Director, Innovation Lab

This position has been filled - Job#: 453379400

Job Summary

Key Responsibilities 

• The Innovation Lab (IL) will consist of a group of cross departmental team members that formally meet once a week.
• Reporting to the Vice President of Guest Experience, the Director, Innovation Lab (DIL) will be a critical leader and facilitator of the IL and will be responsible for keeping the work moving between IL work sessions.
• The DIL must be a strategic/critical thinker, must have project management skills, and be capable of rapidly building prototypes that can be tested with guests.
• This individual must be capable of working collaboratively and influencing without direct authority. 
• Specifically, the DIL will be responsible for the following:  
• Conduct cross industry research to identify new business/product opportunities, trends, and best practices
• Conduct research/focus groups with customers to identify opportunities
• Regularly review and analyze guest survey data, bringing a data driven mindset to innovation 
• Dive deep to fully understand our business to identify the right customer problems
• Facilitating ideation sessions; implementing design thinking principles to arrive at disruptive/ transformative ideas
• Leading rapid innovation sprints, driving from idea to prototype in 5 days
• Executing pilots with live users, leveraging the scientific method to test hypothesis and generate validated learnings
• Responsible for keeping the work moving, in between Innovation Lab work sessions
• Build businesses cases and present opportunities to senior leadership
• Be a curious, creative, dynamic leader helping to drive innovation, transforming the Hawks & State Farm Arena into a model for other organizations to follow

     Professional Experience, Qualifications and Education 

• A Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree preferred
• 5+ years of experience across multiple industries or experience in consulting/agencies
• Possesses project management skills in order to keep project team on track, on time, and on budget
• Experience with design thinking and facilitation
• Basic or advanced coding skills with the ability to rapidly build a prototype using tools such as Balsamiq, Mockplus, Axure RP
• A customer obsessed individual, that works vigorously to understand guest needs and develop products or businesses that meet those needs
• A curious learning machine – a willingness to dive deep into new domains and the unknown. 
• A bias for action, with the ability to work in ambiguous and changing environments with little direction or information
• Able to manage failure and expectations, deriving learnings from every initiative 
• Ability to collaborate with various departments and build strong relationships. Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence others to drive change
• Must be able to work non-traditional hours, including evenings, weekends, and holidays