  We investigate scenarios in which electroweak baryogenesis can occur during
an exotic stage of electroweak symmetry breaking in the early Universe. This
transition is driven by the expectation value of a new electroweak scalar
instead of the standard Higgs field. A later, second transition then takes the
system to the usual electroweak minimum, dominated by the Higgs, while
preserving the baryon asymmetry created in the first transition. We discuss the
general requirements for such a two-stage electroweak transition to be suitable
for electroweak baryogenesis and present a toy model that illustrates the
necessary ingredients. We then apply these results to construct an explicit
realization of this scenario within the inert two Higgs doublet model. Despite
decoupling the Higgs from the symmetry-breaking transition required for
electroweak baryogenesis, we find that this picture generically predicts new
light states that are accessible experimentally.
