Open Innovation Leader

Open Innovation is about building a community that solves business problems that matter to people, society and the planet. It is about being humble and curious about what’s happening outside the walls of one’s organization and one’s mind, and having the patience and resilience to make change happen.

This is an opportunity to grow within a successful, fast-moving team that enables better decisions by delivering cutting-edge tools and capabilities (data analytics, networks/ecosystems, and partnerships), allowing R&D and Innovation teams to connect and learn about what is happening externally. OI supports every business unit within the company – Clorox Cleaning, Clorox Healthcare, Burt's Bees, Hidden Valley Ranch, Glad JV, Brita, Cat Litter, Kingsford Charcoal, Better Health VMS, and International – with a laser focus on helping identify and solve relevant problems, while simultaneously learning from other companies, industries, and disciplines. We also support enterprise-level initiatives such as Sustainability and Technology Transformation.

Over the last two decades, Clorox has built one of the world’s best Enterprise Open Innovation teams. Open Innovation is housed within the Clorox R&D organization, and partners closely with all internal functions that drive innovation, such as brand marketing, consumer insights, product development and design, as well as external partners – other large companies, start-ups, suppliers, customers, consumers, consultants, universities, inventors, design and engineering firms. Innovation is, after all, a team sport!

• The successful candidate will maintain “live” understanding of BU consumer, technical and business strategies and create options for impactful growth by using the tools, processes and capabilities of the Open Innovation team and its vast network of partners.

• Stay up-to-date on external trends, technologies and partners while working on high priority Innovation Discovery projects, where they will:

• Participate in project-based immersion, ideation and other key innovation activities with cross-functional project teams to socialize and successfully deploy Open Innovation tools, processes and capabilities across Business Unit and Enterprise initiatives.

• Learn from subject-matter experts, global product and technology trends and insights, case studies, frameworks, analogies, and external immersions.

• Use tactics such as expert sourcing, landscaping and data analysis to identify new insights, and identify new partner options and strategies to accelerate discovery.

• Work closely with Open Innovation Team members to share best practices, translate insights and uncover opportunities that impact other Clorox businesses.

• Use key metrics to deliver insight and actions that influence R&D and BU leadership and strategy.

Minimum Required

• 7 years of technical product development and/or consulting experience, with demonstrated internal and external stakeholder management skills.

• Broadening businesses experience outside of R&D, e.g. MBA, Business Development or Marketing rotation/experience a plus.

• Experience in consumer products or related industry a plus.

Skills and Abilities

• Demonstration of strong leadership, technical, communication and teamwork skills.

• Innovation skills including Curiosity, Agility, Strategic Thinking.

• Results-driven with ability to analyze, propose and articulate short, medium and long term scenarios regarding technical and business model opportunities in a business or R&D setting.

• Excellent communicator (written and verbal).

• Effectively able to influence the organization; comfortable shaping orders in ambiguous spaces.  

• High energy, positive, client-focused, able to adapt to a variety of business cultures and settings.

Desirable

• Broadly networked; can easily establish new relationships.

• Confident self-starter; identifies and creates own opportunities.

• Negotiation skills and presence – able to readily pitch and lead discussions in difficult situations.

• Digital Curiosity and strong understanding of how data analysis tools (e.g. NLP, big data aggregation) may be used to deliver actionable business insight.

• Vendor management experience a Plus – including identification, growth, optimization, and sun-setting of relationships, and ability to navigate vendor pitches to identify matches between internal need and truly breakthrough external capability.

Education Level/Degree

• BS (minimum), MS or PhD preferred in chemistry, engineering or related area. MBA a plus.