Head of Innovation and Partnerships at Old Mutual South Africa

Job Description

• Reporting into the Country Chief Executive Officer with a dotted line to the Rest of Africa Strategy Executive, this role is responsible for implementing the Innovation strategy and developing of new ventures/solutions – from ideation to partner engagement through to the go to market of solutions – these include Insuretech, Investech, Fintech, Edutech and Agritech solutions.
• The incumbent is responsible for identifying and acquiring innovation capabilities, creating new business models, and accelerating our disruptive innovation agenda working with and through partnerships in the country start-up/fintechs ecosystem. The incumbent collaborates with partners to identify, design, and execute opportunities through proof-of-value, co-development, and incubation to commercialisation.
• The role is responsible for the successful development and maturation of our innovation and partnership capabilities in country. This includes implementation of programs to embed an innovation culture and capability to support break through thinking through business challenges, opportunity spaces.

Strategy Implementation

• Lead the Innovation team in identifying and validating internal & external market opportunities in the tech ecosystem for innovation, partnerships and co-creation in alignment with business strategic needs.
• Investigates and prioritise key strategic focus areas. Supports strategy implementation in the businesses.

Innovation Program

• Lead and manage the Old Mutual Innovation hub and its monthly and yearly calendar.
• Engage with the external ecosystem and industry peers to promote the disruptive innovation and gain insights on latest trends and solutions.
• Conduct innovation showcases and design thinking workshops with other innovation teams to uncover new opportunities and demonstrate available solutions
• Responsible for end to end management of the business’ innovation budget.

Venture Building & Scaling 

• In consultation with the Innovation Advisory Board – lead identification and validation of opportunity and white spaces.
• Lead the new venture development through a stage gated process: ideation, proof of concepts, Minimum Viable Propositions, piloting and testing with customers.
• Develop compelling business cases for validated ideas/concepts for further funding for scale.
• Manage a portfolio of ideas/concepts at various stage of the innovation funnel.

Partnerships Management and Commercialization

• Implement and manage strategic relationships with ecosystem partners
• Own and drive the end-to-end commercialization of key partnerships revenue lines as a result of Joint venture arrangements and revenue share models entered into by the new ventures
• Implement strategic relationships with key partners across the industry verticals such as Banking institutions, Insurance companies and Investment companies to drive growth, foster innovation and strengthen the business’ competitive position
• Deliver partnerships concept shaping, use case definitions and solution design for the new ventures
• Own relationships with Fintech, VC's, Accelerators, Incubators, and Corporate Accelerator programs.

Key Outputs

• Defined Innovation and new ventures strategy, aligned to country strategy
• Delivery against performance measures defined and agreed with the Country CEO/Strategy & Innovation Executive
• Successful roadmap delivery and oversight
• Key outputs, successes and failures shared with management
• Ensures budget approval
• Compelling business cases for successful concepts

Minimum Qualifications/Experience  (Required for the Job) 

• A post graduate qualification in business, technology or engineering
• 5-8 years' experience in IT, technology, business, marketing, or finance-related fields. Experience leading a start-up and/or corporate venture or accelerator program.
• Adaptive thinking and a strong, critical mindset.
• Strong business acumen and presentation skills.
• Highly proficient at agile project planning, budgeting, and oversight.
• A solid understanding of innovation and innovation process and how it should be applied in business.
• Excellent interpersonal, leadership, and communication skills.