Recent engagement
Honda had no shortage of ideas. It needed a better way to ship them.
Honda · Corporate venture-building
The four-stage 0-to-1 engine
- 01Ideate
- 02Validate
- 03Build
- 04Scale
The situation
One of the most innovative companies in its industry, with a challenger spirit baked into its founding. Honda's people generate bold ideas constantly, and in a US market being reshaped by electrification and AI, the appetite to turn more of those ideas into real ventures had never been higher.
The challenge
Plenty of companies have idea programs. Far fewer have a repeatable pathway: the structure, the funding mechanism, and the leadership air cover to move an idea from a hallway conversation to a funded, accountable business. That pathway is what Honda set out to build, tailored to the US market, with the discipline to earn a CEO's endorsement, not just a workshop's enthusiasm.
The question
How do we build a repeatable system that reliably turns our people's ideas into investable ventures, tailored to the US, and ready for the CEO to stand behind?
The approach
I led the design end to end, in close partnership with Honda's leadership and associates, on a sprint cadence built around executive decision points. Together we built the pieces: a US operating model (structure, phases, governance), a venture-evaluation scorecard that put discipline behind the go/no-go calls, a funding model, and a board-ready narrative the CEO could carry. I pushed the team to pressure-test the model against the three real options, studio, incubator, accelerator, instead of defaulting to a template, and we anchored it on a four-stage 0-to-1 engine that turns Honda's own people into venture-builders as it runs. The hard part wasn't the framework. It was the scrutiny it had to earn: pressure-tested by Honda's full leadership team, from finance and operations to HR, R&D, and legal, each from their own seat, and designed from day one to be owned and run by Honda's own people.
The impact
What we built
- 01
A US operating model
structure, phases, governance
- 02
A venture-evaluation scorecard
discipline behind the go/no-go calls
- 03
A funding model and case
the funding case to launch it
- 04
A board-ready executive narrative
the narrative the CEO could carry
- 05
A team of associates
equipped to run the engine themselves
It earned leadership endorsement, and Honda's own people now carry the program forward.
“
The end result was a well-considered, actionable model that positions us to move forward with confidence.
Eric quickly understood both the opportunity and the gap we were trying to address—how to move from having strong ideas to consistently building real ventures. He worked closely with our leadership and associates throughout the process, bringing a practical, structured approach while remaining adaptable as we worked through different options together.
Gary Robinson
Vice President, Auto Strategy Business Unit, Honda
Role
A direct engagement. I brought the venture-building method, led the design, and assembled the specialist talent it called for, working hand in hand with Honda's leadership and associates so the program was theirs to run, not mine to own. The best innovation systems outlast the advisor who helped build them.
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