Innovation Management Watch Summary: “3 Types of Leaders That Drive Digital Innovation” by MIT Sloan

Organizations are investing heavily in digital technologies, data, and artificial intelligence, yet many struggle to translate these investments into measurable business value. While technological capabilities continue to advance, the challenge often lies in how organizations structure, coordinate, and manage their innovation efforts. 

In an article published by MIT Sloan School of Management, Beth Stackpole examines research from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (MIT CISR) identifying three complementary leadership roles essential to successful digital innovation: initiative leaders, shared resource leaders, and portfolio leaders. The research, conducted by Nils Fonstad, Martin Mocker, and Jukka Salonen, suggests that innovation performance depends not on a single executive or centralized innovation team, but on a coordinated network of leaders with distinct responsibilities. 

According to the researchers, organizations frequently undermine their innovation efforts through traditional project management practices. Fully funding projects upfront, measuring success primarily against budgets and deadlines, and allowing initiatives to operate independently can limit experimentation and make scaling difficult. Similarly, concentrating innovation responsibilities within a single department can create organizational silos and prevent resources and knowledge from being shared effectively. 

The first group, initiative leaders, is responsible for developing and implementing digital innovations that contribute to strategic objectives. Rather than committing resources to an entire project from the beginning, these leaders adopt a phased approach, gathering evidence about an initiative’s desirability, feasibility, and viability before securing additional investment. MIT’s research suggests that successful organizations often assign two leaders to each initiative: one representing business needs and strategic alignment, and another responsible for technical feasibility and scalability. 

The experience of Repsol, a global energy company, illustrates the potential of this approach. By introducing a five-stage innovation process and assigning business and technical co-leaders, the company launched 505 digital innovation initiatives over five years and successfully scaled more than three-quarters of them. According to the research, these efforts contributed to a 20% increase in cash flow from operations. 

The second group, shared resource leaders, focuses on enabling collaboration and preventing duplication across innovation initiatives. Although innovation teams need sufficient autonomy to experiment and deliver results, operating independently can lead to fragmented systems, redundant investments, and difficulties scaling successful solutions. Shared resource leaders address these challenges by coordinating specialized expertise, technology platforms, and reusable organizational capabilities. 

At Repsol, for example, specialized centers of excellence were established in areas such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, robotics, and user experience. These shared resources supported multiple innovation initiatives while ensuring that technology investments remained connected to measurable business outcomes. This approach demonstrates how coordination can improve efficiency without eliminating the flexibility required for innovation. 

The third group, portfolio leaders, ensures that innovation investments remain aligned with organizational strategy. These senior executives regularly review priorities, evaluate the expected impact of initiatives, and reallocate resources toward opportunities with greater potential. Their responsibilities also include discontinuing projects that no longer justify continued investment. 

MIT highlights the example of BBVA, a Spanish financial services company that introduced a coordinated process for managing a portfolio of more than 2,000 initiatives. Through quarterly strategic reviews, approximately 10% of initiatives are discontinued, allowing resources to be redirected toward projects with stronger strategic alignment and expected value. 

Together, these three leadership roles provide a management structure that balances experimentation, coordination, and strategic discipline. Initiative leaders focus on developing valuable solutions, shared resource leaders establish the capabilities needed to scale them, and portfolio leaders ensure that investments support the organization’s broader objectives. 

The key takeaway for innovation leaders: Successful digital innovation requires more than adopting new technologies or appointing a dedicated innovation executive. Organizations must establish clear leadership responsibilities, coordinate resources across initiatives, and continuously evaluate investments based on strategic value. By combining decentralized experimentation with shared capabilities and disciplined portfolio management, innovation leaders can improve their organizations’ ability to turn promising ideas into scalable business outcomes. 

Welcome to the latest in our series of Innovation Management Watch summaries, where we highlight relevant insights and developments shaping innovation management today. 

This summary is based on the MIT Sloan School of Management article, “3 Types of Leaders That Drive Digital Innovation,” written by Beth Stackpole and published on May 4, 2026. All rights and original content belong to MIT Sloan School of Management and the respective authors and researchers.