This practical one-day workshop is designed for professionals new to R&D, high potential employees with the capacity to become managers within a few years and persons interested in learning effective innovation leadership concepts. Students will gain a broader perspective on innovation designed to help them on-board more rapidly, perform better, and create more value for their organizations. Each section will start with a posed question to stimulate engagement and thought, and to understand the current state of innovation in participants’ firms. We will then move to a discussion of best practices/principles with group exercises. Additionally, students will be assigned to a mentor who will be available to help apply the learnings of the workshop to their future projects, and how the content of the Annual Conference applies to and builds on them.