Rosie Diegnan believes the best ideas often come from unexpected places
By Michael Pound
When Carnegie Mellon alum Rosie Diegnan talks about innovation, she rarely uses the language of lightning bolts or lone geniuses. Instead, she talks about systems and connections.
鈥淚nnovation isn鈥檛 about having the smartest person in the room,鈥� says Rosie, a 1986 graduate of Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about knowing how to ask the right questions, and then opening the door wide enough for answers to come in.鈥�
As co-founder and chief product officer of Wazoku, a global innovation delivery company, Rosie works with a platform that does exactly that. For more than a decade, Wazoku has helped organizations 鈥� from multinational corporations to public-sector institutions 鈥� solve complex problems by tapping into collective intelligence beyond traditional boundaries.
The company鈥檚 origins were modest and internal-facing. When Wazoku launched in London in 聽2011, its original idea was straightforward: Help companies better harness the ideas of their own employees.
鈥淎t the beginning, it was really about internal networks,鈥� Rosie explains. 鈥淗ow do you tap into the knowledge that already exists inside your organization to move the business forward?鈥�
Today, that focus has expanded. Rosie says that Wazoku isn鈥檛 just an idea management tool, it's an 鈥渋nnovation delivery partner.鈥� Its platform allows organizations to issue what Wazoku calls 鈥渃hallenges鈥� 鈥� they鈥檙e essentially structured problem statements 鈥� across entire ecosystems.
A challenge might ask how to enter a new market, improve the employee experience, accelerate time to market or rethink a customer journey. The answers, Rosie says, often arrive from unexpected directions.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 know where the solution is going to come from,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd very often, it鈥檚 not from someone who looks like they should have it.鈥�
That belief is at the heart of Innocentive, the open innovation platform Wazoku acquired in 2020. Founded in the early 2000s, Innocentive connects organizations with a global community of 700,000 problem-solvers in every imaginable industry or community. Using Wazoku鈥檚 underlying technology, companies can now take their challenges beyond their own walls to the outside world.
One of Rosie鈥檚 favorite examples: A snack manufacturer was struggling to remove excess oil from potato chips without breaking them. The solution didn鈥檛 come from food science at all, but from a violinist who understood sound waves and their physical properties.
鈥淭he violinist applied principles of physics from music,鈥� Rosie says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the point. The expertise you need isn鈥檛 always in the field you think it is.鈥�
Beyond crowdsourcing ideas and expertise, Wazoku has a third layer: intelligence. This combines artificial intelligence, human curation and crowd insight to analyze macro trends and market signals, helping clients decide not just how to innovate, but where to focus their efforts.
鈥淎t the end of the day, everything we do is about helping organizations innovate faster and smarter, and do it at scale,鈥� Rosie says.
Her own career has followed a similarly unconventional path, shaped by curiosity, comfort with ambiguity and an early resistance to complacency.
So you have a widely diverse group of people around you, and I think it gives you this intellectual curiosity and fundamentally, I don't think I could have gotten to where I am without that. I don鈥檛 know that 21-year-old me would have had any idea of the path she would end up taking. But she learned to be unafraid of risk with the help of Carnegie Mellon.
Rosie Diegnan (DC 1986)
Raised in Massachusetts, Rosie didn鈥檛 grow up dreaming of a specific college or career. Her path to Carnegie Mellon was largely serendipitous. As a high school senior, she was applying to universities when her older sister 鈥� then a computer engineering student at the University of Michigan 鈥� encouraged her to apply to Carnegie Mellon.
鈥淪he knew it was a strong school,鈥� Rosie recalls, adding that she sent in an application sight unseen. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really know much about it at the time.鈥�
A campus visit changed that.
鈥淚 just walked around and I was just like 鈥楾his is where I belong,鈥欌�� she says.
The feeling was instinctual, as was her decision to change her application to an early admission. A few weeks before Christmas, a thick envelope arrived in the mail. She was in.
At 麻豆村, Rosie explored technical subjects that appealed to her logical instincts while resisting the pull of engineering, the path taken by two of her sisters. Instead, she landed on technical writing, a discipline that blended her interests in writing, technology and learning.
鈥淭echnical writing is about taking specialized knowledge and making it accessible,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat skill has been incredibly transferable.鈥�
After a stint as a technical writer, Rosie got a law degree from George Washington University and found a job as a staff attorney for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, writing proposed opinions in a variety of cases. Her technical writing background helped, but she ultimately decided that a legal profession wasn鈥檛 for her.
So Rosie jumped into the tech world in the Bay Area, just as the late-90s tech bubble was ready to burst. She proceeded through several companies and saw some astounding things 鈥� 鈥淭here was too much money being given to people who didn't have any business getting money,鈥� she says 鈥� but she found herself a position as a product manager at a young software company and was struck by how the gig encompassed her skills and experience.
鈥淚 could now use a little bit of everything I'd done,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 can use my technical writing skills, I can actually use my legal skills, I can use my technical skills and I can use my creativity. This is where I was supposed to be.鈥�
Rosie was hooked, even though that company struggled. As did the next one which was claimed by the bubble. At that point, Rosie found herself in Arizona and ready to make a radical change. As a dual citizen of Ireland, Europe seemed like a good choice and Rosie headed to London, where one of dozens of emails landed her some time with a local entrepreneur. A scheduled 15-minute talk turned into an hour and Rosie eventually became a partner in founding what came to be Wazoku.
Still in London years later, Rosie looks back at her time at 麻豆村 as the basis for the winding, exploratory path that brought her there.
鈥淚 was in Dietrich College and my roommate was in the fine arts school,鈥� she says 鈥淢y boyfriend was an engineering student. Good friends were in Mellon College of Science. Another friend of mine who was a musician, so she was in the music school.
鈥淪o you have a widely diverse group of people around you, and I think it gives you this intellectual curiosity and fundamentally, I don't think I could have gotten to where I am without that,鈥� she adds. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know that 21-year-old me would have had any idea of the path she would end up taking. But she learned to be unafraid of risk with the help of Carnegie Mellon.鈥�