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When it comes to identifying, recruiting and nurturing intrapreneurs (corporate innovators and entrepreneurs), there are a number of characteristics and traits you should look for.

While many employees may get temporarily excited by the prospect of working on a ‘corporate startup’ or taking part in a hackathon, the number of employees who embody the mindset and approach required to successfully innovate within a large organisation is much lower.

What to look for, in no particular order:

1: Resilience and Tenacity

Building a new venture requires facing numerous roadblocks and setbacks, not only from customers, partners, regulators and so on but also internally, as intrapreneurs navigate the minefield that is corporate innovation, the processes, values and systems they need to work around and the politics that comes with it.

2: Influencing Skills

Large organisations are built to execute, not to discover. As such, most people in the organisation will not think like innovators and instead will think like risk managers and by extension of their trying to do what’s in the interest of execution, will hinder innovation.

Being able to effectively influence decision makers will play a significant role.

3: Connecting the Dots between Broad Interests and Experiences

This is two-fold.

To innovate effectively, associational thinking - or connecting the dots - is critical.

Steve Jobs connected the dots between calligraphy, zen buddhism, a visit to Xerox’s research centre to come up with the minimalist and clean graphical user interface of the first Macintosh.

But one can first not connect the dots without having broad experiences and interests in the first place which brings us to...

4: Curiosity

Broad experiences come with curiosity. Not simply accepting what is served up by mainstream media but diving deeper. Look for intrapreneurs to consume or have an interest in different types of people, music, art, film, literature, travel spots, sport, activities, news sources and so on that fall far from the definition of mainstream. Innovators are a little ‘whacky’ by societal norms.

5: Challenges the Status Quo

Innovators won’t just accept “the way things have always been done around here”.

They will question why things are done a certain way. They might propose alternative ways doing things. They will be the bane of the existence of change averse managers.

Innovators challenge authority and would rather ask for forgiveness than permission.

6: Well Networked

Corporate innovators tend to have a network outside the organisation, which in turn helps them build broad experiences, demonstrates curiosity and also helps them accelerate their internal ventures through collaborations with the outside. Look for them to attend meetups, conferences, have a large number of connections on LinkedIn and so on.

7: Shameless Self-Promoter

Entrepreneurs and innovators are shameless self promoters - they don’t care for tall poppy syndrome. If they can do a good job promoting themselves, they serve to build brand awareness, authority and their network which in turn suggests that they have the skills required to successfully promoting new ventures. They might blog, host podcasts, give talks, have a large following on Linkedin, be active on the Twitterverse and so on.