In the summer of 2023, Eduard (“Eddie”) Croitoru, Vice President (VP) of ICL Group (“ICL”) Corporate Initiatives, was reflecting on ICL’s internal ideation program, the Business Innovation for Growth (BIG) Accelerator. When Raviv Zoller become the CEO of ICL in 2018, he recruited Croitoru, then his Chief of Staff, to help embed a culture of innovation throughout the company. He tasked Croitoru with addressing employee engagement and innovation challenges, which led to the creation of BIG. BIG enhanced ideation of employees (called “BIG Agents”), accelerated execution of ideas, and improved collaboration within the organization. Under Croitoru’s leadership, BIG had evolved into a process where ICL employees from around the world contributed ideas, many of which would go on to be realized and funded as projects by senior management. Croitoru spent three years refining the program, expanding its reach from 3,500 to all 12,500 ICL employees in four new languages. To push the program forward, he anticipated two challenges ahead – continuing to scale BIG company-wide while combining technology with the human infrastructure needed to optimize the program’s success, and fostering more breakthrough, "extra-corerestrial" (beyond the core business) ideas within BIG.
In August 2023, Raviv Zoller, CEO of ICL Group, discussed his upcoming business trip to St. Louis with Eduard Croitoru, VP of ICL Corporate Initiatives, to commemorate the construction of ICL's new $400 million advanced manufacturing facility. In preparation for the facility’s launch, Zoller reflected on the transformation of an employee idea into a new and exciting business line for ICL—lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery manufacturing. When he first became CEO of ICL in 2018, he initiated a cultural transformation and tasked Croitoru, his then-Chief of Staff, with launching a company-wide innovation program, the "Business Innovation for Growth" (BIG) Accelerator. BIG became a crucial part of ICL's internal innovation foundation. Simultaneously, Zoller focused on cultivating external innovation partnerships by building an ICL ecosystem, launching the company’s agri-food tech startup hub (ICL Planet Startup Hub), collaborating with Israeli and non-Israeli startups, and exploring possibilities in emerging innovation domains. Zoller hoped that the corporate theme for 2023, “Year of Partnerships,” would continue to inspire his colleagues to do the hard work of ecosystem-building for the “art of the possible,” in years to come, even in the face of tough economic times.
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