Watch this space. On June 15 The Innovator, which is now part of Groupe Les Echos, will launch a new website on Medium and a print magazine that will be distributed to subscribers of Les Echos and attendees of VivaTechnology, a global technology conference taking place in Paris June 15-17.
Why the need for such a publication?
What CEO wants to see the company’s share price tumble, announce massive layoffs and be forced to issue a profits warning because one of its cash cows is suddenly looking lame?
That is what happened to Eelco Blok in April 2011 when the then recently-appointed CEO of Dutch telco KPN saw first hand the havoc being played out in his industry by start-ups that created a way for people to send text messages over the Internet. Three years later Facebook paid $19 billlion – more than the market cap of KPN – for one of those upstarts, WhatsApp.
Welcome to the new order, where the smartest people at the top are constantly being blindsided by seismic shifts in the sector.
The impact is ongoing and all encompassing and no media outlet is effectively helping companies across all industries to understand the waves of change and their impact.
In conversations with many of the CEOS I regularly meet, all acknowledge that innovation needs to brought in from the outside yet precious few know how to go about finding and connecting with best-in-class start-ups. All worry about the emergency of the What’s App of their industries and need to know about the disruptors before it is too late. That is why Groupe Les Echos is launching The Innovator, its first English-language international publication.
The aim is to produce a world-class business publication that fills that gap by explaining technology shifts and giving actionable business information to C-Suite executives. The Innovator will endeavor to inform its readers about the start-ups from around the world that should be on their radar before it’s too late and tell them what they should know in order to prepare.
What will make us different from other tech and business publications is deep knowledge of the global tech sector and an ability to explain tech trends to a business audience. The Innovator recognizes that technology alone is not enough. To truly prepare for digital disruption every company will have to reinvent itself and the way it is managed. No company has yet perfected an operating system for innovation. In addition to explaining tech trends and introducing you to the relevant start-ups from around the world The Innovator will endeavor to provide insights across industries about change management. We will provide daily updates on our website, produce a weekly newsletter to put tech news in context and print six print magazines a year, each with bonus distribution at an international technology conference. Mathieu Fritsch, The Innovator’s publisher, and I look forward to your feedback.
Jennifer L. Schenker
Editor-in-Chief