Nationwide Insurance Company
Innovation Team Leader - Interactive Position Description
Innovation and Strategy Leader with 12 years’ experience developing products, services, brands & businesses that drive sustainable top-line growth.
Cross-industry clients include Prudential, Citi Bank, AARP, Fifth Third Bank, Assurant Insurance, Mashreq Bank, Samsung, Campbell’s, Philips, Nestle and iRobot.
Interactive Position Description
To connect Nationwides’s Innovation Team Leader position description and my experience, I’ve hyperlinked keywords to proof points and outcomes.
Summary of Responsibilities
Leads a multidisciplinary innovation “pod” or team designed to create, design, prototype, and launch products, services, experiences, and even businesses that disrupt the insurance and financial services industry. Leads the pod and business partners throughout the innovation process from exploration to conceptual design; to detailed design, to develop and build, then launch.
Engages directly with users, and works to uncover key unmet needs and develops solutions to meet these needs, solving for big customer problems. Brings these “member centric” solutions to market often in partnership with teams throughout the company.
Ensures that the innovation lies at the intersection of the Customer (“desirability”), Technology (“feasibility”), and the Business (“viability”). Collaborates with the designer and researcher to assess desirability. Partners with technologists to assess feasibility; and works with business lead to look at viability. Brings all pieces together into the right solution for the right needs.
Is an innovation thought-leader. Challenges current thinking and practices and creates customer and business value in ways unlikely to emerge from the existing enterprise.
Core Duties & Responsibilities
Core leader of the pod, where collaboration with product managers, designers, researchers, technologists, and business/finance leads to the best outcome
Provides project management and team leadership for the innovation pod, managing a multi-disciplinary team with skillsets across all aspects of the value chain and innovation process
Enthusiastically champions the work of the team even when pivoting is needed, understanding that failure is part of the innovation process. Institutionalizes learning from productive failures
Utilizes and encourages a startup or entrepreneurial mind set
Collaborates seamlessly and successfully throughout the organization with support areas such marketing, sales, public relations, legal and compliance, as well as other groups
Builds a high performance, highly engaged team
Effectively prioritizes across the spectrum of work and decisions
Leads and facilitates the user-driven innovation process (aka “design thinking”) with cross functional team members
Translates consumer and end-user needs into products, services, experiences, and businesses that solves needs and creates value
Supports and participates in rapid prototyping of ideas and solutions directly with consumers and customers, and iterates aggressively to arrive at solutions that exceed customer expectations and creates new value and points of differentiation.
Understands and represents the voice of the user (“the who”), clearly defines the right problems to solve (“the what”) and ensures the right end-to-end solutions to solve them (“the how”)
Brings new ideas and thought leadership to Nationwide. Keeps a pulse on industry movement and activities, and remains on top of key trends within insurance, financial services, startups and technology companies.
Anticipates where relevant companies, trends, and technologies might be going and informs strategies.
Raises the collective innovation capability of the team through coaching, advising and supporting others.
Performs other duties as assigned.
Typical Skills & Experiences:
Education: Undergraduate studies in business, marketing, product or engineering. MBA preferred.
Experience: Minimum of 10 years of diverse business experiences with an emphasis on strategy, innovation and product management, ideally with new digital products for consumers or businesses (big and/or small).
Knowledge: Demonstrated entrepreneurial passion with the ability to explore business opportunities in a structured, yet iterative way, with “lean startup” design thinking skills / user- centered design expertise, or similar development approaches. Experience managing a high performing team and cultivating a collaborative environment. Innovation experience, preferably within a technology, insurance or financial services company, including new product development, product management, and new product launch. Experience working within an innovation group for a larger company, innovation consulting company or innovative product company. Experience with primary consumer research, time “in the field”, market research, and translation of insights uncovered into ideas, concepts, and products. Experience with PowerPoint and presentation creation; proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite.
Skills/Competencies: Strong analytical skills and a proven ability to think strategically about customer needs, market dynamics and business impact. Natural curiosity about people and customers and comfortable with ambiguity. Excellent verbal and written communications skills. Strong manager with excellent organizational skills. Ability to problem solve, prioritize and manage multiple, parallel projects and decisions to deadline with a cross-functional team in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment.
Ability to work across multiple methodologies, including agile, scrum, waterfall, and hybrids. Strong sense of urgency with a focus on testing fast, learning fast and fail fast. Ability to act as a change agent and align teams on new ideas and ways of working. Requires a keen strategic mind paired with exceptional executional competency. A strong team builder with the ability to identify, attract and retain talent and motivate diverse groups of individuals through ambiguity and uncertainty, while driving to results.
Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.
Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner.
Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates the Nationwide Values and Guiding Behaviors.