June 4, 2025
One of the most common tensions in corporate innovation is this: how do you build something truly new without shaking the foundations of a legacy brand? That’s what made our conversation with Nancy Yaklich so powerful.
Nancy has done this kind of work at Best Buy, Cargill, UnitedHealthcare, and now Caterpillar—where she’s leading an ambitious initiative called EcoForge, a shadow brand created to test bold, sustainability-focused business ideas outside the Caterpillar brand.
At a time when many companies are retreating to the core, Nancy is pushing into the edges. Here’s what we learned from her:
Nancy launched EcoForge as a way to test new ideas without the weight (or risk) of the Caterpillar brand. And she was refreshingly honest: getting buy-in wasn’t easy. She spent months aligning legal, finance, and executive stakeholders—not with lofty vision decks, but with data, methodical pricing tests, and customer signals.
What stood out to us was how she reframed the shadow brand not as a workaround, but as a truth serum. Without the Caterpillar name attached, customers respond to the product—not the reputation. That’s the kind of clean signal most innovation teams dream about.
Her approach isn’t about avoiding risk. It’s about containing it, validating fast, and letting the market tell you what matters—without jumping the gun on branding, manufacturing, or investment.
Another thing we loved was how Nancy talks about failure. At EcoForge, if a concept doesn’t get traction, it’s not considered dead. It’s “not now.” That’s more than semantics—it’s a cultural shift.
Most organizations default to binary thinking: win or lose, green light or kill. Nancy’s framing allows teams to treat failed tests as learnings worth logging—not liabilities to be buried. This kind of language creates breathing room for iterative experimentation while still preserving accountability.
We’ve seen too many companies afraid to admit when something didn’t work. Nancy has built a language and cadence for testing that makes failure normal—and useful.
Too often, innovation leaders swing between incremental improvements and far-flung R&D that’s ten years from commercialization. Nancy made a compelling case for what she called the “adjacency space”—opportunities that aren’t core, but aren’t science fiction either.
We talk a lot about Horizons 1, 2, and 3. Nancy is building in Horizon 2.5: ideas that can generate revenue in 3-5 years, not 30. She isn’t pitching $1B moonshots. She’s building new businesses that can generate real revenue in specific niches.
“There are riches in niches,” as she put it—and we agree.
Nancy brought a portfolio approach to Caterpillar that didn’t exist before. Instead of betting on a single concept, she frames each initiative as a customer problem worth solving—then explores 3-4 potential solutions. That’s a flywheel, not a funnel.
This resonated deeply with us. At Highline Beta, we’ve seen how many corporate teams treat innovation like a single experiment instead of a system. But you don’t de-risk innovation through one-off wins. You do it through volume, structure, and signal.
Nancy’s team is building that muscle—and helping other groups inside CAT adopt it, too.
We ended the episode on a high note. Nancy’s advice to other innovation leaders? “Now is the time to swing.” In uncertain markets, most organizations play defense. But Nancy argues the opposite: in chaos, there’s cover. Customers won’t remember a swing-and-miss during a storm—but they will remember when you help them solve a real problem, fast.
This mindset shift—from playing not to lose to experimenting to learn—is the core of everything we believe in at Highline Beta.
If you’re an executive trying to navigate corporate venture building, take a page from Nancy’s playbook. Build quietly, test fast, normalize failure, and play for adjacency. That’s where tomorrow’s revenue lives.
We’re grateful Nancy joined us to share her insights—and we hope more leaders start building the way she has: with discipline, creativity, and courage.
— Ben & Marcus
We always enjoy conversations about innovation and startup building so please get in touch.
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