As the Director of Project Management at Kinesso, Christine Ayuso is no stranger to taking on challenging endeavors. In her three years at Kinesso, Christine has taken IPG’s internal entrepreneurship competition, TheEngine+, to new heights, improving the program, streamlining the processes, and helping spread awareness about the incredible opportunity. TheEngine+ enables like-minded individuals to come together around a ground-breaking idea, form teams, pitch their concepts to a panel of executive-level IPG judges, and develop their proposals to compete for first place. Christine is there for every step of the process.

We recently sat down with Christine to chat about her experiences working on TheEngine+ competition.

• How did you get involved with TheEngine+, and what has the experience been like for you so far
  
  For the first installment of TheEngine+, I was the project manager. I helped put together timelines, and was able to accrue a lot of knowledge. So, when last year came around, I had a really great sense of what to do and how to handle things throughout the process. By the time this year’s competition, year three, came around, I was able to take TheEngine+ under my belt and have tried to improve it with the information I have gathered. While Graham Wilkinson, Chief Innovation Officer at Kinesso, is the brains behind the operation, Cesar Razuri, SVP of Product Innovation at Kinesso, and I work together to make sure everything gets executed on correctly.
  
  
• What do you look forward to most every year?
  
  I really look forward to seeing how the top five teams present for the pitch event, as well as viewing the submissions from applicants. Last year, we decided to mix it up and include a trivia segment, which increased audience participation during the actual event.
  
  The first year we held the competition, we only had it open to Acxiom, Kinesso, and Matterkind U.S. employees; last year we added international employees. There’s a lot of room for growth and improvement, but all the hard work pays off once you see everything come together. It’s really been an incredible experience to see it evolve over time.
  
  
• What’s one thing about TheEngine+ that inspires you?
  
  The mentors that offer their assistance are so dedicated to the success of TheEngine+. They truly help bring these creative ideas to life, and of course the finalist teams prepare very hard for their pitch. It’s amazing to see how hard everyone works together to positively impact the business, and our industry.

To learn more about TheEngine+ program, check out our website.