Venture Clienting: Lessons from the Field
Lisa Kratochwill and Pepe Pascual on taking real business challenges to pilot and beyond, in Europe and Latin America.
With Lisa Kratochwill and José “Pepe” Pascual
From The Corporate Venturing Podcast, brought to you by Open Road Ventures
4 things this conversation gets into
- 01When to client, when to build and when to invest
- 02From use case to pilot, with success defined upfront
- 03Procurement that helps: pilot terms and fast-track onboarding
- 04Multi-corporate programmes as a force multiplier
Lisa Kratochwill works in Startup Engagement at VERBUND X, where she runs a multi-corporate programme that takes real business challenges to pilot and beyond. Jose 'Pepe' Pascual is the former Head of Cencosud Ventures, where he built a venture-client engine in Latin America with clear KPIs, budget ownership and a bias to action.
Davide Ritorto is a management engineer from Italy with an international MBA, currently working at Lamborghini. He is what some call an intrapreneur, passionate about open innovation and corporate venturing, and driven by curiosity about how things work and how to make them work even better. Through Open Road Ventures he sets out to inspire and inform other innovators, intrapreneurs and dreamers.
He founded Open Road Ventures as a weekly publication on open innovation and corporate venturing, and The Corporate Venturing Podcast grew out of it. He also mentors startups at Motor Valley Accelerator and sits on the Open Innovation Advisory Board at UC Berkeley Haas.
The Corporate Venturing Podcast is made by Open Road Ventures. The Bundl Venture Club is a partner of the show.
Read the full show notes
🎙️ Welcome to a new episode of The Corporate Venturing Podcast!
In Venture Clienting: Lessons from the Field, I’m joined by Lisa Kratochwill (Startup Engagement, VERBUND X) and José “Pepe” Pascual (former Head, Cencosud Ventures).
Lisa runs a multi-corporate program that takes real business challenges to pilot and beyond. Pepe built a venture-client engine in Latin America with clear KPIs, budget ownership, and a bias to action.
Together, we unpack what makes venture clienting work in practice, and where it breaks.
In this episode, Lisa and Pepe share insights on:
🧭 The simple rule for tool choice: when to client, when to build, and when to invest, and how to decide fast.
🧩 From use case to pilot: framing the problem, scouting the right startup, and setting success upfront.
📑 Procurement that helps, not hurts: pilot T&Cs, fast-track onboarding, and who signs the invoice.
📊 KPIs you can read on one slide: cost savings or new revenue, time-to-pilot, SLA/quality, and a powerful input metric: number of challenges identified.
💸 Budget ownership = speed: why a dedicated pilot budget and a clear “pilot owner” reduce friction.
🛡️ Compliance early: how regulation can block a “successful” PoC, and how to prevent late surprises.
🤝 Multi-corporate as a force multiplier: sharing risk, budget, and skills on cross-industry topics (e.g., vehicle-to-grid).
🔁 From pilot to scale: land small, prove value, then expand, what changes between site #1 and rollout.
🚫 Common pitfalls: scope creep, “tourism” pilots, and fuzzy goals that kill conversion.
⚡ Culture-shifting moments: the small wins that flip skeptics into champions.
We close by reflecting on the moments when a startup solution made the value of this work obvious to everyone in the room.
Resources:
• Open Road Ventures Newsletter
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