INTERVIEW: INTA CEO
Forward Thinking
Ahead of the Annual Meeting Virtual+, Peter Scott caught up with INTA CEO Etienne Sanz de Acedo to discuss the Meeting, the Association’s strategic direction, and how INTA can be a force for good in the IP world.
“The pandemic has changed so many things, and intellectual property (IP) professionals need to evolve as well.” Throughout our conversation, INTA Chief Executive Officer Etienne Sanz de Acedo keeps returning to this theme. The work of the Association is about the future—not what things look like now, but how they might, and perhaps even should, develop over time.
In the short term, this ethos is refelcted in this year’s Annual Meeting Virtual+, which has attracted more than 3,000 registrants from 113 countries. The three in-person, one-day mini-conferences in Berlin, Los Angeles, and New York, have been very popular, with 800 registrants. For Mr. Sanz de Acedo, the combination of the physical meetings with INTA’s wide-ranging virtual offering represents an attempt to “start resuming normal life in a healthy and safe environment.”
For the virtual elements of the program, the team at INTA has built on the successes of its 2020 events and “worked to make it even better, to develop new offerings and new ideas, and hopefully registrants will enjoy that,” he said.
While the programming is geared firmly toward the IP community, it reaches beyond the ins and outs of legislative or business trends. Mr. Sanz de Acedo pointed to the session With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Brands Doing Good (today, November 15, 10:45 am–11:45 am EST) as indicative of a broader effort.
“I’m saying to INTA’s Officers and Board that we have achieved a seat at the table where we can talk about those types of things, and there is some sort of expectation that INTA will raise its voice on issues that are socially important,” he explained.
“It’s no longer purely IP—it goes beyond IP, except that we’re always looking at those issues within the IP ecosystem,” he added.
INTA is coming to the end of its current, four-year Strategic Plan, and Mr. Sanz de Acedo is pleased with the progress during that period, especially in light of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve achieved probably between 85 and 90 percent of the projects and pillars in the 2018–2021 Strategic Plan, he said. “What’s really important to me is that we’ve continued developing our geographic and our substantive expansion, while we’ve been able to perform a digital transformation and also explore some important new topics.”
Achievements such as The Women’s LeadershIP Initiative, and progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), are a source of pride from the past four years. They indicate a path forward for INTA as it continues to expand its influence beyond its core IP mandate to issues that impact both individuals and the larger society.
“Achievements such as The Women’s LeadershIP Initiative, and progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion, are a source of pride from the past four years.”
Etienne Sanz de Acedo, INTA
Moving into the next four years, the charge is to continue to speak to some of those issues. “We’re going to continue to promote and reinforce the value of brands, but we also have a new strategic direction which is building a better society through brands, and another which is supporting the development of IP professionals,” he indicated.
Professional development is another area increasingly capturing INTA’s attention. Given the way the world, people, and businesses have changed over the past couple of years, and bearing in mind that the majority of the working population today are millennials and Gen Zers, “IP professionals need to evolve and speak the same language as businesses are speaking,” Mr. Sanz de Acedo said. To that end, INTA plans to launch a new Career Center, to provide more resources for members to grow and advance their own careers.
Alongside continued substantive efforts on core topics such as anticounterfeiting and harmonization he wants INTA to continue thinking about the future of the profession, and of IP as a whole, with questions such as: “What is the future of IP rights? Are we going to need new rights? How do we protect IP in outer space?”
These explorations build on the Association’s 2020 reports focusing on law firms of the future, the in-house practice of the future, and IP offices of the future.
Continued work on brand valuation and taxation will be important, as will, possibly, a look into insurance of IP rights, and more work on the overlap between IP and marketing, to enable members to better understand the full context in which they operate.
“As INTA’s CEO, I will never accept any kind of pressure from anyone to prevent us doing something we believe in.”
Etienne Sanz de Acedo, INTA
The Bigger Picture
“Over the past few years, we’ve been able to reposition INTA somewhat, and it’s probably the most forward-thinking IP association at this point,” Mr. Sanz de Acedo noted. That manifests itself in IP-focused work, such as the Association’s think tanks—“which are always projecting us into the future and expanding our scope”—but also in a continued championing of DE&I.
One potential challenge of these efforts when running an organization with a global membership is how to live those values while respecting the cultures of all the various places in which the Association works. Mr. Sanz de Acedo acknowledges this, noting that INTA’s job is to promote these causes “within the IP ecosystem.”
“We don’t have the voice or credibility to do more than that, but we can take advantage of it,” he said. “There are some things that absolutely need to change, and we need to help our members to do that.”
The core task remains to “support IP and promote better laws,” but there’s no reason why INTA can’t “match that with DE&I,” he said. Where cultural differences necessitate a different approach, Mr. Sanz de Acedo is happy to accommodate them, within reason.
“We will never hide who we are,” he said, “and as INTA’s CEO, I will never accept any kind of pressure from anyone to prevent us doing something we believe in. But we can find compromise.”
Looking at the Annual Meeting Virtual+, one of the things Mr. Sanz de Acedo is most proud of is the DE&I-focused content, in all its iterations. This and everything else is a team effort.
“My thanks to INTA staff, to members, to the Officers, and especially to 2020 INTA President Ayala Deutsch and current President Tiki Dare. We’ve been very successful over this period, and a lot of the credit needs to go to Ayala and Tiki,” he said.
However the Association evolves over the next few years, you can be certain that it won’t stand still, and, in that vein, Mr. Sanz de Acedo noted that the 2022 Annual Meeting will continue along the path of being innovative, agile, and accommodating.
Watch today’s Opening Ceremonies, beginning at 9:00 am EST, and upcoming announcements, for details about the 2022 Annual Meeting. Attend Visioning for the Future: INTA’s 2022–2025 Strategic Plan on Thursday, November 18, 11:30 am–12:00 pm EST to hear more about the Association’s vision for the future.
Video courtesy of Envato Elements / simona
Monday, November 15, 2021
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