Innovation Director

Idea Conceptualization

• Lead teams utilizing human centered design processes as they develop innovations to move their ideas forward leading to tangible solutions
• Help teams find the right stories and visual elements to conceptualize their ideas in communicating them to stakeholders and potential customers
• Consult with teams to help them extract the essence of their challenges and ideas to clearly identify Challenge Statements and Ideas that are aligned with strategic and organizational goals
• Develop early prototypes (e.g., basic wire framing) or 2d renderings of products in order to help teams better conceptualize their solutions
• Help design and implement initial experiments to test and validate solutions fore refinement

Project Leadership

• Devise clear solution development plans that propel solutions through experimentation, testing and refinement based on learnings
• Lead the solution development process for transformational innovations and work alongside Executive Sponsor to help teams develop and design solutions
• Maintain a clear sense of next steps for teams as they work through ambiguity and iterative stages in their development process
• Help drive innovation teams to prototype and prepare the business case for approval and execution

Innovation Expert

• Be able to empathize with teams as they move through the innovation journey and help them understand how to navigate divergent and convergent phases of    development
• Possess mastery of innovation behaviors and have a true understanding of how to build on ideas, be open in one’s thinking and identify concepts in a real, tangible way
• Be an acute listener and people person who can find ways to inspire and motivate teams in a manner that propels their solutions forward
• Serve as the enterprise consultant on innovation including the use of all physical and virtual tools

This position will require the ability to manage multiple innovation projects across the organization with varying degrees of oversight and guidance. This individual must possess a great deal of autonomy in decision-making and communications, know when to manage up and identify key areas of decision-making oversight.

This individual’s responsibilities include identifying challenges and developing plans for solution development in order to catalyze the development and creation of ideas with varying level of complexity and feasibility. This individual will need to be able to clearly identify the criteria upon which decisions about ideas should be made and help steer teams in the direction of making autonomous decisions that will move their solutions forward. The diversity of this challenge is broad in application, as this role will involve various divisions, functions and levels of the organization. Strong leadership, coordination, communication, storytelling, and low-fidelity design and prototyping skills are required for this position.

Financial and budgetary responsibility

• This position will be responsible for managing a budget for solution development activities such as design, prototyping, research and commercial pilots

Direction and leadership given to others

• This position will have responsibility to direct innovation team members

Regular requirement of directing, reviewing and assigning others work

• This position will direct, review and assign work to project team reports

The magnitude of member and/or volunteer interaction and responsibility

• This position will have limited interaction and no responsibility for member and/or volunteers

This position involves engaging with executive sponsors in a consulting capacity in order to develop their solutions into market-ready innovations. This level of engagement will require strong communication, listening, and information synthesis and storytelling skills. This individual will regularly interact with members of the ES/EI leadership team as well as innovation project teams in a consulting and informative capacity. 

This position will have a direct impact on AARP’s success in developing transformational innovative solutions today and in the future.  Responsible for developing clear and actionable solutions, this role will help teams move their solutions through the innovation pipeline by identifying key experiments and areas for refinement.