In this episode of What’s Your Edge? we’re focusing on a foundational driver of sustainable growth: innovation. Research from McKinsey suggests that companies that prioritize innovation generate significantly higher growth than their peers. In one study, “innovation leaders” achieved 2.4 times higher total shareholder returns than laggards over a 10-year period, underscoring that innovation is not a “nice to have,” but a core driver of long-term value. 

As everyone listening knows, true innovation isn’t a one-time event or the product of a lone genius. It’s a disciplined, iterative effort, woven into the culture and operations of high-performing organizations. You may have read our article “Massive Action Leads to Business Growth, Innovation, and Operational Excellence,” where we explored how companies that operationalize innovation, where it is everyone’s responsibility, are the ones that consistently outpace their peers.  Today, we’re talking with Ed Trevis, President and CEO of Corvalent, an industrial computing manufacturing company, whose leadership journey offers a compelling blueprint for transforming a legacy business through innovation. 

Welcome Ed! 

Thank you, Laura, for inviting me to this episode. You’re absolutely right that induced innovation can drive profound transformation. In my 32 years of leading the company, we’ve experienced multiple moments where we had to break from the norm and pivot, whether for technological advancement, shifting markets, or economic and financial pressures. As CEOs, we must maintain a healthy paranoia about the possibility of becoming obsolete, and it’s often in those moments that real action and breakthrough innovation occur.

Innovation Cannot Be Exclusive to Products and Services  

Ed, I’m so glad you mentioned that innovation starts at the top. And that Leaders must set expectations, model curiosity, and foster accountability. Ed, you’ve led Corvalent since its founding in 1993. Can you share the pivotal moment when you realized Corvalent needed to embrace a culture of innovation? What was the catalyst for this shift?

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There were several moments in the life of our organization where we had to be more than innovative, but there was one that I even wrote in my Portuguese book about innovation. The chapter is called “The dangerous silence and how demotivation threatened our future”. We faced a silent, but devastating problem: employee demotivation. A widespread feeling of stagnation, low engagement from employees, and a disconnect from the real impact of their work. It was like their tasks just felt like simple tasks, without a greater purpose. Over time, this created a cycle of dissatisfaction, low productivity, and no personal growth.  

Worse still, when a team loses the belief that their work doesn’t matter, the team loses vitality. 

Disconnection was subtle, but became very evident: 

Teams were less collaborative, silos were created throughout the organization, resistance to change, and in some cases, great talents left the organization. 

When we identified the silent problem, we realized something fundamental. It wasn’t enough to innovate products and services; we needed to innovate in how we managed people and culture. 

I like your phrase, the silent problem. We know from our experience that no transformation is without challenges. Changing culture, especially in a long-established company, requires trust, communication, and clear incentives. How did you secure buy-in across different teams and functions? 

Innovation became part of the strategic pillar within our corporate objectives. A living practice throughout the company, across every single department. 

We needed to change mindsets. 

• Talk about Catalytic Coaching (process implemented to stimulate personal and professional growth as well as instigating innovation, pursuit of excellence, and positive change) 

• Critical thinking, engagement, and energy 

• Incentive programs, awards and etc. 

As a result, we gave everyone a voice, encouraged participation, promoted exchange of ideas, made innovation part of everyone’s life at Corvalent, as well as personally. 

Focus on the Entire Organization to Operationalize Innovation

Making innovation a part of everyone’s life at Corvalent was quite an undertaking. At VEM, we believe innovation flourishes when it’s systematic and measurable. Encouraging innovation in every part of the organization, from HR to finance to product, and setting a target to innovate every year is a great example. How did you structure the expectation that every team would contribute to innovation annually? What systems or processes did you put in place to support this? 

One of the main objectives of our yearly strategic planning is Innovation.  

Every department in the organization develops what we call “Rocks” for the year based on corporate objectives. These rocks are like S.M.A.R.T. goals. They are thought of and established before the end of the prior year. Every team member, either individually or in groups, is assigned within every department to help accomplish those goals. 

Innovation is always a main corporate objective; the company may have ideas of innovation to be implemented for the year, and teams set them up to support the corporate objective.  

Sometimes, the best ideas come from unexpected places. Can you share an example of an innovation that surprised you—perhaps one that emerged from a department not traditionally associated with product development? 

As a designer and local manufacturer of industrial computing solutions, it operates through a well-structured organization with multiple departments, including sales, engineering, production, and shipping. Recently, our marketing team developed a new website architecture and design that clearly separates our two distinct product lines, hardware and software, each serving different industry segments. The result is an intuitive, easy-to-navigate, and highly functional online experience that effectively communicates the full scope of Corvalent’s capabilities. 

Exploit Listening, Adapting, and Iterating for Innovation Success 

That’s a great example. Innovation must solve real problems. You created a new platform, which provides preventive and predictive maintenance data, that was developed in response to customer needs for reducing downtime and costs. What is the name of your platform, and what customer insights or market signals led to its development? How did you validate the need for this solution? 

CorGrid Suite is an industrial IoT platform that integrates both software and hardware components, providing a complete solution for data collection, monitoring, and intelligent control across industrial applications. 

Key industry segments we focus on today are Industrial Automation Process, Smart Machines, Smart Energy & Utilities, Oil & Gas, Petrochemical, Smart Building and Infrastructure, and Smart Cities.

Over the last decade, we observed that our capital equipment customers were closely following the global adoption of Industry 4.0 among large manufacturers. Through continuous conversations and analysis of their competitive environment, we identified a key objective shared across the industry: the need to implement preventive and predictive maintenance, along with some level of operational control of their equipment. 

Building on this insight, we designed a solution framework not only to meet those needs but also to empower customers to manage and resolve field issues more effectively, all through a unified, single-pane-of-glass platform that integrates monitoring, tracking, and control. 

As we know from “Ensure Strong Innovation Adoption,” even the best solutions can face adoption barriers. Despite a clear value proposition, you mentioned the initial adoption rate was lower than anticipated. What did you learn from this experience, and how did it influence your approach going forward? 

Our segments focus, acquisition of proof of concepts, and creation of a full turnkey solution to help customers from assessment, software, to hardware, to installation, are a key part of our approach. A large majority of prospects are not prepared to implement the entire automation on their own, so we developed a process to support customer implementation. 

Addressing the Unexpected When an Innovation Enters the Market

Successful innovators are relentless iterators. When adoption lagged, Corvalent didn’t just push harder on existing customers. You looked outward, identifying new verticals like smart buildings, smart energy, and smart cities, and leveraged beta sites to build credibility. How did you and your team identify and prioritize these new verticals? What role have beta sites played in gaining traction and validating use cases? 

We conducted two years of consultative marketing research and a pre-sales exercise prior of having specific applications designed under our PaaS platform. This enables us to understand the pains of each segment, challenges, market potential, customer ROI, and competitive landscape. 

Ed, iteration is a recurring theme in your leadership. How do you foster a culture where experimentation and learning from setbacks are valued?  

Learn by doing is part of our culture, the positive state of mind of going through the experience, whether it is a success or a failure. Strategic thinking and Planning, post-mortem, lessons learned, and true positive reinforcement leadership style. Knowledge + Experience (good or bad) = Wisdom as an organization 

Measuring Success and Scaling Innovation 

We advise our customers to measure not just outputs but outcomes, using clear metrics and feedback loops. What metrics or key performance indicators do you use to measure the success of innovation initiatives at Corvalent?

Over the years, we have developed dashboards that encompass not only results, but also metrics for intercompany communication and processes on activities of engineering, marketing, sales, and operations development, focused on constant “team feedback”. Making sure nothing is missed or forgotten. 

Plan – Delegate – ongoing, constant feedback behavior rather than follow-up management as a culture. 

Some of the key performance indicators and metrics we use in our company are customer and employee surveys. Their feedback helps us understand their input about innovation. Helps us define and measure employee and customer retention. A major part of what we sell, and our ideology, is longevity and consistency.  

Driving adoption in new markets requires more than just a great product. What strategies have proven most effective for accelerating the adoption of innovative solutions, especially in unfamiliar verticals? 

We use advisory boards, marketing surveys, attend conferences, exhibit at vertical tradeshows, and leverage beta site deals to help drive adoption. 

How to Build Momentum for an Innovation Culture 

Your long tenure as a CEO gives you a unique perspective on leadership and innovation. How has your leadership philosophy evolved as Corvalent has become more innovation-driven? What personal practices or beliefs sustain your edge as a leader? 

Early in my career as a CEO, I realized that leadership can be a lonely place. That realization led me to join Vistage International, a global community of more than 47,000 leaders, where I’ve been a member for 24 years. Through this community, I’ve learned not only from the experiences of fellow executives but also from world-class speakers who cover nearly every topic imaginable in business. 

These decades of shared insight have reinforced a fundamental truth: leadership and innovation are inseparable. They are the drivers of longevity in business and the forces that push us to continually improve as leaders and thinkers. To me, the belief (mantra) is simple: to innovate is to live a meaningful, productive life. 

Looking ahead, the pace of change will only accelerate. What are your priorities for Corvalent’s next phase of innovation? Are there new frontiers or technologies you’re particularly excited about?

I’m truly energized by the emerging frontier of an All-Americas Free Trade landscape, a powerful vision where more than one billion people across over 50 countries and territories come together in unprecedented collaboration. Within a mere 2–5 hour time-zone span, and united by shared linguistic and cultural roots, the entire hemisphere is poised to ignite what could become the greatest economic boom of the next 50 years. 

Together, we can share our greatest technologies, elevate innovation to new heights, and build a future defined by peace, partnership, and widespread prosperity. This is more than free trade; it’s a historic opportunity to uplift nations, empower people, and unlock the full potential of all the Americas, estimating an economy of over 50 trillion dollars in less than 20 years. 

Thank you, Ed, for illustrating what it means to build and sustain a culture of innovation. I found your message that, rather than treating the silent problem as a human resources issue, you and your team recognized it as a strategic threat and used it as a catalyst to innovate your products and how you managed people, culture, and performance. By elevating innovation to a strategic pillar and embedding it into corporate objectives, you’ve shown us how innovation can make a “living practice” across every department. Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights. For our listeners, remember that building a culture of innovation is within reach for any organization, provided you commit to the process, measure what matters, and never stop learning. 

If you’re ready to move beyond one-off initiatives and build a true culture of innovation, start by asking the same questions Ed did: Where is the “dangerous silence” in your organization? How are you equipping every team, not just product, to innovate? 

To explore how to operationalize innovation, improve adoption, and use data and process to accelerate growth, check out our resources on innovation, iteration, and performance management. 

Let’s talk if you’d like help assessing your current innovation readiness or building a roadmap for your next phase of growth.

FAQ:  

(Written by Penn at Sintra.ai) 

What does it mean to build a culture of innovation?
A culture of innovation is one where new ideas, experimentation, and continuous improvement are embedded into everyday work—not confined to a single team or “innovation lab.” In innovative organizations, leaders set clear expectations, provide resources and psychological safety, and make innovation a strategic pillar. Every function—operations, finance, HR, marketing, product, and IT—has a role in identifying opportunities, testing solutions, and learning from results. Why is employee engagement so critical to innovation?
Innovation and employee engagement are tightly linked. When employees feel their work has purpose, their ideas are heard, and their contributions matter, they are far more likely to challenge the status quo and propose improvements. Conversely, “silent” disengagement—low energy, minimal collaboration, resistance to change—creates stagnation. Addressing demotivation and giving people a voice is often the first step in unlocking innovation. How can companies make innovation everyone’s responsibility?
Organizations can make innovation a shared responsibility by:

• Making it a formal strategic objective, not a side project 

• Setting expectations that each team will improve or innovate something every year 

• Implementing coaching and development programs that encourage critical thinking 

• Creating incentive programs and recognition for innovative ideas and execution 

• Establishing simple processes for capturing, evaluating, and piloting ideas 

What is iterative innovation, and why does it matter?
Iterative innovation is the practice of improving through cycles of testing, feedback, and refinement rather than relying on a single “big bet.” It matters because markets, technologies, and customer needs evolve quickly. Iteration allows organizations to reduce risk, learn faster, and adapt solutions based on real-world data and customer feedback. Why do some innovations struggle with adoption, even when the value is clear?
Innovations often face adoption challenges because customers may lack internal expertise, bandwidth, or confidence to implement them. Change can be perceived as risky or complex. Common barriers include unclear ROI, integration concerns, competing priorities, and organizational resistance. Successful innovators address these barriers with education, proof of concept projects, turnkey solutions, and strong post-sale support. What are beta sites, and how do they help with innovation adoption?
Beta sites are early adopter customers or partners who agree to test a new product, platform, or solution in a real-world environment. They help organizations:

• Validate use cases and technical performance 

• Gather feedback on usability and value 

• Build reference stories and case studies 

• Reduce perceived risk for future customers
  Beta programs are especially valuable when entering new verticals or launching complex solutions such as industrial IoT platforms. 

How should organizations measure the success of innovation initiatives?
Innovation success should be measured with a combination of outcome and process metrics. Outcome metrics can include revenue from new products, margin improvement, customer retention, or reduced downtime. Process metrics might track number of ideas submitted, experiments run, cycle time from idea to pilot, and cross-functional participation. Dashboards and feedback loops help ensure that innovation remains visible, aligned to strategy, and continuously improved. What role does leadership play in sustaining innovation?
Leadership is central to sustaining innovation. Effective leaders:

• Communicate a clear vision and purpose for innovation 

• Model curiosity, learning, and resilience 

• Provide resources and remove obstacles 

• Celebrate learning, not just “wins” 

• Build governance and processes that support experimentation and scaling
  Many CEOs and senior leaders also invest in peer communities, advisory groups, or coaching to broaden their perspective and stay ahead of change. 

How can organizations get started if they feel “stuck” or plateaued?
If your organization feels stuck, start by diagnosing where the “dangerous silence” may exist—areas of disengagement, stalled projects, or unspoken resistance. From there:

• Reaffirm or redefine your strategic priorities 

• Engage employees in identifying pain points and opportunities 

• Launch small, focused innovation initiatives with clear objectives and timelines 

• Use pilots and beta sites to test and prove value 

• Build simple dashboards to track progress and share results 

Over time, these steps can help you move from isolated efforts to a repeatable, scalable innovation system.