Innovation Currency
The Podcast
We’re here to reimagine who qualifies as an innovator and to provide practical tools to help anyone discover their hidden innovator. Hosted by Leigh-Ann Buchanan, this limited series podcast features dynamic conversations and solo episodes designed to help you learn how to use innovation more adeptly in your day to day life. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
The TEDx Talk
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world.
The Quiz
Developed using years of research and observation, the Innovation Currency® framework offers insight into the question: what type of innovator am I? Take the free 5-minute quiz to discover your answer. Don’t worry, your responses are confidential, though we’re sure you’ll want to share your results !
The Book (2025)
Innovation isn’t reserved for a select few—it belongs to all of us.
Too often, the stories we tell about the world’s most celebrated innovators leave out people from varied backgrounds, identities, experiences, and geographies. Innovation Currency challenges that narrative. Innovation is not exclusive to Silicon Valley founders or corporate strategists—it’s a natural human practice that unfolds in classrooms, barbershops, community centers, and corner offices alike.
This book exposes how invisible structures—like culture, identity, and language—have distorted how we define and qualify innovators. These barriers have long obscured a simple truth: innovation is for everyone. With the right framework, anyone can discover their hidden innovator.
Developed through years of research, real-world observation, and qualitative inquiry, this book introduces the Innovation Currency® framework – a practical roadmap was designed to make innovation accessible, actionable, and personal. This book is your guide to unlocking your unique innovation style and using it to reimagine how to change the world around you.
Through compelling stories, practical insights, and a personalized assessment, you’ll learn how to:
Distinguish innovation from creativity and idea generation
Identify the internal and external barriers that stifle innovation
Discover your unique innovation style and apply it in everyday life
Maximize your innovative contributions within teams, classrooms, and organizations
Featuring four distinct styles—the Disruptor, the Connector, the Distributor, and the Influencer—this book offers a new model to understand how people innovate naturally (and where they have room to grow). Whether you're an entrepreneur, educator, student, policymaker, or community builder, Innovation Currency will help you develop more impactful solutions to challenges you encounter and the existential threats that face humanity and the planet. Whether you’ve always seen yourself as an innovator—or never thought you could be one—this book is for you.
If you have ever asked yourself, "Am I an innovator?" then this book is for you. Join the presale list. Available for purchase in 2025
Hi. I’m Leigh-Ann
Leigh-Ann A. Buchanan, Esq., is a founder, investor, and strategic advisor. Her body of work explores how technology, innovation and social investment intersect to unlock opportunities and transform communities. Her insights and ideas have been featured in notable publications, including the New York Times, Inc. Magazine, and Bloomberg. Leigh-Ann’s professional pivot away from practicing law marked the starting point of her insatiable curiosity about innovators. Since then, she has relied upon innovation to launch and lead a diverse portfolio of social impact ventures and initiatives that have helped connect over $100 million in philanthropic capital to improve outcomes for individuals, organizations and cities.