The Make Water Work Podcast - Episode 35 Featuring Adam Tank

Episode 35: Adam Tank - Anti-Disruption: Selling Innovation to an Industry That Hates Risk

The water industry doesn't want to be disrupted. And that's not a problem — it's the whole point.

In this episode, Isaac sits down with Adam Tank, co-founder and Chief Communications Officer at Transcend, to talk about what it actually takes to build and sell technology in one of the most risk-averse industries in the world. Adam has spent his career at the intersection of water, startups, and design thinking — from GE's venture group to a water robotics company spun out of General Electric, to leading Suez's smart cities group, to co-founding Transcend in 2019.

The conversation covers what the water industry still gets wrong about innovation, why the real opportunity might be in energy rather than water, and why the single most important word when selling to a utility isn't "efficiency" or "savings" — it's risk.