Head of Innovation – Transformation of Home Connectivity

Full-Time Anywhere

Title: Head of Innovation – Transformation of Home Connectivity
Location: UK – flexible: London, Northampton or East Yorkshire
Salary: Attractive Base Salary; Share Options; Performance Bonus; Benefits Package

The Company

A highly successful and innovative UK Plc, our client designs, manufactures and supplies design-led products that are used within the home. With annual sales of over £1bn and circa 7,000 employees the group is led by an entrepreneurial and driven leadership team, with a robust growth agenda. Its product innovation is created through effective collaboration with its suppliers and a huge adaptive capability. Continued success has led to the acceleration of this innovation agenda – specifically with new products and services that have yet to be commercialised or developed. This activity will be focussed on ‘connectivity within the home’ and ‘new markets and services’. Success in these areas will complement and enhance its current product offering, contribute to the group’s ambition to grow to the next level, and strengthen the resilience and flexibility of its business model. Crucially, our client aims to be a leader in the new frontier of connectivity.

The Role

• Reporting to the Director of Transformation and Supply Strategy, your role is to help inform, corroborate and develop the kitchen of the future, with particular emphasis on harnessing the potential of the ‘connected kitchen’. This is a new appointment with accountability for developing the network that will enable you to identify which products and services to focus on.
• You will develop the business case for new products and services, proving the commercial rationale, and ensure that this is communicated effectively across the business. Your role is to demonstrate, in simple terms, what the proposition is for the company and its customers, translating extensive research and data into common sense language. You will need to work effectively with other parts of the business such as IT, Design and Production in helping them to develop the product specification, and ensure that effective solutions are developed for route-to-market strategy, security and after-sales service.
• Your natural curiosity and creativity will enable you to discover the key breakthrough products and services that will complement and strengthen the existing business model. Through your vision, communication, and ability to collaborate, your goal is to add value to the business by identifying and introducing new capability that will ultimately delight the customer and be commercially successful.

The Person

• The successful candidate will be a proven Innovation professional with the gravitas, commercial mind-set and vision to operate at the highest level. An expert in finding resource and information through networking and determination you will need to have had experience of delivering projects within complex and fast-paced environments
• Ideally from a design or technology-led background, you will have demonstrated an entrepreneurial flair through a portfolio of success. Our client would be interested in candidates from a variety of markets.
• A strong relationship builder, with exceptional analysis and communication skills, you will have the experience to gain credibility both at Plc board level and with your peer groups and internal stakeholders. Importantly, you will be fascinated about evolving technology and innovation, with the personality and attitude that inspires success.