Runar is CEO at YunoJuno, one of the most impactful companies to come out of the UK in recent years. Runar was previously the CEO of Depop (sold to Etsy for $1.6bn), scaling the company through multiple funding rounds from early stage startup to market dominance in the UK and successful expansion into US with millions of users.

Prior to Depop, Runar was part of the founding team that built mobile social network ZYB and successfully sold it to Vodafone Group where he went on to hold several leadership positions including the group’s Global Head of Product. Runar enjoys building and expanding community-driven companies that drive positive change. At YunoJuno he is championing flexibility and empowerment as the future of work.

If you're inspired by the insights on innovation and scaling shared in this podcast, discover how Wazoku helps organizations turn ideas into action. Learn more about the importance of systems thinking in corporate innovation by visiting this resource, and see how Wazoku supports businesses in building vibrant innovation ecosystems.

Balaji is a Product, P&L and Innovation leader with extensive experience ideating, incubating, developing customer-centric products and operating innovative product businesses. Deep industry expertise in Life Sciences, Healthcare, Innovation, Future of Work and Contingent Workforce. Currently teach product innovation and intrapreneurship at Harvard and Stanford.

His work has been recognized in a series of Harvard Business School case studies focused on helping executives build non-traditional businesses within large companies. He frequently teach seasoned professionals to sophomores at Harvard, Stanford, Wharton among others on how to think about this process while maintaining personal identity and a sense of agency in the process.

Additionally, Balaji supports his wife, Meghna, as she starts her own company (Butterfly Voyage), tries to load the dishwasher properly (good luck wine glasses), and builds insanely awesome Legos with his daughter!

Balaji's expertise aligns with Wazoku's work in the healthcare and life sciences sector, where innovative thinking and customer-centric approaches are essential. Wazoku has supported organizations in this space by helping them leverage innovation to address complex challenges, enhance patient care, and streamline operations. To learn more about how Wazoku has helped drive innovation and growth in the health and life sciences sector, visit this page on Wazoku's website.

Steve Rader serves as the Program Manager of NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) and the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL), which are working to infuse challenge and crowdsourcing innovation approaches at NASA and across the federal government. CoECI focuses on the study and use of curated, crowdsourcing communities that utilize prize and challenge-based methods to deliver innovative solutions for NASA and the U.S. government.

In 2015, Steve was named as one of 20 Challenge Mentors for U.S. Government Services Administration’s (GSA) Prizes and Challenges government-wide community of practice. Steve has worked with various projects and organizations to develop and execute over 100 different challenges. He speaks regularly about NASA’s work in crowd-based challenges and the future of work both publicly and internally to the NASA workforce to promote the use of open innovation tools.

Steve has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Rice University and has worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for 33 years. Prior to joining CoECI/NTL, Steve worked in mission control, flight software development for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, command and control systems development for the X-38, and led the Command, Control, Communications, & Information (C3I) architecture definition for the Constellation Program.

To see how organizations like NASA have successfully used Wazoku's platform to solve complex problems, check out their customer stories on forecasting solar events and improving the performance of Kevlar. If you’d like to speak with someone about starting a challenge of your own or learn more about how Wazoku can help you, request a demo here.