#81—Lindsey McInerney: The Metaverse, NFTs and Tech as Part of Your Brand Strategy

Whether building hyper-growth startups or advising Fortune 500 companies, the Royal Family or the United Nations, Lindsey McInerney has spent her career helping people understand the impact of cutting-edge technologies and adopt them early.An internet nerd and tech futurist, Lindsey has launched multiple projects in the metaverse and web3 space and remains excited about the ways crypto, blockchain, NFTs, and extended reality (XR) will change our digital and physical landscape.As Global Head of Technology and Innovation at AB InBev (Anheuser-Busch), the world's largest brewer, she launched Stella Artois into the metaverse in an explosive partnership with ZED RUN, a crypto horse racing game.One of the first major brand executions in the space, the Cannes Lion award- nominated campaign, put Stella Artois on the map as the first beer brand and FMCG company in the metaverse and was well received by traditional and crypto media alike.McInerney was named to the 2023 ‘Thinkers50 Radar List’, a cohort of 30 thinkers whose ideas are predicted to make an important impact on management thinking. She has also been named one of ‘The 30 Most Influential People in the Metaverse’, one of ‘The Most Prominent Digital Futurists to Watch Out For in 2022’, one of the ‘Top Players of the Metaverse' and an 'Adweek Pride Star class of 2022'.As Founder and CEO of Black Sun Labs, Lindsey works with executives, teams and personalities on their web3 and metaverse strategies. She is also the CEO of Sixth Wall, a technology and entertainment company co-founded with actor/producer Mila Kunis and producer Lisa Sterbakov.In this podcast, she shares:How important it is to learn to pivot in the ever-changing digital landscapeWhat the Metaverse, NFTs, Augmented Reality and Virtual reality all are in simple terms—and where they bring new opportunities to businessesHow any brand can distill the essence of their business to launch into the metaverse and emerging tech space _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:45—Introducing Lindsey + The topic of today’s episode2:19—If you really know me, you know that...3:41—What is your definition of strategy?4:47—Could you start off with a simple definition of the metaverse?10:10—Would you say the physical technology of modern devices have an impact on their adoption?14:17—What kind of applications do you see for companies that are in more traditional industrial and infrastructure industries?16:01—How does blockchain or NFTs fit into this bigger picture?20:05—How do you transfer a brand and its essence to the metaverse?23:06—How should a company structure their team to move into this new space of technology?25:56—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Thinkers50 Profile: https://thinkers50.com/biographies/lindsey-mcinerney/Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/lindseymcinerneyTwitter:https://twitter.com/themcinerney?lang=enThank you to our executive producer Zach Ness, our producer Nazanin Homayoun Jam and our editor James Pearce. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, download, and subscribe. I’m your host, Kaihan Krippendorff—thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinker.com/podcast