Impacting The World Through Innovation
This week on The WAM Podcast, host, Linda Rigano is joined by Rosemarie Truman, a woman on a mission to help entrepreneurs realize their dreams.
Rosemarie shares with listeners about how the most revolutionizing inventions, including the Internet, GPS, and cancer vaccines, have come out of government-funded Research and Development (R&D). According to Rosemarie, the majority of US taxpayers’ R&D investment, $140B/year, is untapped; with less than 0.1% of inventions become products.
Many of the inventions have the potential to transform and create disruptive new platforms and models. In the last 7 years, $1 trillion in US taxpayer-funded inventions is available from NIH, NASA, the Department of Defense and other agencies, universities, hospitals, and federal institutions.
That’s why Rosemarie created The Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI)– to tap into the value from these inventions by putting them into the hands of hard-working, enterprising entrepreneurs to boost economic growth, create knowledge-based jobs, and launch new markets. Today, she is working with The Walton Family Foundation to launch the SCALE challenge– a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for entrepreneurs to tap into technology, funding, and expert coaching– all to create their dream businesses.
On this episode, we also get to hear about Rosemarie’s influencers, her education, and the career opportunities that helped her to become the mentor she is today.
The ladies also discuss women’s tendency to be thwarted by “imposter syndrome” and the people, including her mother, who have inspired her the most.
“When you identify growth breakthroughs, you’re really trying to identify something that does not exist— from a business model standpoint, from a product service standpoint, from an operational standpoint— you’re defining something new.”
—Rosemarie Truman
The Center For Advancing Innovation (CAI), recently launched its new SCALE (Supply Chain and Logistics Enterprises) Challenge, which is an open innovation contest to disrupt the supply chain and logistics industry sector.
Deadline for submission is September 30, 2019. For more information and entry instructions, go to www.scalechallenge.org.
Guest, Rosemarie Truman
Rosemarie Truman is an entrepreneur, growth strategist, distinguished corporate executive, angel investor, and prolific startup catalyst. Rosemarie’s specialty is growth and investment strategy, having led growth strategies for 50 of the global Fortune 100 companies in over 15 countries. The strategies that Rosemarie led have resulted in $300+ billion in “net new” top line yearly revenue and 190+ new products on the market.
Currently, Rosemarie is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI), a 501c3 non-profit which has been coined “Tinder for Startups” and “Shark Tank on Steroids.” CAI’s mission to identify breakthrough inventions and maximize their commercial potential. Under Rosemarie’s leadership, CAI has earned numerous awards and recognition from Health and Human Services, the White House, the Federal Laboratory Consortium and more. CAI has partnered with 80 organizations across the US to gain access to 170,000 inventions and has launched 250+ startups over the last 4 years; created 3500 knowledge-based jobs. For its notable work, CAI has also been featured in the Washington Post, Wired, Huffington Post, Nature, and several other publications. Rosemarie also serves as Director of the DC-metro chapter of the Founder Institute, the world’s largest startup accelerator program and severs on multiple boards such as Mindshare. Mindshare is an exclusive, invitation-only network of chief executive officers (CEOs) from the most promising emerging and high growth technology companies.
Prior to launching her own firm, Rosemarie spearheaded IBM’s Innovation strategy practice globally. At IBM, she was awarded IBM’s most laudable honor, the Golden Circle Award. In addition, she has also held notable leadership roles at Booz Allen Hamilton, Oracle, PRTM, and Marsh & McLennan, where she served as VP of global strategy. Rosemarie began her career at Goldman Sachs. Her core competencies are in leadership, strategy consulting, investment banking, and entrepreneurship.
In her spare time, Rosemarie also writes for Forbes and sits on many company boards such as Mindshare.
To learn more about The Center For Advancing Innovation (CAI), visit and check out the organization on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube
Host, Linda Rigano
Linda Rigano is the Principal Consultant of The Rigano Group. Her expertise and enthusiasm for strategic and effective communication permeate all that she does as a consultant to B2B and B2C technology, manufacturing, supply chain, and publishing organizations to improve business performance and stakeholder relationships by building highly successful and measurable communications programs.
With over 20 years of industry experience, Linda has excelled in helping organizations advance the discussion of important industry issues. She was central to the development and promotion of ThomasNet’s annual Industry Market Barometer® (IMB) survey on the state of manufacturing, the ThomasNet/ISM “30 Under 30 Rising Supply Chain Stars” Recognition Program, and ThomasNet’s North American Scholarship Program. Linda also served as Director of Strategic Alliances for ThomasNet, and for many years was the Publisher of the Thomas Food Industry Register.
Throughout her career, Linda has been an active participant and presenter for manufacturing, supply management, and business associations. She is widely quoted in business and trade media, including Bloomberg Businessweek, Nightly Business Report, and Industry Today. Linda holds an MBA in marketing from Fordham University.
Connect with Linda Rigano on LinkedIn.