Ex-Walgreens CEO launches joint venture to commercialize new technologies

Apr. 21, 2017 - Jim Dallke - ChicagoInno

Ex-Walgreens CEO Gregory Wasson wants to help Fortune 50 companies develop and scale new technologies with his newly-launched firm. Innventure, which officially launched Friday, is a joint Chicago-based venture by Wasson and Michael Otworth–whose previous company was also named Innventure–to help large corporations spin off and create new companies. Innventure has launched with initial partner Procter & Gamble (P&G), helping build PureCycle Technologies, a company based on a P&G technology that helps reuse polypropylene plastic, allowing the material to be recycled without any residual odor or color, according to the New York Times. Innventure takes a stake in any company it helps create. The plan is to build similar relationships with other major corporations, Innventure says, with the goal of “building new, sustainable businesses and transforming markets.” Building a startup from scratch comes with significant risk, and Innventure thinks that by helping companies develop new technologies in-house, it can help corporations stay innovative. “By partnering with each other in this new joint venture, our two companies are looking forward to accelerating and increasing opportunities with P&G–as well as with other multinationals–to build companies that transform markets,” Wasson said in a statement. “Our systematic value creation would minimize many of the inherent risks common in most startups.”Wasson left Walgreens in 2014 after spending 35 years at the drug store giant. He was named CEO in 2009.Wasson is also the founder Wasson Enterprise, a Chicago-based angel investment group that has made investments in startups such as Opternative, Foxtrot, ExplORer and Brideside. At Innventure, Wasson will serve as its chairman of the board, and Otworth will serve as CEO.

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