Fabienne Jacquet, Founder & CEO of INNOVEVE
Fabienne Jacquet, in the Founder & CEO of INNOVEVE, a consultancy dedicated to bringing feminine DNA to the progression of innovation.
Podcast
Overview
Our guest for today is the woman who has brought the feminine lens to innovation , especially in the corporate world. She is a French turned American woman, Fabienne Jacquet. Fabienne is the founder and CEO of Innoveve. Innoveve is a consultancy whose mission is to transform innovation by embracing feminine energy.
Fabienne has worked as an innovator for numerous companies. She is a scientist and a chemist too. She has given 31 years of her life to the corporate world. But she had soon realised that something was missing. She understood that the corporate decision making lacked the feminine lens and knew that integrating feminine energy into corporate life could not only enhance the work experience and satisfaction among employees but could also lead to tremendous profitability for the company. Fabienne is also the author of the book called ‘Venus Genius’ which is the female prescription for innovation. It is centred around the theme of innovation through the feminine lens.
Fabienne tells us that she is one of those people who not just welcome challenges but look for them. She is grateful to her corporate life as she got well trained there, got the opportunity to discover the world and had a fantastic experience working there. Being a scientist, she moved to marketing to understand the mind of the consumer and the consumer behaviour at different stages. So her life has been very interesting and filled with challenges and she is happy that she is not going in a straight line, because innovation is all about that. In her words, “Innovation is about taking a lot of roads and not knowing where you will go and suddenly, it comes to you”.
She also tells us that our intuitions and instincts are not automatic, it comes from deep inside. There is a lot of information stored in our brain system and it keeps on connecting the dots which gives us intuitions.
The vision behind Innoveve
Fabienne tells us that the world is driven by the masculine energy. However, it is changing but the change is too slow to be felt. She affirms that masculine energy of practicality, measures, structure, decision making etc. is good but we have to mix it with a little feminine energy which is based on intuitions, empathy, collaboration etc. We need to reconnect and rebalance masculine energy with feminine energy in innovation to create a better world.
How the imbalanced masculine approach might not be enough for corporate decision-making?
Fabienne recalls when she and her team were working on a dishwash liquid, she wanted to innovate something better than what then existed. As her team was working, their boss, who happened to be a guy, suddenly came in and told his decision to the team. He said that he has already decided the concept of the dishwash and the team will have to comply. The team did that interestingly, knowing that they could have done something else. Fabienne says that masculine energy is jumping onto solutions and doing something right away, which exactly his guy boss did. Masculine energy is also important and positive but it needs to be mixed with the feminine one. She believes had the boss sat with the team and discussed the idea of the new dish liquid, it would have turned better.
‘Twenty Trillion’
As our host asks Fabienne about why she keeps on repeating the phrase ‘twenty trillion’, she tells us that it is the size of the female economy. She further tells us that women’s contribution to the total consumer spending is about 85%. Even after such a huge contribution, we often do not get products specifically made for women. Innovations done for men are later modified into products that can be used by women. She says that everything is designed by men thinking they know women, some men do but some don’t. So they really need to understand what their end consumer wants.
How would the corporate environment affect the psychology and biology of women?
Fabienne and our host discuss that the environment we stay in affects the mind and hormones in our body. There are studies that prove that men who stay at home, do the caregiving to their families rather than working outside release oxytocin as much as women and develop certain traits that are more likely to be found in women. Our host asks if it is the same with women who work out and develop the male traits. To this Fabienne tells us that to some extent it is correct but upbringing also plays a major role in your hormones.
Fabienne’s suggestions on how one can innovate his life
Fabienne suggests that one should not mimic somebody, having role models is good but pick good things from many role models and make it your own.
Profile
Fabienne Jacquet, in the Founder & CEO of INNOVEVE, a consultancy dedicated to bringing feminine DNA to the progression of innovation. Innovation has been her love for more than 30 years, with a proven track record at Fortune 500 companies including her role as director of innovation for Colgate Palmolive. Her mission is to help businesses capitalize on the $20 trillion female economy as well as to optimize their capabilities using a human lens. She is the author of Venus Genius: The Female Prescription for Innovation. Originally from Toulouse, France, she currently resides in New Jersey.
Linkedin profile” linkedin.com/in/fabienne-jacquet
Website. innoveve.com
