Meet Meaghan Kennedy | Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Meaghan Kennedy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Meaghan, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk is part of life and I am probably less risk adverse than most people. My overall plan is typically to embrace risk but have a reasonable safety net in place for things that don’t work out. I am confident in my ability to pivot and don’t get ego invested in things so I can let them go if needed. That’s been a consistent theme throughout my career. I left a job as an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go back to school and start Orange Sparkle Ball. It’s been nearly 20 years since I started Orange Sparkle Ball, and that’s worked out well. I’ve subsequently started other things, some of which went well and some of which no longer exist. At Orange Sparkle Ball, as an innovation agency, our job is to help clients balance the need for risk taking with having a solid safety net. The key to a successful innovation project or program is developing solid metrics to measure progress and making sure you have a clear communication strategy in place. This builds the trust needed to take risks and see innovation results. I have been lucky in my career to find a path that naturally fits my personality well and to find colleagues who are willing to embrace uncertainty with me.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
One of the things that I have long been fascinated by is how to help people or initiatives move forward. Happily, I have found a place professionally where there is a word for that – acceleration. It’s often hard for people to move forward without a clear path – it’s easy to be immobilized! And, if you’re trying to create something new, most often there is no obvious path forward. We have found a sweet spot at Orange Sparkle Ball in accelerating innovation – whether that’s in a private company, public entity, a community or with startups. It’s often about helping all the stakeholders see the path forward. We have developed language for this – Storytelling the Gap – which is all about creating a story for the future goal that makes it feel accessible. This focus on storytelling allows stakeholders to get past their “gap” in understanding. Leaping that gap is often the catalyst that makes the difference between future success or stagnation.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Before the pandemic, I travelled a lot. And, I am not an itinerary person. So, my ideal scenario would be to meet the friend somewhere neither of us had been and explore it together. I typically find a few areas to start exploring and then wander from there. That can either result in the best and most interesting finds ever, or a lot of walking!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are times in your life when you are reminded of things for which you are grateful and having just listened to Jim Curran, the Dean of Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University speak, this is one. My initial professional training was from a group of world class epidemiologists and behavioral scientists focused on fighting the HIV epidemic at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – many of whom are still there. Trying to keep up in that crowd forever honed my critical thinking skills! Thank you for teaching a very young and less diplomatic version of me to find her voice. The work you do is critical and I am heartbroken that it is not being supported.

Website: https://www.orangesparkleball.com/
Instagram: @orangesparkleball
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meaghankennedy/
Twitter: @meaghanbkennedy
Other: Our sister non-profit: https://www.sparkcorps.org/ We are co-conveners of an innovation network: https://www.evolveinnovation.co/

Image Credits
Isabelle Swiderski, Maria Camila Perez