Innovation Director – IT/OT Industrial Automation

The Client

The client, a $3bn plus turnover organisation was on the verge of launching its global innovation initiative and was now ready for someone to take ownership of this.

The assignment brief was taken from the Global Innovation Director, who had previously overseen the EMEA region.

Now at a critical stage of growth he needed someone to lead this region as his direct report, while he focused on the Global Innovation Strategy. This was a new position within this organisation.

The Role

The position of Innovation Director would be a key hire for the Global Solutions strategy, the client is moving from a product to solution and services focused model. The Innovation Director will be responsible for homogenising the Sales, Marketing and Business Units of multiple acquisitions, putting in place some standard operating procedures and evangelising the new solution approach to the EMEA market.

Not only this, but the successful candidate would need to strategize ways of scaling these solutions. With the end goal to have a “blueprint” for best practice which could be used across multiple market verticals.

To do this successfully their external focus would need to be PR, Sales and Marketing driven, while internally this person will have to build a followership as they effectively rebrand and re-message the client offering. At the same time, ensuring that disparate business units – which have long established routes to market in product offerings – also redefine how they operate and deliver.

This appointment was made through Collingwood’s executive search work in the technology sector.