Moving from transactional networking to intentional external learning with the business case for why community cultivation is core strategic work in 2026
What Responsible Innovation Actually Requires
So what does “responsible innovation” mean in practice?
I see responsible innovation to mean being accountable to something bigger than your project roadmap or your quarterly metrics. For me, it means bringing external perspectives back to inform internal decisions. It means admitting what you know and finding people who know even more.
Based on my experience, it requires three specific practices:
1. Intentional External Learning (Not Networking)
Block time on your calendar, not for networking events where you collect business cards, but for genuine learning conversations with people outside your immediate context.
Join communities that challenge you. Attend conferences in adjacent fields. Participate in forums where you’re not the expert. Say yes to coffee meetings that don’t have obvious ROI (yet!).
I’m part of women in leadership networks, pharmaceutical innovation groups, startup ecosystems, data science communities, design thinking circles, and academic forums. Each one shows me a different facet of the problems I’m trying to solve. Each one introduces me to people who think differently than I do.
This isn’t a side activity. This is core strategic work.
2. Bringing External Perspectives to Internal Decisions
This is where responsibility comes in. It’s not enough to have interesting conversations outside your organization. You need to bring those insights back and let them inform your internal strategy.
When I was designing data governance frameworks to inform AI strategy, I was drawing on conversations with regulators about what they actually care about, ethicists about unintended consequences, patient advocates about consent and trust, and technologists from other industries about what’s actually possible versus what’s hype.
When I’m advising a startup on their AI development and data strategy now, I’m pulling from lessons learned across dozens of organizations, from mistakes I’ve seen repeated, innovations that actually worked, cultural shifts that enabled success.
Responsible innovation means being accountable to a broader ecosystem, not just your immediate stakeholders. It means your decisions are informed by more than your organizational echo chamber.
3. Contributing Generously to the Communities That Teach You
This is fundamentally reciprocal. You can’t just extract value from communities, you need to contribute your own hard-won lessons, your failures as well as your successes, your time and expertise. Doing so is like depositing money in the bank of social and professional capital that you can call on later when you need it most.
I teach at Columbia and mentor at NYU because academic communities push my thinking in ways consulting never will. I write and share frameworks openly because the feedback makes my work better and because I have benefited from others who have shared their approaches. I connect people who should know each other because strong ecosystems benefit everyone. I mentor emerging leaders because someone did that for me. I show up at community events not because I need something, but because these ecosystems only work if we all participate generously.
The WLDA community that honored me with the Trailblazer in Responsible Innovation Award is a perfect example. I’ve learned as much from the diverse members and other nominees as I hope they’ve learned from me. That’s how communities work when we approach them with genuine curiosity rather than transactional intent.
The Business Case for Community (For the Skeptics)
Let me make this tangible for the ROI-focused leaders reading this: What’s the actual business value of intentional community cultivation?
Faster problem-solving. When I hit a challenge, whether it’s an AI implementation roadblock, a stakeholder resistance issue, or an ethics question, I can tap into a network of people who’ve likely faced something similar. That saves months of trial and error and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted effort.
Better decision-making. Diverse perspectives help me spot blind spots before they become expensive and taxing mistakes. When I’m about to make a strategic recommendation, I can pressure-test it with people who will challenge my assumptions constructively.
Access to emerging talent, partnerships, and opportunities. The best hires don’t come through job postings. Rather, they come through trusted relationships. The most valuable partnerships aren’t found through RFPs, they’re built through mutual respect over time. Innovation opportunities often emerge from unexpected conversations.
Resilience during transitions. When I started to build my own practice years ago, my community became my safety net, my sounding board, my first clients, and my continued source of intellectual stimulation and challenge.
Professional growth that outpaces organizational constraints. Companies move slowly. Communities move at the speed of need. If you’re waiting for your organization to provide all your professional development, you’re limiting yourself unnecessarily.
A Challenge for 2026
Here’s what I want you to consider as we move deeper into 2026:
What would change about your work, for example, the quality of your decisions, the speed of your problem-solving, the breadth of your strategic vision, if you spent 10% of your time cultivating relationships outside your organization?
Not networking in the transactional sense. Not collecting LinkedIn connections. Genuine community participation where you show up to learn, contribute, and build something bigger than your individual career goals.
For me, that practice has been the most responsible thing I’ve done for my career and for my team (who’ve benefited from the ideas and connections I’ve brought back), and ultimately for the patients who benefit when we innovate with wisdom, ethics, and collective intelligence rather than in isolated silos.
Gratitude and Recognition
I want to end with genuine thanks.
To the WLDA community: thank you for this recognition of the Trailblazer in Responsible Innovation and for creating spaces where diverse leaders can connect across industries and geographies. I’ve enjoyed meeting the WLDA members and connecting with so many of the other nominees whose work inspires me.
But this award doesn’t belong to me alone. It belongs to:
- The entire Digital Transformation Center of Excellence, who challenged my thinking consistently and made me a better leader
- Every person who shared their failures openly so I could learn from them
- The communities that invited me into spaces where I could learn something new
- The bridge-builders and connectors who know that innovation happens at the intersections
- Everyone who’s ever responded to a cold email, accepted a coffee meeting request, or introduced me to someone who changed my perspective
Responsible innovation is a community practice. Thank you for being part of mine.
Now It’s Your Turn
What community has shaped how you think about your work?
Maybe it’s a formal organization like WLDA, CHIEF, Orbition, or DPHARM. Maybe it’s an informal group of peers who meet quarterly to share challenges. Maybe it’s one mentor who opened doors you didn’t know existed. Maybe it’s a cross-departmental collaboration that changed how you approach problems.
Share your story in the comments below. Tell us about a group, network, or person who expanded your perspective in ways you didn’t expect.
Help expand their impact. Let’s celebrate the communities and people that make us better leaders, better thinkers, and more responsible innovators.
About the Author:
Dr. Victoria Gamerman is a biostatistician, digital transformation consultant, and thought leader specializing in AI and real-world evidence applications in life sciences. After over 10 years leading global digital transformation and data science at Boehringer Ingelheim, where she built real-world evidence strategies, led data science initiatives, and designed data governance frameworks for AI delivery, she continues to lecture at Columbia and mentor startups at NYU while running RWD Insights, her consulting practice focused on helping life science oriented companies implement AI responsibly and effectively. She is a 2025 recipient of the WLDA Trailblazer in Responsible Innovation Award.
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