Killing Corporate Innovation Theatre - Ziv Ragowsky, Wright Partners

What we talked about.

Ziv Ragowsky, co-founder of Wright Partners, joins Sunny Ray from Jakarta to explain why corporate innovation so often fails and what real execution looks like instead. Ragowsky left McKinsey in 2014 after years advising clients on everything from mining to banking, frustrated that he never owned the results of his recommendations. He went on to operate an Indonesian agriculture company and scale a Myanmar lender from three branches to twenty five, securing IFC investment along the way. Since founding Wright Partners as a corporate venture studio in 2020, he has pushed a philosophy built on piloting with real customers, letters of intent, and revenue within six months, rather than the slide decks and portfolio bets favored by traditional venture builders. He argues that corporates, unlike VCs, are built to run businesses rather than make speculative bets, which is why many post pandemic innovation programs collapsed once CFOs demanded results. Wright Partners' ventures have since raised over sixty million dollars in Series A funding. The conversation covers his consulting to operator transition, how his firm structures its first ninety days with corporate partners, and why the firm is now pushing corporates and its own portfolio companies to become AI native.

A McKinsey alum turned Southeast Asia venture builder on why corporates fail at innovation and how Wright Partners builds real, profitable ventures instead.

The questions, and the answers.

What is Wright Partners building, and why should the world care?

We're a corporate venture studio in Southeast Asia founded in 2020 on the belief that innovation here needs a different approach than in the West, because the problems, infrastructure, and founder quality differ. We work with corporates to close those gaps. Recently we've focused on making companies AI native and building our own AI native startups, including an ecommerce venture from one of my partners.

You spent years at McKinsey working on everything from mining to banking. What made you leave in 2014?

I actually enjoyed consulting for a while, but the problem was I never owned the result. When advising, you believe you have the right answer, then six months later the client couldn't implement it, yet you still want to believe you were right. That gap made me want to move to the execution side instead.

You then ran an Indonesian agriculture company. What did operating teach you that advising never could?

Plans fall apart the moment they hit reality. Operating in Southeast Asia means working with people who haven't worked in Western style environments, so there's a real maturity gap. The problems here are more complicated and often smaller scale, so you have to make sure things actually work and succeed even at that smaller scale.

Taking a lender from three branches to twenty five in Myanmar was an operating job. What broke first?

Almost every assumption broke first. Myanmar was just opening up with new telcos, so we tried scaling lending through technology instead of the local distributor relationships the original branches ran on. Relationships get thinner at scale, so we had to build the business on solid fundamentals instead. We eventually fixed it and secured IFC investment.

Your firm leads with ventures, not slides. What were corporates doing that made that distinction necessary?

When we joined Singapore's corporate venture launchpad program, a panel literally laughed us out of the room when we said we'd build ventures and take equity in them. Other so called venture builders were really just consultants pitching trending ideas as slides. We insisted on piloting with real customers, LOIs, and revenue within six months, and our ventures went on to raise institutional funding.

What's the most expensive thing you believed about corporate innovation that turned out to be wrong?

Before the 2023 tech winter, consultancies told corporates to act like VCs and build a portfolio of bets, promising a power law payoff eventually. But corporates are built to run businesses, not make bets like VCs. After 2023, when CFOs demanded results, most of those innovation programs collapsed because none of them could show the money.

Your ventures have raised over sixty million in Series A money. What do investors need to see now versus before 2023?

Before 2023 it was about traction, though people often confused subsidized growth with real product market fit. Now we build ventures with a clear path to profitability at the lowest possible investment, then scale on top of that. We don't believe the power law plays out well here, so we target hundred to two hundred million dollar exits rather than chasing unicorn status.

A venture's first customer from outside the parent company is the real test. How does that one get won?

We've learned corporates aren't actually good at leveraging their own sales assets for unproven ventures, because no VP will risk their KPIs on something unvalidated. So we tell corporates their first customers should come from outside their own client base entirely. Once we prove outside demand, the corporate derisks and introduces us to their own clients.