Client work · News Corp Australia

Innovation · enterprise AI

Turning conversation into ideas worth advancing.

From 2017 into 2019, Fundamental Business worked across multiple projects, sponsors and management teams to help News Corp Australia search for ideas, improve them, compare them and decide what should move forward.

Nicole Sheffield speaking with News Corp Australia workshop participants around a table of working materials — **Many teams. One working architecture.**Participation was broad, but the questions, timing and idea structure remained consistent.

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2017–2019intermittent, multi-project relationship

9coordinated Innovation Sprint streams

≈40leaders across the core innovation process

7ideas selected to progress to New York

The relationship

This was not one workshop.

Over 18 months or more, work unfolded intermittently across sponsors, teams, strategic questions and formats.

Richard Skimin, General Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions and Strategy at the time, connected enterprise innovation, AI discovery and NewsDNA category strategy.

Together, the assignments formed a practical strategic partnership.

Multiple questions · one architecture

Different questions. One working architecture.

How could News Corp Australia become an indispensable service provider to Australian corporates and government?

What categories have unmet needs where News Corp Australia could lead with a new business opportunity?

Which data-driven initiatives could significantly increase value for enterprise clients?

What completely new ways of looking at the business could open growth beyond the existing strategy?

News Corp Australia leaders working through a timed Innovation Sprint together — **Working through the same timed prompt**Several teams contributed at once, guided by a shared rhythm.

How the Sprints worked

Forty leaders. One disciplined rhythm.

Across multiple Innovation Sprints, participants worked through a consistent sequence:

Draw Share Improve Vote Select

The structure kept each session fast and comparable while giving people enough space to contribute, challenge and improve ideas together.

Three Levels of Innovation wall with core, adjacent and transformational ideas — **Core, adjacent and transformational ideas**Change the known. Change the boundaries. Change the game.

A visible portfolio

Hundreds of ideas could be compared.

A shared format put handwritten, sketched and roughly sized ideas on a common basis: continuous improvement, adjacent opportunities and more transformational propositions.

Others could still inform strategic roadmaps.

Make the work visible

The ideas stayed on the walls.

Executives and participants walked through 30 leading ideas before selection. The Atrium Open House and gallery then opened the work to a wider internal audience.

A corridor at News Corp Australia lined with completed idea sheets — **Walk the work**

Photo boards documenting News Corp Australia Innovation Sprint participation — **Open House**

What moved forward

Seven ideas travelled to New York.

Seven concepts from the Australian work were selected for presentation in New York. News Corp’s executive team there asked to see this focused list—a meaningful step into senior consideration.

The Statue of Liberty viewed from below in New York

From innovation to enterprise AI

Could AI help power the big ideas?

Nicole Sheffield was Executive Sponsor at the time; Christopher Gale helped shape a structured discovery linking the innovation agenda to practical AI possibilities.

Demystifying AI · 2018

A practical business inquiry.

Interviews across News Corp Australia and globally assessed current capability, shared language and AI's contribution to growth and performance.

The work framed data foundations, priority use cases and an operating rhythm.

Where was AI already being applied across the business?

Which products could experience a genuine step-change through AI?

What business results should each deployment seek?

What operating rhythm would keep the work practical and coordinated?

The work helped shape a framework

Search. Select. Activate.

The News Corp Australia work became an important proving ground for an approach that later developed into the Greenhouse Framework® — a simple architecture for searching broadly, selecting deliberately and activating the ideas worth pursuing.

Hand-drawn Greenhouse Framework diagram showing Search, Select and Activate

Category-level application · 2019

The working method moved closer to real products and audiences.

In 2019, work extended into NewsDNA verticals including Vogue, WHIMN, Travel, Sport and Video, with formats tailored to sponsor and category.

Escape category board showing real editorial content and participant observations — **Real content in the room**Published material and annotations grounded the strategic conversation.

“

I was just in a workshop today with PwC and it made me realise how much energy, focus and enthusiasm you bring to workshops.

Richard Skimin

General Manager, Mergers & Acquisitions and Strategy, News Corp AustraliaRole held at the time · lightly edited for clarity

A closing reflection

The achievement was not simply the number of ideas. It was the quality of the conversations that produced them.

People contributed in their own handwriting, with sketches and rough sizing under tight time limits. Facilitation kept the conversation human and practical.

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