Innovation Strategist

**Who are we?**

We’re a strategic design & innovation consultancy. We help our clients change and grow through:

- innovation strategy
- innovation frameworks, organisation design & capability
- service design, experience design & product design

Our work is broad from new brands, to long-term innovation strategies, to coaching in-house innovators, to strategic service design, to trouble-shooting new product ideas and much, much more.

We are one of Australia’s founding strategic design & innovation consultancies and part of one of the country’s most successful independent digital innovation groups.

**What's it like to work here?**

**(Creative Growth)**

We embrace the power of play.

We’re conversationalists, and foster curiosity, debate and sharing our interests and learnings.

We genuinely invest in individual development & creative growth through weekly internal training and totally discretionary training budgets.

**Collective-Impact**

The work is diverse, stretching and everyone is client-facing.

We work from anywhere when needed, but we work better together.

It’s a flat, transparent and honest structure.

We’re a close-knit company that sits within the Deepend group based in Surry Hills (a full service digital agency). So you’ll be working in team of strategic thinkers - with all the exposure and responsibility you can handle - as well as getting lots of the benefits of being in a bigger company.

As a close-knit team, we get our best work done together in the office.

**Who are you?**

You’re an Innovation Strategist who has got their hands dirty in real-world innovation briefs, has design thinking flowing through your veins and a thirst for growing your innovation knowledge. You’re on a mission to make innovation stickier, to tackle challenges that make your brain hurt and to inspire and be inspired. If you haven’t already joined an innovation consultancy, you probably cut your teeth in planning, in-house innovation, UX/design or the creative end of management consultancy.

**What will you do?**
- identify and act on needs-driven innovation insights
- build innovation strategies using qual, quant, trends, disruptive thinking tools, lean thinking and Desirability-Viability-Feasibility methodologies
- co-plan and co-run innovation projects with a dedicated team
- Research, communicate and facilitate an evolving, evidence-based solution

**SKILLS & EXPERIENCE**
- **Minimum** of 5 years of relevant experience under your belt
- A completer-finisher with a proven track record in a consultancy business delivering innovation - proactive, great attention to detail and account management
- Ability to think laterally, analytically and quickly
- Formal training in core innovation skills and direct experience of working on commercial innovation briefs, including:”
- Project scoping/opportunity mapping
- leading primary insight/ethnography/empathy sessions
- creating insight platforms supporting innovation opportunities
- proven ideation/creative thinking skills
- managing third parties
- Experience and skills you can demonstrate in creative & strategic workshop facilitation
- Ability to think on your feet and make good judgement calls
- Compelling written and verbal skills to develop arguments and cut through communication
- Thorough working knowledge of Brand DNA (ie. You can talk and map brand positioning, user benefits, reason-to-believe, attributes)
- A desire to grow and learn: you’ve studied elements of design thinking and innovation, and are excited by the prospect of teaching others
- You are plugged into your own innovation network
- You grow client relationships into client partnerships by pushing beyond existing briefs and helping to coach clients through collaborative working

**What you do**:
**1. Co-plan and run innovation projects from disruptive thinking, to service/experience design and rapid prototyping**:

- Plug into major innovation projects as the strategic smarts between project leader and project managers, and own stand-alone independent challenges
- A discovery mindset and an understanding of how to explore Desirability, Viability and Feasibility (DVF) and the
- Generate growth strategies, original solutions and implementation plans
- Empathy skills and the ability to unearth innovation insights
- Plug into UX and experience design
- Flexibility across strategic workshops, rapid prototyping and disruptive innovation
- but roll your sleeves up and get stuff done
- With project managers, build internal and external innovation ecosystems
- Help challenge & stretch thinking through facilitated sessions and persuasive documentation
- Plan & run consumer insight sessions
- Desire to test & learn and ‘be’ the user

**2. Be plugged into business and community development**:

- Plug in your own innovation network
- Manage proposal development process and presentations to follow up on existing leads and establishing client and industry contacts
- Looking to gener