In any business, the role of innovation is to deliver new ideas for business to grow. Finance professionals are the stewards of the financial future of the company, with a large influence on where to place the company’s investments. Take-aways from the BEI session emphasized that companies need to have cross-functional discussions about the primary factors that drive value of an innovation, including the impact of uncertainties around these factors and the effect on successful development and commercialization. There was general agreement that better financial standards and metrics need to be developed to address innovation. And that discussions must be in a “common language” that everyone can understand, i.e., free from functional jargon.