Innovation - A Global Tournament

Twenty volunteers helped start a global innovation tournament at PayPal. They pitched the concept, recruited support across offices and invited colleagues to work on shared problems. Maria Mileder remembers a group sufficiently convinced by the opportunity that they spent little time worrying about whether the experiment might fail.

That confidence did not mean the work went perfectly. Mileder says the experience taught her what learning through failure actually meant, while changing her career and her outlook on what she could do.

In this Innovation Rockstars conversation, PayPal's Global Head of Innovation explains how the tournament connected a large ambition with an accessible invitation. Employees could begin with a small idea, develop it with others and learn how to make a case for taking it further. Her broader aim was to help people participate in innovation without first needing it in their job title.

Look beyond the role someone already holds

Mileder's own path began in compliance. A two-year technology leadership rotation introduced her to innovation and changed the direction she had expected her career to take.

Looking back, she sees continuity in curiosity, asking questions and wanting to understand another person's context. Those abilities traveled with her, even as her responsibilities changed.

“I see myself as a collection of skills.”

That perspective informs how she thinks about participation. A product manager, engineer or colleague in another function can be an innovator through the work they do. The program's task is to provide ways to develop and apply those abilities, rather than treating innovation as a profession available only to a small central team.

It also creates a practical challenge. Someone may be interested in a topic but assume there is no place for them because they are not an engineer. A general message that innovation matters will not resolve that hesitation. People need a recognizable way to contribute.

Give the invitation a form people understand

The tournament concept helped make that invitation concrete. Mileder compares it with the Olympics: taking part has value, but participants also want to win. The format combines a shared purpose with competition and a progression people can readily understand.

In the version she describes, the journey lasted five months and moved through several stages. Teams developed a business plan, prototyped, pitched to sponsors and worked toward a final presentation to senior leaders acting as potential investors.

The starting point could be an idea small enough to express in a couple of lines. The learning program helped participants develop it into a more substantial proposition, take feedback and decide what they were trying to build.

When the team introduced the tournament in 2019, they used office communications and local contacts to spread the message. Brainstorming around problem statements helped people begin, while opportunities to meet sponsors and leaders added another reason to participate.

The program was more than a final pitch event. Its value to participants also lay in the work between the first idea and that presentation.

Make experimentation something people practice

Mileder describes innovation alongside inclusion, wellness and collaboration as part of PayPal's cultural values. To make that meaningful, she wants people to practice rather than simply agree with the idea.

Competitions, hackathons and speaker sessions provide different entry points. Programs and platforms give people space to learn, build networks and test skills. Some participants can develop into innovation ambassadors, helping extend that work to others.

Recognition matters too. Mileder mentions internal rewards and tokens of appreciation, but also emphasizes the straightforward value of saying thank you. Participation involves effort, and that effort should be noticed.

This variety reflects a basic observation: employees are interested in different subjects and want to develop different capabilities. A single format will not appeal to everyone. Scaling participation therefore involves creating several routes into the work, not simply repeating the same invitation more loudly.

Keep assumptions visible as investment grows

Mileder describes a decentralized model of innovation, spanning everyday improvements and opportunities further into the future. For more distant work, she emphasizes making assumptions explicit and setting milestones against them.

Those milestones create opportunities to examine whether the case for continuing still holds. She is particularly concerned about projects that keep going because a substantial amount has already been invested.

“We hear this too much everywhere that a project needs to be finished because too much money was invested already.”

Her emphasis is on making a conscious decision about the evidence, rather than allowing previous spending to determine the next commitment. Learning can lead to stopping an idea as well as developing it further.

That discipline sits alongside the cultural purpose of the employee program. Mileder does not treat short-term financial ROI as its sole motivating measure. In the interview, finding a way to assess and scale participation without undermining the purpose remained an open challenge.

Listen throughout the work

Mileder applies a similar learning habit to customers. A substantial research exercise at the start of development does not remove the need to keep talking with people as the product evolves. What was true a year earlier may no longer hold.

She also wants teams to hear from non-customers. Understanding a competitor's offering is different from asking someone why they choose it. Conversations with colleagues in other functions can likewise help identify recurring themes amid a crowded technology agenda.

For Mileder, those habits connect the personal and organizational sides of innovation. Ask questions, understand the context and give people a practical way to act on what they learn. The tournament made that process visible on a large scale, but the invitation begins with an individual deciding that they have something useful to contribute.