes.
Join us for a candid panel conversation with impact leaders who are putting innovation into practice inside their corporate purpose programs. 2026 Goodies Winners Jocelyn Zierenberg, Senior Global Volunteer and Giving Lead at Micron, Teisha Kaiser, Sr. Advisor, Corporate Citizenship at Enbridge, and 2026 Goodies Finalist, Kathleen Brennan, Associate Public Affairs Director at Exelixis will share the creative approaches they've taken - in nonprofit partnerships, volunteer leader networks, grantmaking and more - and the lessons they learned along the way.
Watch now to learn:
- Innovation doesn't require a mandate or a big budget — just permission to try. Whether it's backed by strong executive sponsorship and a company value built around innovation, or built from scratch by a small team without a dedicated budget, real innovation shows up at every stage of a program. What it takes isn't resources — it's a willingness to act on an idea instead of waiting for the perfect conditions.
- Sometimes the most innovative move is choosing to stop, not start. Enbridge's biggest shift wasn't a new tool — it was eliminating a mandatory follow-up survey they'd used for years, once they realized every partner was interpreting the questions differently and the data wasn't usable. As Teisha put it, innovation for Enbridge "was really about... not adding something new... but more about having the courage to stop what we were doing."
- Meet people — and partners — exactly where they already are. Whether it's Micron's Agent for Good meeting employees the moment they want to help, or Enbridge letting long-standing partners simply share "what you already have" instead of filling out a new report each year, the common thread across these three impact leaders was removing friction, not adding process.
- Buy-in is a matter of intentionality. Asked about the biggest barrier to innovating, the panelists converged on time and resources. Jocelyn's advice: "there's gotta be some intentionality in setting aside things that are of a lower priority... in order to make space for that to grow." Kathleen echoed it, describing the constant work of finding "the right talking points" to earn more budget, more help, more buy-in.
- Don't be afraid to fail — it's how trust gets built. Teisha shared that Enbridge's first attempt at a simplified grant application didn't fully work, and that was okay. "Don't be afraid of that failure... we're listening and we're making those adjustments to build trust." Innovation isn't a single leap that works perfectly the first time — it's an ongoing willingness to adjust based on real feedback.
