Innovation & Emerging Technologies Director

JOB PURPOSE

The role is responsible for defining, leading, and executing the organization’s Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) strategy, with a focus on emerging technologies and future-ready capabilities. The position drives innovation pipelines, manages technology experimentation environments, drive in-house developed solutions, and builds partnerships across the global ecosystem. It also leads enterprise-wide technology knowledge management initiatives, ensuring that critical insights, learnings, and technical intelligence are captured, shared, and embedded into collective organizational culture.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

-Define and lead the organization’s RDI and emerging technology strategy, ensuring alignment

with long-term technology goals and digital transformation priorities.

-Scout, assess, and prioritize disruptive and high-impact technologies, coordinating across

units to identify strategic opportunities.

-Oversee technology labs’ end-to-end operations, including ideation, prototyping, PoC

development, testing, and solution validation.

-Drive open innovation models, enabling co-development frameworks, joint ventures, startup

collaborations, and agile pilot programs.

-Build and manage partnerships with startups, academia, global research networks, and

technology vendors to accelerate innovation.

-Establish and govern enterprise-wide knowledge management frameworks for capturing,

curating, and disseminating technical insights.

-Promote the adoption of structured knowledge repositories, expert networks, and reusable

learnings to enhance organizational intelligence.

-Lead cross-functional teams in executing innovation programs, ensuring transparency,

governance, and measurable business impact.

-Champion a culture of experimentation, continuous learning, and safe-to-fail environments

across the organization.

-Ensure compliance with technology-related regulations, including data governance,

cybersecurity, IP rights, and ethical standards.

-Advise senior executives on emerging technology trends, investment opportunities, and

strategic RDI directions.

-Apply strong problem-solving skills to resolve complex technical and strategic challenges.

-Maintain a solid technical understanding of emerging technologies, development practices,

and innovation methodologies.

QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Innovation Management, or a related field.

Master’s degree or PhD in a relevant technical or innovation-focused field is highly preferred.

Years of Experience

8–12+ years of progressive experience in RDI, innovation management, research management,

emerging technologies, or related technical leadership roles.