Description

Diana is a global strategy and innovation leader with 15+ years of experience helping corporates navigate disruption, engineer growth and create customer value. She works at the intersection of strategy, product, ventures and technology—partnering with leaders to develop growth strategies, shape and incubate new products and services, build ventures, and evolve how teams think, collaborate and make decisions.

She builds both the engines of growth and the systems that make innovation scalable. Diana brings structure to ambiguity, applying entrepreneurial playbooks and tailored frameworks that enable teams to stay customer-centric, experiment effectively and build with confidence. She also designs the governance, capability and repeatable innovation systems that allow organisations to institutionalise discovery, validation and delivery at pace.

Her differentiation lies in combining deep strategy and innovation expertise with a hands-on, entrepreneurial approach. Diana helps teams move fast with clarity—crafting bold visions, accelerating progress from idea to launch, and embedding enduring capability. Her career across countries, functions and industries has shaped a resilient, internationally minded and highly adaptive leader known for high delivery standards, positivity and a genuine commitment to meaningful change.

Industry field of expertise

Languages

English
Native or bilingual
Romanian
Native or bilingual
Spanish
Basic

Workplace preferences

Can work on-site

London (up to 50km)

Selfemployed
INNOVATION CONSULTANT/ VENTURE BUILDER/ C-Suite Advisor/ Start-up mentor
January 2018 - Today (8 years and 5 months)
London, United Kingdom
Independent innovation consultant and advisor for C-suite leaders seeking to growth through transformation, building innovation /venture hubs and capabilities and ecosystems across TMT, IT, Fintech, public services. Citi Ventures: Built 5 internal B2B FinTech startups to MVP stage. Delivered a venture creation programme. Warner Designed new processes to scale the Hatch innovation program. Designed a 5G and Immersive Media startup accelerator Revamped the global Innovation Lab's processes for opportunity discovery. Designed a CVP innovation programme and a health insurance service, launched in 2024.
Innovation Change Management programmatic Product Development Corporate strategy
Innovate UK (UK's public Innovation agency),
STRATEGY AND PROPOSITIONS DIRECTOR (FIXED TERM
January 2024 - January 2025 (1 year)
London, UK
Led portfolio and budget (spending review) allocation and delivered new programmes to turn UK's national innovation agency into a catalyst for start-up and ecosystem growth. Led a team reporting into CPO and CEO.
 Delivered Innovate UK's future transformational strategy, shifting focus on customer centricity and establishing service portfolio priorities and capabilities informing Innovate UK's £10Bn budget allocations.
 Launched two new start-up programmes in climate tech and emerging tech (focus on AI and HealthTech), committing +£100Mn in grant funding with integrated private investor commitments, business growth mentorship and wider ecosystem support to help innovative UK start-ups progress faster to scale.
 Transformed the delivery model into a user-centric proposition development one by establishing new capabilities and building a team of 8 proposition design, customer research and product capability leaders.
Shell Energy (Renewables and Energy Solutions),
GLOBAL INNOVATION LEAD - CONSUMER ENERGY PRODUCT HUB
January 2023 - January 2024 (1 year)
London, UK
Led innovation portfolio strategy and innovative business model design as part of a small team of Venture builders in the Shell Energy Innovation Hub. Delivered CleanTech opportunities for renewable energy solutions.
• • Designed new energy management CVPs and business models for EV Charging, BtM Community Solar, and Storage in various European markets leading business model design and early stage incubation.
• • Delivered an open innovation programme to co-innovate with corporates in areas like E-Mobility, Industry decarbonization and Battery storage/ Flexibility. Led innovation sprints and established a new methodology driving a 30% revenue boost through structured co-creation of new business models.
• • Piloted an open innovation programme, enabling sectoral businesses to partner with Shell Ventures portfolio startups to design innovative solutions to drive the industry decarbonization agenda.
Partnerships Commercial strategy