251: How to Scale Innovation Using a Repeatable Growth Playbook CFOs Love

What does it take to turn innovation from a string of promising pilots into a repeatable growth engine that finance leaders can actually believe in?

In this episode of the Innovation Storytellers Show, I sit down with Alice Ponti, Senior Vice President of Innovation and Strategy at VentureFuel, to talk about why so many innovation teams are being restructured, absorbed into the business, or quietly shut down altogether. Drawing on leadership roles at L’Oréal, Diageo, AB InBev, and now at VentureFuel, Alice shares what she has learned about building systems that connect strategy, governance, execution, and adoption to deliver measurable business value.

Our conversation examines the growing pressure on innovators to speak the CFO’s language and prove their relevance through repeatable, sustainable growth. Alice explains why great ideas alone are never enough, why innovation fails when teams keep reinventing the wheel, and how the strongest organizations build playbooks that can scale across markets, functions, and product categories. She also reflects on the importance of bringing R&D and marketing together early, so technical brilliance can be translated into products people actually want.

We discuss AI, and why so many organizations are now repeating the same failure patterns that have haunted corporate innovation for years. Alice offers a sharp view on why most AI pilots stall, what leaders should actually be measuring, and how companies can move faster from experimentation to enterprise adoption. This is a conversation about discipline, storytelling, execution, and the very real opportunity for innovators to reclaim their place by showing how their work drives growth in terms that the wider business can respect.

If you care about the future of innovation, the role of AI in scaling ideas, and what it really takes to earn support from the people holding the budget, this episode will give you plenty to think about.

Name: Alice Ponti
Title: Senior Vice President of Innovation & Strategy 
Company: VentureFuel
LinkedIn | VentureFuel | Follow the company on LinkedIn

Alice Ponti is the Senior Vice President of Innovation & Strategy at VentureFuel, helping consumer and CPG organizations identify growth spaces and build AI adoption programs that move from pilots to enterprise scale. She previously led global and U.S. innovation portfolios at AB InBev and Diageo, scaling platforms that delivered $3B+ in annual revenue and $700M+ in incremental value. Alice  focuses on repeatable growth systems linking strategy, pilots, governance, and adoption.