Inside CVC by u-path
Welcome to Inside CVC —Inside CVC by U-Path is the podcast where corporate venture capital meets strategy, leadership, and systemic change. Hosted by Philipp Willigmann and Steve Schmith, the show brings senior voices from across corporate venture, startups, investment, academia, and policy to the table.
Each episode goes beyond buzzwords to explore how capital, technology, and leadership shape the future of business and society. From AI and robotics to geopolitics, board governance, and inclusive innovation, Inside CVC is designed for executives and policymakers who want to understand not just what’s happening — but what to do about it.
Episodes
60 episodes
Inside CVC: Part 1 with Marten Rauschenberg on Building Bridges Between Berlin and Asia
Marten Rauschenberg is Managing Director of the Asia Berlin Forum, the Berlin Senate-backed project connecting the city's startup ecosystem to Asia's, and leads the annual AsiaBerlin Summit each November. Before that, he built and sold five com...
Inside CVC: Rupprecht Podszun on Antitrust, Regulation, and Europe's Innovation Mindset
Rupprecht Podszun holds the chair in German and European competition law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, sits on Germany's Monopolies Commission, and spent two years inside the Bundeskartellamt, the federal competition authority...
Inside CVC: The Moat Is Dead: Yariv Adan on Data, Defensibility, and Life After Google
Yariv Adan spent 17 years at Google leading Google Assistant, Google Lens, and the commercialization of Cloud AI's conversational and generative AI products before becoming a venture capitalist. He joins Philipp and Steve to argue that t...
Inside CVC: Leif Lindner on Rebuilding IFA Berlin and Europe's Innovation Deadline
Leif Lindner is CEO of IFA Management GmbH, the organization behind IFA Berlin, the world's oldest consumer electronics show. After 25 years at Sony and Samsung, Leif took over IFA in 2023 and rebuilt it from the ground up, renaming it f...
Inside CVC: Everybody Needs a Hero's Journey: Naiana Miranda on Near-Death Experience, Intuition, and Investing in the Amazon
Naiana Miranda is Principal and Co-Founder of MSH Partners and Chair of the Amazon Bioeconomy Chamber, the first international chamber built to connect capital with entrepreneurs across the Amazon basin. Naiana joins Philipp ...
Inside CVC: What Executives Don't Say: Nick Jonsson on Loneliness, Addiction, and the Cost of Asking for Help
Outwardly, Nick Jonsson had everything that success is supposed to look like: two decades as a senior executive across Asia, an Ironman athlete, a family, the villa and the driver. Alone, he was turning to alcohol, and eventually drugs, to cope...
Inside CVC: A Nation by Design: Dawn Lim on AI's Human Edge, Trust in Government, and the Business Case for Aging Well
Dawn Lim is Executive Director of the DesignSingapore Council, Singapore's national agency for design, and spent over a decade before that at the Economic Development Board working with Fortune 500 companies on innovation and investment....
Inside CVC: Dr. Tan Sian Wee on Singapore's Innovation Edge, Europe's Capital Gap, and the Global AI Race
Dr. Tan Sian Wee has built companies in Silicon Valley, lived and worked in Germany, and now sits inside Singapore's innovation engine at the National University of Singapore, where he manages a S$150 million venture fund. In...
Inside CVC | Taj Eldridge on Why Africa Is the Next Innovation Frontier
For decades, much of the world viewed Africa through the lens of aid, extraction, or geopolitical risk. Taj Eldridge argues that perspective is rapidly becoming obsolete. Drawing on experience spanning venture capital, privat...
Inside CVC | Stuart Russell on Why Europe Lost the AI Race and the Poisonous Logic of "But China"
Stuart Russell co-wrote Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the textbook that trained a generation of AI researchers, and founded UC Berkeley's Center for Human-Compatible AI. He joins Philipp and Steve on Inside CVC str...
Inside CVC: Values Aren't Just Pretty Words on Paper: Lynda Mansson on Leadership, Trust, and Escaping Burnout
Lynda Mansson spent close to thirty years in the nonprofit sector, most recently as Director General of the MAVA Foundation, a large family philanthropic foundation. She started her career about as far from philanthropy as it gets: as a ...
Boardrooms in Transition: Start Here
Boardrooms in Transition is a five-part special series from Inside CVC by U-Path on how boards make decisions when the information is incomplete and the stakes are real. Start with Episode 1 and listen in order. All fiv...
Boardrooms in Transition Ep. 1/5 | Didier Cossin | Failure to Act
This is episode 1 of 5 in Boardrooms in Transition, a special series from Inside CVC by U-Path. Start here and listen in order. In the opening chapter of Boardrooms in Transition, IMD professor and globally recognized...
Boardrooms in Transition Ep. 2/5 | Larry Quinlan | Risk and Speed
This is episode 2 of 5 in Boardrooms in Transition, a special series from Inside CVC by U-Path. We recommend starting with Episode 1 and listening in order. This episode opens with a short recap. If you are listening to the full seri...
Boardrooms in Transition Ep. 3/5 | Karen Francis | Investment Under Uncertainty
This is episode 3 of 5 in Boardrooms in Transition, a special series from Inside CVC by U-Path. We recommend starting with Episode 1 and listening in order. This episode opens with a short recap. If you are listening to the full seri...
Boardrooms in Transition Ep. 4/5 | Barry Salzberg | Leadership Under Pressure
This is episode 4 of 5 in Boardrooms in Transition, a special series from Inside CVC by U-Path. We recommend starting with Episode 1 and listening in order. This episode opens with a short recap. If you are listening to the full seri...
Boardrooms in Transition Ep. 5/5 | Penny Herscher | Board Dynamics
This is episode 5 of 5 in Boardrooms in Transition, a special series from Inside CVC by U-Path. We recommend starting with Episode 1 and listening in order. This episode opens with a short recap. If you are listening to the full seri...
Inside CVC: Hayley van Loon on the Illegal Empire, Supply Chain Crime, and Corporate Accountability
Hayley van Loon is the CEO of Crime Stoppers International and spent the first eight years of her career in counterterrorism operations in Australia. She joins Inside CVC to explain why criminal networks are not a parallel economy. They ...
Inside CVC: Patients Don't Have Time for This: David Betts on ALS, Vibe Coding, and Giving People Their Voice Back
David Betts spent two decades at Deloitte building a healthcare strategy practice, ultimately leading a public health business serving 20 states with 400-plus people. Then, at the peak of his career, he was diagnosed with ALS. His respon...
Inside CVC Encore: Disability as an Innovation Superpower with Pete Horsley, Founder of Remarkable
In this Inside CVC Encore, we revisit a conversation that feels even more relevant today.Pete Horsley, founder of Remarkable, challenges one of the biggest blind spots in corporate innovation: why disability and accessibility are still t...
Inside CVC Encore: AI, Leadership, and the Future of Work with Peter Schwartz and Richard Socher
In this Inside CVC Encore, we revisit our conversation with Salesforce Chief Futurist Peter Schwartz and You.com founder and CEO Richard Socher. We explore what leadership looks like in a world where technological change is no longer sequential...
Inside CVC Encore: Tariffs, Trade Shock, and the New Geopolitical Operating System
In this Inside CVC Encore episode, Deborah Elms joins Steve and Philipp for a timely conversation on the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Trump administration’s use of IEEPA tariffs—and why the ruling did not end tariff uncertainty.
Inside CVC Encore: There's No Exit Strategy for the Water Planet: J. Carl Ganter on Supply Chain Risk, Desalination, and the CVC Opportunity
In this Inside CVC Encore from Season 1, Episode 1, we revisit his conversation with J. Carl Ganter, founder and managing director of Circle of Blue and a veteran storyteller whose work spans National Geographic, network TV news, and NPR...
Inside CVC: Sensing the Emerging Future: Otto Scharmer on Theory U, Deep Listening, and the Inner Conditions of Leadership
Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at MIT and the originator of Theory U, the foundation of U-Path. In this conversation, Otto walks Philipp and Steve through what it actually means to lead from an emerging future rather than the past, a...
Inside CVC: Olympic Gold Medalist Oliver Zeidler on Reinvention, Resilience, and Real Preparation
Oliver Zeidler made history at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, winning gold in the men's single scull and breaking the Olympic record by nearly five seconds in the semi-final. But he will tell you the medal wasn't won in Paris. It was won ...