Strategies That Scale
Accelerating People
& Ideas
Disruption isn’t optional—it’s inevitable. That’s why I helped build a global innovation program from the ground up, designed to equip teams with the tools, mindset, and structure to innovate from within.
The goal? Embed innovation into the culture—so it’s not just something we talk about, but something we do.
Years
Participants
Innovation ideas
Continents
Business Challenge
Establish a Collaborative Innovation Program
Develop Educational Programming
Inspire a Cultural Shift across the ogranization
"Working with Everett Hagan is like having an idea generator, motivational support and user-centered experience - all wrapped up into the most enthusiastic person you have ever met.
Whether it is launching the Innovation Society, creating a Design System approach, helping other teams ideate and problem solve - Everett is the multi-faceted energy - the flux capacitor, if you will - that can really bring you forwards (and back) to the future. "
- Anya Livshyts (Product Manager)
Our Approach
SS&C is a distributed company of many independent business units. Each unit has its own culture, traditions and systems in place. This was an opportunity to learn about all the different cultures around the organization and incorporate them into our program.
Why Now?
Our leadership gave us a run way of 5 yrs to meet both their organizational and financial goals.
Why is it Important?
Innovation cycles are getting shorter and shorter. Creating a culture that is open to thinking outside there role is paramount to long term Success.
Where Are Now?
We learned there we're pockets of innovation. Also, there was no way to share those ideas outside your group.
Additionally most people expected innovation to come from the top and were uncomfortable sharing their ideas.
Listen & Adapt
We leveraged surveys, leadership interviews, and brainstorming sessions to understand the needs and pain points of our organization.
Planning
Planning is a big part of any successful program. We spread out training, challenges, and the accelerator across the year. This allows me to offer leadership opportunities to my team and juggle multiple projects.
Initiatives
Based on our learnings we wrote two business proposals. We launched Spark Ideas and New Venture Accelerator initiatives to ingrain innovation deeper into our culture.
Program Outcomes
What started as a grassroots, volunteer-driven effort has evolved into a fully funded global innovation program—engaging over 3,000 participants and shaping the future of the business. We’ve laid the foundation to scale further, building regional centers of innovation focused on industry verticals like Wealth, Alternatives, Asset Management, and Insurance.
Offices across the globe participating in our innovation program.
The Spark Ideas initiative provides a central repository for ideas from across the company. Now employees have an innovation space where they can work on ideas and share them easily. Additionally, we as an organization moved beyond innovation theatre (eg. hackathons with no business impact) to guaranteeing winning ideas get built into our platforms.
Through the New Venture Accelerator, we’ve transformed bold ideas into market-ready solutions and trained a new generation of intrapreneurial leaders—several of whom are now driving strategy in leadership roles.
As an Innovation Ambassador, I’ve helped champion this culture shift company-wide—speaking at global events, leading challenges, and turning creativity into a business asset.