Lay of The Land
Jeffrey Stern
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#159: Azadeh Hardiman (Level20 — Progressive Insurance) — Intrapreneurship & New Business Development
Azadeh Hardiman — Business Leader of Level20, the new business incubator of Progressive Insurance, one of the largest insurance carriers in the US (which was founded and still headquartered here in Cleveland)! As the new business incubator, Level20 is focused on addressing the unmet needs of current Progressive customers and the general population, by understanding the real problems people face every day, deserving of real solutions. Azadeh and her team drive growth beyond insurance to develop new ideas, products, and services that help these people. Azadeh joined Progressive in 2015 as a Director where she led the user experience strategy and design for several large-scale digital customer initiates; introduced product design tools and internal processes to Progressive; and grew the team to include digital product strategy, design, copywriting, and analytics. Before joining Progressive, Azadeh was a founding member of mPortal, a start-up technology company that focused on a single idea: people will want to use data on phones (note: seven years before the iPhone was introduced). As part of the founding team, she wore many hats including operations, product management, business development, and marketing as she helped grow mPortal into a profitable company in less than three years and worked on product strategy for companies such as Verizon, Disney, ESPN, Time Warner, Comcast, Reliance, and Telus. In addition to her work at Progressive and Level20, Azadeh, who’s based in Shaker Heights with her husband and three children, has served in leadership roles on several nonprofit boards and is currently on the Board of The Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio and President of the UVA Alumni Club for Northeast Ohio. In our conversation today, we peel back the curtain on what "intrapreneurship" looks like, comparing and contrasting what it’s like to build a traditional startup vs. innovating from within a large corporate organization, the kinds of initiatives Level20 has taken on thus far and the work still to be done — from home maintenance to flexible term life insurance, to financial wellness offerings, their presence here in Cleveland, her reflections on leadership and growth, and a whole lot more. ----- SPONSORS: John Carroll University Boler College of Business || Impact Architects & Ninety John Carroll University Boler College of Business: https://business.jcu.edu/ As we’ve heard time and time again from entrepreneurs on Lay of The Land — many of whom are proud alumni of John Carroll University — success in this ever-changing world of business requires a dynamic and innovative mindset, deep understanding of emerging technology and systems, strong ethics, leadership prowess, acute business acumen… all qualities nurtured through the Boler College of Business! With 4 different MBA programs of study — spanning Professional, Online, Hybrid, and 1-Year-Flexible — The Boler College of Business provides flexible timelines and various class structures for each MBA Track — including online, in-person, hybrid and asynchronous — to offer the most effective options for you, in addition to the ability to participate in an elective International Study Tour, providing unparalleled opportunities to expand your global business knowledge by networking with local companies overseas and experiencing a new culture. The career impact of a Boler MBA is formative and will help prepare you for this future of business and get more out of your career. To learn more about John Carroll University’s Boler MBA programs, please go to business.jcu.edu The Boler College of Business is fully accredited by AACSB International, the highest accreditation a College of Business can have. Impact Architects & NinetyLay of The Land is brought to you by Ninety. As a Lay of The Land listener, you can leverage a free trial with Ninety, the platform that helps teams build great companies and the only officially licensed software for EOS® — us
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