Innovation Discovery Manager in London/Hybrid - National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)

London/Hybrid

£65,000 - £85,000

Permanent

Not Specified

37.5 Working Hours - (Flexible)

22 Jan 2025

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Innovation Discovery Manager

Role Overview

The Innovation Discovery Manager will be responsible for helping Nest identify and explore new opportunities for innovation that could provide future sources of success for it. This role helps to shape Nest’s future by leading the discovery and exploration of emerging trends, technologies, and solutions that if developed, will improve the value it offers to its customers. It will ensure Nest is always connected to the future and anticipating what will delight its customers in years to come.

You will work closely with the Member Proposition Director, B2B Proposition Director, as well as key stakeholders across Nest, to ensure innovation opportunities are identified, evaluated and aligned with the organisation’s purpose and goals. You will also play a critical role in fostering a culture of innovation within the team and wider organisation, ensuring ideas are welcomed and really great ones flourish.

Deliverables:

Research & Discovery:

Conduct high level, rapid market research to identify disruptive trends and innovative opportunities across agreed sectors and technologies

Engage with internal and external sources, including partners, innovation incubators, and industry forums, to stay abreast of the latest innovation developments that could have application to Nest

Collaborate with internal teams to gather customer feedback and behavioural data that can inform the innovation topics worth exploring further

With the Propositions Directors, agree the next topic for discovery and early evaluation

Innovation Pipeline Management:

Use a range of facilitation techniques to drive the development of ideas, bringing in a diverse range of minds to perform initial idea identification, expansion and evaluation

Build and manage a pipeline of potential innovation opportunities, ensuring they align with customer needs, regulatory requirements, and business goals.

Prioritise and champion the most promising ideas, leading the development of initial rapid business cases and potential proof-of-concept projects.

Concept Testing & Validation:

Secure approval to move to concept testing and validation phase, including resource and budget allocation

With the relevant internal team(s), assist with the design, development, and execution of proof-of-concept initiatives to test and validate new ideas, working closely with cross-functional teams.

Assist with rapid prototyping, piloting, and experimentation to test innovations, ensuring learnings are captured and insights used to inform future decision-making.

Build feedback loops into all innovation projects, ensuring continuous improvement and iteration.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement:

Work closely with the Member and B2B Proposition Directors, and other senior leaders to ensure innovation efforts are aligned with Nest’s strategic objectives.

Partner with external thought leaders, industry bodies, technology vendors, and research institutions to bring in cutting-edge thinking and external innovation perspectives.

Communicate innovation priorities, opportunities, and progress to the wider organisation, fostering a culture of creativity and experimentation.

Thought Leadership & Advocacy:

Serve as an internal thought leader on innovation, helping to build a mindset of creativity and experimentation within the Member Propositions team and across Nest.

Champion a test-and-learn approach, encouraging teams to embrace innovative ways of working and take calculated risks.

Share findings and case studies with internal stakeholders to inspire new ideas and approaches to member propositions and services.

We are open to discussing working patterns.

We welcome all internal applicants to apply for our roles, regardless of your current working pattern or hours. We will aim to accommodate your request and match your current working arrangements.

Don't worry if you think you don't have all the key skills, it might be worth taking the few minutes to apply as we're good at spotting potential and offer a generous training budget.

Please download a full job description to find a full scope, deliverables, experience and personal attributes required for this role.

Please note the closing date is: 22 January 2025.

Reward and recognition

A discretionary bonus scheme
Reward and recognition scheme
Enhanced auto enrolled pension – your contributions start at the default 5% while ours are higher at 8%. If you up your contributions to 6% we raise ours to 9%. If you contribute 7% or more we’ll contribute 10%.
Income protection scheme – is an insurance benefit that provides you with income if you cannot work due to illness or incapacity.

Click here to see the benefits we offer at Nest.

Flexible and agile working

Everyone's personal situation is different.

To make the most out of hybrid working, we've introduced different ways of working, which include (subject to role requirements):

hybrid of office (Canary Wharf, London) and home working (there will be an expectation to attend the office, once - twice a week, or more, as required)
reduce or vary working hours
reduce or vary the days worked
work compressed hours
job share

For more information about our recruitment process click here

Directorate/Department Overview

The Nest Experience directorate is responsible for developing and evolving the propositions for our customers, for the service and experience that they enjoy and working with our delivery partners to ensure their data and assets are kept safe. This includes:

Definition of our customer strategies
Developing, maintaining and evolving our customer value propositions
The brand and marketing of Nest to our customers
The design of the service experience our customers enjoy across all channels

Working with our partner, TCS, to deliver a service that delights our customers and keeps their data and assets safe

Organisational Overview

Nest is an award-winning workplace pension scheme, the largest in the country.

Set up by the government to give every worker in the UK somewhere to save, our first-class responsible investment practice and governance are the backbone of what we do, supported by all the functions you’d expect to find in a thriving business. We’re committed to creating a workplace where you can be your authentic self and offer an inclusive and flexible working environment.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of their age, belief, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, pregnancy or caring responsibilities, socio economic background, sex, sexual orientation, religion or race or any other legally protected status.

We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought and other forms of neurocognitive variation.

Nest is a Disability Confident Leader, which is the highest level of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you have disability, declare that you’re applying through the scheme and meet the minimum criteria for this role, we aim to invite you to an interview. However, there may be a few exceptions where we are not able to take all eligible candidates to the next stage due to the volume of applications.

Please note that this advert may close early if we receive a sufficient number of satisfactory applications.

If you have any difficulty in sending your application or need the application pack in an alternative format, or you require any reasonable adjustments please contact: [email protected].

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