Welcome to the latest “WIN Spotlight,” our ongoing series that celebrates inspirational women in our community. Each interview features a member of WIN who is championing innovation at her organisation or across the industry. We dig into the diverse perspectives, influences, mission, drivers, and dreams of these leaders, and of course, ask them for practical advice and pro tips from their years of experience.

This month we are excited to feature Lisa Cousins, Director, Business Strategy at Huge London and WIN ambassador!

Who are you and what do you do?

Hi, I’m Lisa! I’m Director, Business Strategy at Huge London. I have the privilege of leading strategy, research and analytics teams for designing and launching entirely new businesses, products, websites and apps.

What’s the best part of your job?

You need the best people to make innovation work. Working with talented people with different backgrounds, experiences, skills and opinions is so amazing. This is the magic - when different minds come together to do cool shit! While some of my peers are in awe of my ability to build financial models, I am in constant awe of their ability to create mesmerising videos and quickly list pros and cons of tech architecture alternatives.

If you had to choose one, who is the woman that most inspires you?

I’m really amazed by Julie Sweet and her leadership at Accenture. She has worked tremendously hard to get where she is, and as someone who has worked in both traditional management consulting and a digital agency, I still can only imagine what she’s overcome to be in that role. Though she became CEO recently, she’s been part of the leadership team through a massive transformation, smart acquisitions, and Accenture Interactive even made Fast Company’s list of most innovative in advertising last year.

What is your favorite quotation?

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

- Samuel Goldwyn-

I think this applies to both innovation and women! Innovation can’t happen without hard work, and women work hard! I guess this is another way of acknowledging there is no such thing as an overnight success.

Also, “It’s remarkable how much a small group of people can achieve if no one cares who gets the credit.” - Harry Truman.

Ego is the enemy of innovation.

How do you keep up to date with the world?

That’s a difficult task, and it takes a village! Rather than put the weight of the world on my shoulders, my team has a Slack channel where we share what we find that’s relevant to our current and former clients’ industries, innovation, agencies, and anything else we think each other will find interesting. I highly recommend that approach, that’s where my best reads come from! Also, one of my colleagues is super passionate about keeping up with interesting news and has taken initiative to compile a regular newsletter - I always save them and read most of the content, even if I can’t do it immediately.

I am also obsessed with consuming content, particularly podcasts. When I lived in the US, I was obsessed with The Daily, and now I love the BBC Global News Podcast to get the broadest view of what’s going on in the world. I also love going local when I travel - reading the local or national newspaper in a different place gives you a sense of what’s going on there. It’s not specific to innovation or design, but I think it’s important to have a broad view and also see what innovation-related news has reached mainstream and may be in clients’ minds.

Who has been your biggest champion in your career?

Last year I did a workshop with Roxanne Hobbs, who owns The Hobbs Consultancy and is trained in the work of Brene Brown. We did an activity during which we had to envision a stadium with different sections, including fans. My fan section included past bosses who have been great sponsors as well as friends who have provided lots of encouragement, and through this exercise, I realised my friend Alex, who is involved with WIN in New York, has been my strongest champion. She constantly asks me (in a good way) if I’m getting what I need and deserve, made the introduction that led to my career at Huge, and has always been free for a pep talk when I need it. It made me realise the value of a good friend who gets you and can help build you up is just the best. And having a network of people you can be real with.

What is the best advice someone has given you about your career?

While doing my MBA, I was connected with a woman in a very senior role at a REIT. One of those jobs that appears to be very glamourous and high-paying but is also very demanding. When I looked at her career history I saw lots of roles that weren’t appealing to me in real estate finance, etc. and asked about the sacrifices she made in her career decisions to get to where she was. She replied that those were by no means sacrifices for her, she enjoyed those roles. It made me realise we really do each have to chart our own path, even if the belief among MBAs can sometimes feel like you can only go into certain roles and journeys that are expected of you.

What is your advice for women in innovation and the next generation of female leaders?

I think it’s really to trust yourself and work on building confidence in yourself. Innovation is the unknown - it’s based on fact, but also a lot of bold opinions and risk-taking. I used to work in consulting and corporate strategy which is very fact-based. Agency and innovation can be very emotional and is inherently risky, and I had a lot of confidence issues when I started at the agency. Working on a cross-discipline team, I’m often in a room with people with different backgrounds and when my opinion differs, I often ask myself “either I’m crazy or I’m right, or, at the very least, my differing opinion will add value to this conversation”. I’ve had to build the confidence to speak up.

One of my peers at work has given me feedback that I wear my heart on my sleeve in meetings, and I told him I can’t get a word in with all the men in the room, and at least when my expression speaks for itself someone will notice and give me a turn!

Oh and one more thing! When I am hiring, I often see a lot of CVs from underqualified males and overqualified females. Next time you’re in the market for a new role, try for one that’s a stretch beyond how you perceive your capabilities!

What unique perspective do women in innovation bring?

Innovation and leadership require a lot of decision-making in uncertain conditions. Women are naturally more open-minded, conscious of others’ perspectives, and rigorous. We are also more likely to make decisions that prioritise meaningfulness, intrinsic motivation, and social impact than men are. All of this together means we typically outperform men!

What are the life moments that lead you to a career in Innovation?

I grew up in a 1,200 population town in Saskatchewan, Canada – where I always craved the escape and experience of visiting a city or my family’s annual trip to Disney World. Much later, in an MBA class, we were challenged to define our career purpose, and I wrote mine as “to enable others to experience things they never thought possible” – which has been a common thread through my work in travel, digital and innovation.

I really stumbled into innovation! I come from a highly analytical, rational, risk-averse world of management consulting and corporate strategy. When I was offered a role at Huge, I took a chance because I was looking to make an impact and work with smart, nice people I can learn from. I knew the company had a reputation for amazing work and amazing talent. Since coming to Huge, I’ve learned so much from UX, creative, tech, and all the people I’ve met and worked with through WIN. I’ve adopted an entirely different mindset and love challenging clients to adopt iterative approaches, reconsider their portfolio, take a risk. It’s been really rewarding!

Talk us through the highlights of your career - which moments have you been most proud of?

I think my highlights are anytime my work has an impact! As a consultant I was used to working behind the scenes and not always knowing if what I worked on had seen the light of day. But when I worked in strategy at Disney Parks & Resorts we planned Disney Cruise Line itineraries including the first-ever Northern Europe cruise, which coincidentally coincided with the release of Frozen which was a bit of a surprise hit. Not surprisingly they are still doing Northern Europe cruises today! When I worked for Stash Hotel Rewards, a loyalty program for independent hotels in the US, I developed a roadmap to expand outside the US and persuaded the leadership to go for it. Slowly but surely I’ve seen progress there! And most recently I partnered with the Huge team and the Wizarding World franchise to create a new business called Wizarding World Digital and define its business plan, revenue model, experiences for the first-ever official Wizarding World app, and Wizarding World Gold, an annual subscription that is really the ultimate fan experience. That was both a career highlight and one of the most fun and challenging projects I could imagine.

I also went through a really painful and impactful transition in my last role. I was working at a startup and had initiated a high priority project to create a new service for our customers. With my background in management consulting and corporate strategy, I had created a 3-month plan to come up with the best solution. I was very proud of it, and on track, when our CEO interrupted me one day 6 weeks in and asked what the answer was. He challenged that I didn’t yet have an answer and hadn’t done anything yet. In my mind, I had accomplished a lot, I had followed the plan. But we were a digital business, we moved fast, we operated in an uncertain world, and I had to pivot to start persuading colleagues to help me implement my ideas as-is rather than spending 6 more weeks making the perfect plan. It was a really hard couple of weeks learning my old approach didn’t work in this environment, but a great lesson in working in an agile way, risk-taking, engaging my colleagues, and getting shit done. Having this experience prepared me to work in the sometimes chaotic and uncertain world of agile innovation.

What challenges do women face in the industry?

I think our lack of access to opportunities vs. men is such a barrier. It’s not only the gender pay gap, returning to work, etc. but getting a job or getting funding in the first place. When there is bias against us in hiring processes and in startup funding, that’s a blocker that prevents us from even getting in the door. It’s fascinating to read about blind orchestra auditions and gender bias in job ads. I think this connects to what I said before about being confident and going for it. For now, we just have to take risks more often, and hope as leaders and influencers we can implement non-biased processes for the next generation.

What do you think will have the biggest impact on the industry in 2020?

This might sound obvious, but I think the climate crisis will. Voices are becoming louder and more frequent. Greta Thurnberg became a household name in 2019. The Davos news is “climate, climate, climate”. Sustainability has become something more core, of more substance. Tesla just became the second biggest car company in the world. There is demand and money behind it.

What product, service, or industry do you think is most ripe for innovation? Why?

I would say packaging and single use items! I feel so guilty everytime I order a delivery, pick up packaged fruit from a UK supermarket, use a plastic cup on a flight, etc. A business school classmate was horrified by microplastics data and launched a company called Blueland in the US which sells “forever bottles” with non-toxic cleaning tablets the size of a nickel that you mix with water to create solutions - so this saves on not only the bottles and their packaging, but shipping liquid solutions. There are so many more opportunities like that. It’s not even that hard to change - 18 months ago you wouldn’t think twice about using a plastic straw, and now in most places you won’t get one.

Also, anything that involves a queue! Time is our most valuable asset!

How is London unique in how it does innovation?

My work experience spans across Canada, the US, Europe and London, and I do feel a sense that in London people are really conscious of, and place a really high value on, diversity & inclusion. Whether that’s the vision and mission for your organisation or part of how you do business, it makes me proud to work in London and it creates a better environment, increases innovation and drives results.

What excites you most about the world of innovation right now?

As a business strategist I’m really excited about the business model innovation we’ve seen and we’ll continue to see. Actually innovation isn’t the right word, it’s cross-industry adoption/diffusion of business models. I think we’ve passed “peak subscription”, though there are still niche opportunities as part of a broader business for certain customers, for example, the Wizarding World Gold subscription we created. I’m also really excited about opportunities in the circular economy. A big shift in values and behaviour needs to change for it to become more mainstream, but it’s becoming a bigger part of the conversation.

Thank you Lisa for sharing your story with the WIN community!

Photos by Juan Lozano

Edited by Meera Pathak

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WIN Spotlight: Lisa Cousins