What Does An Innovation Manager Do?

WHAT DOES AN INNOVATION MANAGER DO?

Published: Sep 09, 2025 - The Innovation Manager leads projects through the innovation stage gate, assessing strategic, technical, and financial value from concept to commercialization. This role acts as a subject matter expert in merchandising display innovations and collaborates cross-functionally across design, engineering, and sales. The manager also drives stakeholder engagement, leads innovation tours, and oversees the Innovation Lab’s development and operations.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Innovation Manager

1. IT Innovation Manager Duties

Stakeholder Management: Effectively partner with multiple stakeholders across the organization (business units, IT platforms and experience teams)
Workshop Facilitation: Drive engagement through workshops, regular connects, adoption of RPA and cognitive technologies and stakeholder management
Governance Leadership: Lead senior stakeholder discussions, define governance standards, program and budget tracking and lead functional roadmap using automation
Automation Delivery: Ensure smooth delivery of RPA and cognitive automation demands, PGLS and L3 support
Vendor Collaboration: Understand and work with vendor partners to deliver RPA on technologies across BP, AA, UiPath and environments
Vendor Evaluation: Evaluate vendors and solutions across cognitive automation, develop skills in new technology, lead and deliver an automation agenda for the function responsible for
KPI Adherence: Ensure adherence to agreed KPIs and hold vendor partners accountable
Communication Management: Manage stakeholder communication effectively via reports, governance forums and community of practice
Trend Identification: Identify upcoming trends in the automation space and build frameworks for adoption
Innovation Enablement: Engage with external vendors and the startup ecosystem to bring an outside-in view for the growth of automation within the organization and enable technology adoption and culture of innovation within the team

2. Innovation Manager Details

Design Refinement: Refine the design of the overall initiative based on user feedback and the emergent needs of the entrepreneur community
Program Design: Design convenings, sessions, calls and other spaces or platforms of interaction for entrepreneurs
Initiative Promotion: Evangelize the initiative to both prospective entrepreneurs and diverse players in the ecosystem (such as incubators, funders, non-profits, government and media)
Partnership Development: Forge long-term, goodwill-based partnerships with a range of ecosystem actors (mentioned above) in service of entrepreneurs
Relationship Building: Build positive and enduring relationships with every entrepreneur incubated by the program, as well as enable peer-to-peer collaboration within the collective of entrepreneurs incubated by the program
Awareness Building: Drive awareness-building activities to spread the word about the program and what it offers to promising, eligible entrepreneurs from the network which includes both alumni and fellows, particularly those running Be the Change Projects (BTCPs)
Selection Process: Conduct a rigorous, multi-stage selection process to handpick the most promising entrepreneurs via a combination of internal selection and external selection (where will mobilize a panel of experts from the ecosystem)
Resource Provision: Provide access to funding, access to a dedicated coach, a series of national innovation bootcamps, a peer community of entrepreneurs, access to the ecosystem and a knowledge toolkit
Entrepreneur Support: Provide any urgent, need-based support to the entrepreneurs
Thought Partnership: Complement the coach as a thought partner and sounding board
Bootcamp Execution: Be responsible for executing three residential bootcamps every year

3. Innovation Manager Job Summary

Operations Management: Handle operations and logistics, design and planning, as well as influencing stakeholders and community-building
Session Facilitation: Facilitate a handful of sessions in areas where are best poised to deliver them yourself
Knowledge Evangelism: Play an important role in improving, democratizing and evangelizing the knowledge frameworks
Project Tracking: Maintain a record of all the important information pertaining to the project, keep a track of all the different work streams and monitor progress across these streams, as well as codify knowledge and insights for the benefit of entrepreneurs, the larger team, the organization and the ecosystem
Initiative Evaluation: Continuously gauge the efficacy of the initiative and make iterations based on the insights generate
Health Monitoring: Monitor the organizational health and individual development of the entrepreneurs incubate
Impact Reporting: Report the impact of the initiative and the impact of entrepreneurs to donors and other internal and external stakeholders
Pre-incubation Support: Support pre-incubation efforts at the city level to activate the pipeline and build formative competencies in fellows and alumni running projects, who can eventually become strong candidates for an application
Track Design: Design and co-own two pre-incubation tracks with onboarded consultants from the ecosystem
Post-incubation Design: Design new initiatives towards post-incubation with ecosystem consultants and city-level alumni teams for past incubated entrepreneurs by understanding their needs regularly, providing low-touch support and facilitating communities of practice
Platform Development: Refine and build new phases of the technology platform and build the capacity of the fellowship program team to help manage city-level project (BTCP) data and strengthen the social innovation infrastructure of the organization

4. Digital Innovation Manager Accountabilities

System Architecture: Define system and network architecture and provide vision, problem anticipation and problem-solving ability to the organization
Service Design: Lead and collaborate with various team members towards writing and reviewing documentations in support of the customer's strategic strategy, execute service design with the engineers, provide service transition (test plans) coordination with stakeholders, support service operations (support to the customer), with a focus on continual service improvement
Technology Innovation: Support activities associated with emerging technologies and innovation to improve service delivery
Innovation Translation: Translate agency needs into actionable innovation opportunities and proactively identify, analyze and lead the implementation of new technology and processes
Solution Optimization: Work with multi-disciplinary teams to identify, assess, scale and optimize solutions to meet program goals and innovation objectives
Innovation Delivery: Deliver impactful innovation services that appropriately pair the right approaches and methods with project size to achieve high-quality outcomes at a reasonable cost
Continuous Improvement: Be responsible for continuous improvement and reporting on the impacts of innovation on customer experience
Marketplace Awareness: Maintain understanding of offerings across the technical marketplace with specific emphasis on innovative development tools, techniques and automation solutions, development tools, techniques and vendor capabilities

5. Global Community Entrepreneurship & Innovation Manager Functions

Community Development: Develop and curate a diverse multistakeholder community of the ShelterTech startups and scaleups, the most relevant mentors and experts from corporations, foundations and investors committed to affordable housing
Community Engagement: Engage the community by shaping compelling value propositions and engagement plans to increase the importance of ShelterTech (affordable housing) in their work
Dialogue Facilitation: Facilitate ongoing community dialogue to develop shared strategic goals and priorities for collective action to achieve these affordable housing outcomes
Startup Support: Support the growth of the ShelterTech startups and scaleups by understanding their priorities and identifying relevant collaboration areas with the members of the ShelterTech community
Workshop Delivery: Lead design and delivery of workshops and other community engagement events
Network Building: Develop and maintain a global network of investors, mentors, accelerators, incubators and other stakeholders that can support startups and scaleups
Pipeline Development: Develop and maintain a global pipeline of startups and scaleups focused on housing, construction and shelter-related technologies
Partnership Onboarding: Build strong relations with the wider teams, focusing on business engagement and academia to onboard new partners for the ShelterTech community
Administrative Management: Perform excellent administrative work that contributes towards successful community management and engagement and delivery of on and offline meetings, including data collection, input, reporting, preparation of presentations and more
Knowledge Contribution: Contribute unique and high-quality insights towards different internal and external channels, such as the knowledge hub
Investment Insights: Provide insights into the investment readiness of ShelterTech startups and scaleups to the impact investments team and support the due diligence process
MEAL Coordination: Coordinate and support monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) activities for ShelterTech in collaboration with MEAL team colleagues
Process Implementation: Ensure implementation of harmonized approaches and methods across and support continuous improvement and iteration
Impact Assessment: Provide leadership on assessing and implementing impact criteria, including gender lens, sustainability and job creation

6. Innovation Manager Job Description

Sustainability Partnership: Partner with the sustainable business transformation team to bring the Forward Fashion platform to life, focused on the power plan priorities
Strategy Connectivity: Act as a point of contact for numerous functional teams to ensure connectivity of strategy across the enterprise
Idea Allocation: Filter ideas from the innovation ecosystem and allocate them to the relevant area of the business according to the strategic priorities
Innovation Roadmap: Drive the execution of the sustainable product innovation roadmap for Calvin Klein globally through internal and external collaborations
Success Management: Determine success criteria, scope, time, cost, quality, communication, risk and stakeholder management
Project Framework: Support and maintain project management framework, including standards, tools and procedures for reporting and record-keeping
Consultative Support: Serve in a consultative role to executional teams, bridging their own technical knowledge to various strategic initiatives across the enterprise portfolio
Opportunity Recognition: Recognize new innovation project opportunities based on current market trends, market gaps and existing customer research
Ecosystem Liaison: Act as the main link between the innovation ecosystem and the enterprise to screen new ideas, innovators and new business opportunities
Process Testing: Manage material and process testing in the form of lab tests, POCs and pilots with various innovation partners and supply chain collaborators
Process Implementation: Ensure new processes and technology land per defined requirements
Workstream Management: Manage assigned project workstreams across categories and technical disciplines, bringing new ideas to the forefront for the business

7. Innovation Manager Overview

Team Leadership: Lead the innovation team to meet organizational needs and to capitalize on potential new product opportunities
Project Portfolio: Develop, manage and implement a portfolio of innovation projects
Management Advising: Advise senior management and internal clients to understand the results and implications of innovation initiatives
Strategy Execution: Execute on innovation strategy
Strategy Development: Assist senior management in developing innovation strategies and creating a vision that aligns with business strategies, processes and needs
Staff Supervision: Select, supervise, train and direct the work of innovation staff
Customer Focus: Be knowledgeable of the values and practices that align customer needs and satisfaction as primary considerations in all business decisions and be able to leverage that information in creating customized customer solutions
Risk Management: Assess and effectively manage all of the risks associated with their business objectives and activities to ensure they adhere to and support the enterprise risk management framework

8. Innovation Manager Details and Accountabilities

Technology Learning: Learn new technologies, their economics and markets
Strategic Planning: Deploy the strategic planning, projects and actions and support the corporation to achieve the company’s strategic goals
Data Analysis: Collect and analyze data to identify gaps and opportunities, supporting leadership decision-making
Project Deployment: Deploy the strategic planning, projects and actions
Project Development: Develop and implement corporate key projects and define a method to measure gains that are aligned with the corporate goals
Business Support: Support all BUs with solutions to achieve the company’s goals
Routine Coordination: Coordinate routines with the other BUs
Process Mapping: Create process mapping and flow charts to be able to analyze data collected on the current state process and identify improvement opportunities

9. Digital Innovation Manager Tasks

Platform Maintenance: Oversee maintenance of the platform
Content Creation: Oversee and collaborate with subject matter experts on content creation on the platform
User Management: Oversee user management, folder management, reporting, coaching capability and course or curriculum enrollment
Training Planning: Create and execute training development plans related to the use of training platforms in the sales field
Project Leadership: Establish and lead project focus
Relationship Building: Build collaborative relationships
Motivational Support: Provide motivational support to project teams
Information Sharing: Ensure that others involved in a project or effort are kept informed about developments and plans
Team Leadership: Lead digital project work teams and champion the timely completion of projects
Asset Management: Be responsible for managing digital training assets and resources used by the field sales force, like virtual reality assets, HoloLens assets and similar
Digital Training: Create and execute training digital development plans related to the use of training assets by the sales field, complete with tutorials, instructions and learning resources such as online modules and guides
Problem Solving: Effectively apply knowledge to solve problems and manage projects
Curriculum Development: Develop and implement curricula relevant to the training of new field personnel either by original material development or through third-party vendors
Sales Training: Develop and implement sales curricula and education materials for the training field to support new product launches
Content Development: Partner with marketing and field development to develop and implement content and key messages for sales training programs and national, area and regional meetings
E-learning Design: Design and implement e-learning initiatives

10. Innovation Manager Roles

Technology Innovation: Be responsible for mature and drive own as well as shared new technology activities through the Innovation in Operations innovation funnel from Explore to 1st Viable, with a keen focus on setting and achieving agreed learning goals and crafting the knowledge and conditions needed to be able to pass the gates of the funnel
Project Planning: Prepare project briefs, business cases, project plans, entering vital agreements with external partners, etc
Capability Development: Identify, propose and mature relevant breakthrough capabilities and technologies for the manufacturing of products and drive them towards implementation
Solution Verification: Verify robust solutions in collaboration with partners and colleagues
Technology Testing: Mature and scientifically demonstrate and test new technologies against
Agile Execution: Be agile and hands-on, taking advantage of test environment, concept factory
Scientific Collaboration: Collaborate with partners and colleagues, the role is responsible for defining learning goals, setting up the conditions to learn, defining and carrying through the scientific test programs needed and for gaining findings openly and engagingly
Cross-collaboration Support: Collaborate with colleagues across Innovation in Operations in the support of department KPIs and critical or important activities such as idea hackathons or workshops and specific activities or programs such as automation and digitalization
Idea Scouting: Understand and engage in the front-end of the funnel (scouting and ideation) and build on others' ideas and kill own darlings
Team Support: Support team as well as department activities and interact in cross-department collaboration also on non-technical issues, e.g. continuous improvement, team development and communication and engagement

11. Innovation Manager Additional Details

Innovation Delivery: Support the delivery of the innovation agenda for China and beyond
Project Management: Manage projects designed to deliver against the individual markets’ programme as well as influence the local and global business with the scalability of projects
Stakeholder Engagement: Build the right relationships within cross-functional teams, influence market stakeholders and drive for the right result for the organization, its brands and its consumers
Project Leadership: Lead projects across concept development and commercialization, resulting in concepts that meet strong consumer needs, build customers’ business and deliver well-executed activation plans
Creative Thinking: Creativity with flair is an added benefit
Trend Scouting: Scope external radar for insights and trends, working in partnership with consumer planning to sharpen external radar to understand consumer landscapes, insights and research reports
Cross-functional Collaboration: Interface with multiple functions and stakeholders, pulling strings to get things moving, cross-functional relationships and network
Consensus Building: Build cross-functional consensus and alignment to deliver the optimal outcome for the business
Brand Partnership: Work in partnership with the commercial and brand team to ensure innovation as the key brand’s growth driver is delivering its intent and objective, while being relevant to local cultural context and in line with brand strategy
Pipeline Management: Lead and support the total innovation pipeline in the service of the organization’s strategy, ensuring projects are delivered on time
Route-to-Customer: Support route-to-customer transformation strategy through product innovation and institutional gifting opportunity (i.e., customization program)

12. Innovation Manager Essential Functions

Relationship Building: Build relationships with specified clinical institutes and inventors
Prior Art: Perform initial prior art assessment and may also work with peer review committees (subject matter experts)
Strategy Discussion: Discuss commercialization strategies with the director
Partner Identification: Identify potential commercial partners and, under the guidance of the director, prepare initial term sheets to begin negotiations with third parties
Ideation Facilitation: Facilitate structured ideation sessions with inventors and advisors to propose new IP
Patent Management: With the support of the director, manage patent prosecution and maintenance to best protect the applicable intellectual property portfolio
Case Documentation: Maintain documentation of progress and communication for each inventor's case in a unique database
Product Development: Assist with product development to include the identification of potential regulatory pathways
Funding Acquisition: Identify and apply for technology development funding
Project Management: Be involved in project management and monitoring progress on development activities
Inventor Communication: Maintain ongoing communications with inventors, including providing education and feedback on the commercialization process

13. Innovation Manager Role Purpose

Idea Generation: Drive innovation and ideas through the innovation programme
Innovation Coaching: Provide the support structure and coaching required for innovators
Stakeholder Alignment: Align with senior stakeholders to inspire innovation towards strategic goals
Program Planning: Develop, maintain and deliver the programme plan
Team Management: Support and manage the volunteer team
Community Growth: Grow the community and promote the ecosystem to stakeholders
Market Expansion: Lead the expansion into markets, customers and partners, along with the product manager
Resource Allocation: Identify resources and assign individual responsibilities
Project Operations: Manage the day-to-day operational aspects and scope of a project
Roadmap Leadership: Lead the platform roadmap by gathering requirements from different markets, customers and partners
Customer Expansion: Lead the expansion into other markets, customers and partners

14. Global Supply Innovation Manager General Responsibilities

Supply Strategy: Lead the execution of the global supply strategy to enable new product development across the enterprise
Process Governance: Partner with the innovation and marketing teams to implement consistent process governance across all new product development
Supply Chain: Lead initiative to develop and implement a nimble supply chain internally and with strategic partners (suppliers, co-mans, 3PLs, etc.) that meets the needs of business partners to enable growth, flexibility and speed to market
Workstream Integration: Identify relevant, supporting workstreams for integration into the defined commercialization process (e.g., master data or packaging optimization)
Product Review: Support the global supply product review process to serve as a forum for cross-functional alignment of the innovation strategy
Commercialization Support: Partner with the supply program manager to enhance the commercialization and execution meetings and define its role as part of the broader innovation strategy
KPI Development: Utilize industry best practices, develop and implement KPIs to track and measure global supply and enterprise innovation process performance
Co-manufacturing Management: Coordinate the co-manufacturing NPD efforts, including standardizing co-man start-up procedures and managing the launch of select new products and co-manufacturers to meet cost, timeline and performance requirements
Project Leadership: Lead global supply projects in support of strategic initiatives within or outside of normal scope

15. Commercial Innovation Manager Key Accountabilities

Innovation Coaching: Identify, frame and coach innovation champions and ninjas on designing innovation projects and applying the methodology in day-to-day settings
Brand Partnership: Be a trusted partner and have a real vested interest in helping solve specific brand challenges
Priority Alignment: Align innovation to CA&O and COMX priorities
Training Design: Design and execute customized training offerings and application of the commercial innovation methodology
Thought Leadership: Serve as an innovation thought leader for the organization
Business Impact: Pull through to business impact that yields tangible results (strategies, tactics, ideas)
Change Advocacy: Be a change agent willing to push the boundaries of the status quo and model the mindset and behaviors needed to drive innovation
Community Inspiration: Inspire and infect innovation leaders, champions and ninjas to stay active in doing innovation
Experience Creation: Create exciting experiences for them to further strengthen and galvanize the community
Partnership Development: Develop external partnerships with corporations, startups, academia and entrepreneur incubators
Partnership Management: Manage the relationship and maximize the value derived from these external partnerships
Trend Monitoring: Stay connected to industry trends on innovation and infuse those learnings within the commercial organization

16. Innovation Manager Roles and Details

Project Framing: Be responsible for the technical project frame, work plans alignment and use of Project Management tools
Project Driving: Drives the project forward with creativity, endurance and via collaborations to meet milestones and objectives
Data Management: Accurately collects, records and communicates detailed experimental data via assigned IT tools
Content Preparation: Prepares high-quality content work plans, updates for internal/external meetings and stage gate reviews
Patent Monitoring: Develops understanding of the relevant patent landscape and monitors IP activities in the respective competence area
IP Evaluation: Evaluates the patentability of newly developed technologies and ensures the acquisition of IP rights
Training Participation: Actively participates and completes company-required training programs
Scientific Liaison: Acts as key scientific contact person for third parties (IVCC, partners or clients)
Project Leadership: Acts as project leader for assigned projects in the Vector Control lab
Team Contribution: Act as a solid team member within the local, regional and global community of the Company
Conference Participation: Participates in conferences of relevance within the respective area of competence and prepares reports
Knowledge Sharing: Continuously generates and proactively shares knowledge within the BUMB team
Idea Scouting: Continuously scouts for and proposes new ideas and project opportunities
Problem Solving: Uses creativity for problem-solving within project management activities
Analytical Provision: Be responsible for the provision of analytical activities associated with projects to ensure successful outcomes
Analytical Knowledge: Retains an up-to-date knowledge of analytical techniques and equipment
Activity Review: Reviews analytical activities, ensuring that budgets/timelines are met and the quality of work meets expectations

17. Social Innovation Manager Responsibilities and Key Tasks

Program Management: Manage the Age-In-Place program, connecting volunteers with older adults for yard work and housecleaning projects
Project Development: Develop and implement the incubator project to foster the creation of hyper-local programmatic ideas to combat senior isolation and senior hunger
Community Program: Manage the Out and About program to provide social and other opportunities for LGBTQ older adults
Model Development: Develop and implement a listening model of participant-directed programming
Data Evaluation: Ensure that data points are developed and monitored along with other program evaluation criteria
Nutrition Management: Manage the nutritionists and dining site activities, including activity calendars, site management and food supplement programs
Program Support: Provide counsel and support to the director regarding program initiatives
Budget Alignment: Ensure that expenses and income align with budgets
Community Relations: Create relationships with community members, the Department of Aging and Community Living and other partners, looking for opportunities for collaboration and program enhancement

18. Innovation Manager Duties and Roles

Industry Outreach: Outreach to industry and academia to facilitate innovative solutions to difficult problems
Internal Outreach: Outreach within the organization to identify relevant internal expertise required to support specific innovation needs
Expertise Support: Provide support to project managers and task leads with additional industry and academia expertise to support and solve challenging problems
Innovation Facilitation: Provide a process and facilitation for innovation
Process Implementation: Implement a repeatable innovation process, including the deployment of innovation management tools across the enterprise
Initiative Participation: Actively participate in the development and implementation of innovation initiatives
Strategy Development: Foster innovation strategies in response to future needs based upon customer requirements and information received during customer interface meetings in response to task orders and before actual task orders
Solution Evaluation: Execute tasks that may have multiple technical solutions or innovation strategies that could solve the problem, and facilitate the evaluation of the merits of innovation or solutions and make recommendations to the project manager and the customer

19. Innovation Manager Roles and Responsibilities

Project Management: Manage, plan and coordinate product development projects such as alpha pilots and user engagement or feedback initiatives for the innovation team in order to mitigate risk in the PDLC
Client Management: Be responsible for owning the client relationship, including communicating with clients, documenting feedback and responding to client requests related to any pilotable assets that get launched as a reporting tool, as well as pilots and feedback initiatives in progress
Idea Translation: Translate ideas for new products or product features into pilotable assets that can be tested and validated with clients and internal stakeholders
Requirement Documentation: Document the requirements for pilotable assets and work with data science, enterprise intelligence and innovation teams to develop the same
Marketing Collaboration: Collaborate with the marketing team to ensure consistency of message and brand communications related to new products
Launch Coordination: Coordinate and collaborate with internal teams to develop and implement a launch plan for pilots that are approved to launch
Timeline Management: Manage the timeline, testing and delivery of pilotable assets
Solution Execution: Work closely with the VP, product solutions, to execute on design, technology, product development and deployment methodology
Stakeholder Engagement: Participate in stakeholder management, customer calls and sales or business development
Continuous Innovation: Deliver on high expectations for continuous innovation of technologies and product lines

20. Digital Innovation Manager Duties

Product Development: Focus on the development of new digital products and services
Feasibility Research: Conduct feasibility studies and research and perform qualitative assessment of business proposals and conduct relevant financial simulations for various scenarios
Market Launch: Develop the product and launch into the market for the new digital revenue stream for the organization
Market Study: Conduct a relevant market study (including a desktop valuation report) and develop a business case with revenue and cost projections
Startup Collaboration: Work with start-ups to develop the retail digital product, test and implement technology solutions and ensure solutions are implemented as expected and within agreed timeframes
Business Innovation: Embrace new challenges with the commitment to solve business and continuous innovation to enable the new business model
Tech Development: Work closely with application developers and start-ups to develop the new digital product
Business Modeling: Launch the product into the market with a viable business model
Customer Engagement: Conduct continuous engagement and iteration with customers to achieve product market fit within the estimated budget

21. Innovation Manager Job Summary

Partnership Strategy: Develop and lead partnership strategy to identify, originate and execute business development opportunities that leverage insurtech, data and technology partnerships for reinsurance clients
Connection Building: Establish and maintain new connections to non-insurance partners and set up new partnerships with insurtechs
Workshop Facilitation: Drive and manage design thinking and co-creation workshops with clients to build a portfolio of new insurance solutions tailored to the needs of the end consumer and clients
Digital Solutions: Take the lead role in working with clients in their journey to digitize by designing, upselling and cross-selling innovative mass market general insurance products fit for distribution on a digital platform or mobile app
Value Proposition: Work closely with colleagues to develop the proposition across the value chain to benefit partners and clients
Project Delivery: Manage the project delivery and day-to-day interaction with various internal stakeholders, third-party insurtech solutions providers and insurance clients
Business Case: Be responsible for the business case of pilots and the commercialization of projects
Pipeline Management: Drive disciplined pipeline management for all innovation opportunities and projects to ensure opportunities are appropriately prioritised and resourced

22. Culinary Innovation Manager Accountabilities

Customer Partnership: Work in partnership with key customers to provide customized solutions and innovation
Customer Presentation: Present to customers on a frequent basis, supporting the sales team with product presentations and menu development
Lab Formulation: Independently lead the bench-top formulation and execution of lab-related work activities that support the development of new products and line extensions, documenting and completing accurately
Product Realization: Work in both a hands-on and direct environment in order to make ideas and concepts into a product reality
Culinary Support: Provide support and advice as requested from other departments throughout the organization on culinary matters
Supplier Management: Deal effectively and professionally with outside ingredient suppliers to meet R&D objectives
Frequent Travel: Travel frequently to the bakery and customer locations
Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate cross-functionally and demonstrate understanding and willingness to learn more deeply the manufacturing capabilities and constraints to enable successful translation and scale up of culinary gold standards

23. Innovation Manager Functions

Project Leadership: Manage and lead projects through the innovation stage gate process
Innovation Evaluation: Evaluate the strategic, technical and financial importance of the innovation from concept to commercialization
Technical Expertise: Lead as a technical subject matter expert within the division on merchandising displays innovations around materials and substrates, graphics, lighting, sound and other sensory enhancements
Team Support: Actively support the merchandising display team in design, engineering, model shop and sales
Project Development: Lead the development and evaluation of innovative projects throughout the organization
Stakeholder Partnership: Partner with key internal and external stakeholders as a resource to further the insights and innovation platform
Market Knowledge: An understanding of retail and consumer goods markets and technologies is preferred
Conference Participation: Regularly attend relevant innovation and industry conferences to identify best practices, to build a network of external partners and to develop higher levels of expertise that can be applied to improving capabilities
Meeting Leadership: Lead innovation meetings with prospects, customers and sales teams
Tour Leadership: Lead innovation lab and plant tours to highlight and differentiate innovation
Cross-functional Collaboration: Actively leverage the cross-functional expertise and experience of team members in creating, evaluating and executing innovative activities
Team Alignment: Recognize and support the value of the cross-functional team member’s experience and work to gain input and alignment from team members in strategy development and execution
Lab Management: Manage and develop materials for the innovation lab in Winston-Salem
Safety Management: Be responsible for the overall safety and cleanliness of the equipment and area

24. Innovation Manager Job Description

Project Support: Support the Super Premium and Agave Spirits Brand and Innovation Lead to ensure the flawless administration of all innovation projects
Process Compliance: Ensure the correct application of all innovation processes and standards across the brand house and ensure all project materials submitted by the brand house into the SEED TO SIP process are of the highest quality
Project Management: Utilize superb project management skills to plan and prioritize overall team resources and execute a broad variety of projects according to agreed timelines and budget constraints
Team Coordination: Coordinate cross-functional, multi-market teams under the direction of the global lead to deliver projects efficiently and effectively, from initial ideation, through concept development, liquid and packaging design, to commercialization in the market
Review Preparation: Prepare the monthly innovation review document for review by senior brand directors
Financial Coordination: Coordinate with the finance team to build P&Ls in time for the innovation review and SEED TO SIP fortnightly submissions
System Management: Input projects and task completions in Planisware (project management system)
Action Summaries: Create key action and timeline summaries for global lead and brand teams as part of regular updates
Pipeline Planning: Assist development of a three to five-year pipeline review process with brand, S&OP and GC teams to provide continual tracking and planning, detailing the type of innovation, timings, volumes, NSV estimates, etc
Product Development: Fully manage ‘lite’ and smaller product development projects

25. Mechanics & Innovation Manager Overview

Customer Coordination: Manage and coordinate on an industry basis with current customers or new to market service offerings across all related industries
Market Strategy: Develop market assessments, trend analysis and go-to-market strategies with BU or divisional leadership, solutions development and sales to evolve offerings and business models
Partnership Development: Develop strategic partnerships and industry alliances to deliver ecosystem solutions
Executive Communication: Develop and coordinate executive presentations, debriefings and customer success cases
Pilot Leadership: Lead innovative pilot projects and develop business plans for adoption and handoff to business segments
Pipeline Management: Manage process for innovation pipeline, opportunity evaluation, prioritization and future scalability
Customer Discovery: Coordinate and facilitate customer discovery and segmentation with global accounts, marketing and sales
Work Direction: Provide work direction to other employees in charge of specific customer accounts
Conduct Compliance: Read and follow the code of conduct and follow all physical and digital security practices

26. Innovation Manager Details and Accountabilities

Digital Strategy: Implement digital strategy for global quality through an end-to-end innovation process across all quality functions, focusing on digital innovation, act as a central point of contact and decision-making body for innovation (innovation board) and be the link to business, especially serving in the digital boards of business partners
Innovation Culture: Strengthen innovation culture in quality through a network of innovation agents promoting and supporting digital innovation in quality
Project Oversight: Implement and govern the oversight and coordination of digital innovation projects, thereby ensuring the avoidance of duplication and missed opportunities
Project Adoption: Champion adoption of new, innovative and data-driven digital innovation projects within quality
Business Cases: Support and prepare business cases
Portfolio Execution: Drive execution and expansion of innovation hub’s portfolio in collaboration with the rest of the team
Culture Fostering: Foster a culture of innovation in quality in close collaboration with OpEx teams
Innovation Management: Implement end-to-end innovation management process for digital innovation, including review of ideation platform, pitching events and technology research
Governance Structure: Implement governance structure (quality innovation board), including alignment with existing bodies
Value Proposition: Develop and implement quality value propositions to guide quality and business interactions in innovation
Project Leadership: Identify key projects and innovation opportunities, start and lead key projects
Funding Requests: Prepare funding requests (i.e., innovation CARs - capital appropriation requests) for piloting or other needs
IT Alignment: Drive and support alignment with IT strategy
Board Membership: Serve and act as a key member in the business digital boards

27. Digital Innovation Manager Roles

Idea Prototyping: Develop new and novel ideas through the creation of prototypes and MVPs
Assumption Validation: Focus on validating assumptions using the desirability, feasibility, viability framework
Roadmap Definition: Define roadmaps encompassing the full product life cycle from concept and definition through to release and testing
Product Management: Leverage and encourage digital product management techniques, including qualitative and quantitative methods, the definition of KPIs, and growth metrics
Requirement Balancing: Balance business, customer, and technology requirements while translating and prioritizing those insights for the best product definition
Product Development: Steer product development and lead cross-functional activities, including oversight of engineering and UX
Project Management: Align with digital strategy on project management, provide solid and thorough business research for digital projects and initiatives, and execute project management from kick-off to rollout
Project Initiation: Initiate and track innovative digital projects supporting business development
Cross-functional Cooperation: Facilitate cross-functional cooperation to drive project execution
Project Evaluation: Evaluate projects and assess results

28. Innovation Manager Essential Functions

Business Cases: Build business cases to exploit and commercialize research and innovation studies and initiatives in partnership with business units
Feasibility Assessment: Conduct a financial feasibility assessment for R&I cases
Technology Opportunities: Identify opportunities to incorporate the use of advanced technology research studies and initiatives, particularly in the fields of computer vision, NLP, and machine learning
Stakeholder Liaison: Liaise with respective stakeholders (internally and externally)
Pipeline Management: Manage a pipeline of R&I cases, produce and present regular reports of research studies' progress and findings to respective stakeholders
Technology Adoption: Motivate and promote the adoption of advanced technology and research studies with business stakeholders via communicating R&I key contributions such as R&I vision, fields of study, use cases, and product ideas
Opportunity Sourcing: Work with inventors, peer review committees, and inter-department resources to identify, develop, and source new commercialization opportunities
Selling Strategies: Develop selling strategies that help with marketplace differentiation and align interests with those of clients and their members
Roadmap Development: Partner with the business unit and R&D to continue to evolve and develop the technology roadmaps aligned with the business strategy
IP Management: Manage existing portfolio intellectual property estate to ensure appropriate maintenance (e.g., licensing renewals) is complete and keep valued products within the portfolio
Trend Monitoring: Stay informed on emerging technologies and industry trends and apply them into operations and activities

29. Innovation Manager General Responsibilities

Technology Monitoring: Maintain a close watch on developments in technology and business models and their application within the context of climate change and the evolving global economic, political, research, and energy environments
Trend Analysis: Carry out blue sky thinking and develop an understanding of how macro trends impact innovation and technological evolution
Innovation Development: Ideate, develop, and implement novel technology innovations and business models that drive value to the business
Portfolio Management: Develop and maintain an innovation portfolio focusing on horizon 3 for the regulated business
Stakeholder Engagement: Engage with customers, employees, and other stakeholders actively throughout the process, conducting customer discovery interviews and using a series of prototypes to learn, test, and refine concepts
Initiative Handoff: Work with internal teams on proper handoff and operationalization of innovation initiatives
Product Improvement: Lead existing product improvements, formulary changes or enhancements, and cost improvement initiatives, including complete product evaluations, refinements, and documentation
Commercialization Support: Partner with quality assurance and operations teams to refine product through the commercialization process
Specification Writing: Write product specifications and recipes on all new products and provide R&D approval for any changes to existing specifications
Vendor Development: Assist purchasing with quality assurance investigations, research new vendors, and develop new vendor relationships for products, equipment, and small wares
Gap Identification: Identify gaps with the current product offering and ideate solutions to fill customer needs and drive growth for the business
Product Evaluation: Conduct formal product evaluation cuttings with key team members within the organization

30. Innovation Manager Roles and Details

Team Management: Manage the working teams involved with initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and wrap-up activities for an enterprise or cross-LOB experiment, leveraging the appropriate sprint, agile, hybrid, and waterfall project and portfolio management techniques
Operations Management: Effectively manage the team members and operations related to the acceleration center for innovation experimentation services within the research lab
Methodology Development: Evolve and adapt the smart experiment methodology to further innovation efforts and initiatives to meet the increasing demand and need for innovative thinking and use of emerging technologies
Project Balancing: Balance multiple medium to large-sized projects across a variety of areas and manage client expectations, outcomes, and return on investment to meet business partner or stakeholder needs
Culture Management: Manage the vision and processes to instill a culture of consumer-led innovation across all functions and locations
Pipeline Generation: Engage with consumers, customers, and cross-functional teams, lead the generation of multi-year new product development pipelines and commercial programs for existing and new brands and categories
Team Facilitation: Facilitate cross-functional innovation teams building on growth behaviors, improved capability and procedures, and championing a new agile, consumer-led innovation culture
Factory Projects: Lead or participate in future factory projects in either discovery, incubation, or acceleration, with the overall objective to accelerate the rate of innovation
Search Identification: Drive the identification of new search fields as well as exploring new businesses
Account Collaboration: Collaborate with the key account managers and hunters sitting in all the sales organizations of merchant services
R&D Collaboration: Collaborate with the transversal research and development teams (labs)
Solution Definition: Interface with the merchant services product teams to define the best solutions for merchants
Digital Innovation: Lead innovation and push digital services targeting both in-store and online
Service Definition: Detect and define the new digital services to enhance the payment experience

Relevant Information

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