Page 127 - Grow from Within Mastering Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation

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sought-after opportunity for up-and-coming managers who
wanted to gain senior-level exposure and have a direct impact
on the company’s growth. The best advocates come from a
company’s veteran ranks—those who are well known,
respected, and experienced in making change happen within
the organization. As Cooper recalls, “I thought I’d spend most
of my time helping design and build new businesses. . . .
Instead, I spent at least half my time advocating.”
Success within one business unit has a way of building inter-
est from others, and over time, teams like those at DuPont can
become critical change agents. Although DuPont’s senior exec-
utives actively and openly support the program, they have never
mandated its adoption by the company’s different business
units. In 1999, DuPont’s corporate headquarters invested in the
process development and the pilot engagements to allow the
program to gain credibility, but after that, each business unit had
to pay its own way. Today, there is still no requirement that busi-
ness units participate, but they do so because they recognize the
value of the program. One of the program’s early supporters
was Ellen Kullman, then group vice president for DuPont’s
Safety and Protection businesses, who has since become a big
champion of the initiative. By 2005, Kullman noted, “We have
nearly a half a billion dollars of new revenues we would not
have had had it not been for this program.” Partly as a result of
her success at driving organic growth within her business unit,
Kullman ascended to become DuPont’s CEO in January 2009.

BP: Office of the CTO

BP, the U.K.-based oil giant, provides a distinct example of the
Advocate Model of corporate entrepreneurship. In 2001, the
Office of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Digital and
Communications Technology—which reported to the chief