The Strategy & Innovation (SI) Division is a newly formed function at CSAA Insurance Group (CSAA IG) with the mission to ‘innovate our future’ by building new products, services, and ventures that deliver extraordinary value to current and future AAA members. We are aiming high with an audacious goal to generate $1B in new revenue in the next decade. Toward this end, we are developing a growth portfolio through a combination of new business incubation, commercial piloting, venture investing, strategic partnerships, and business development. The result will be new sources of value and relevance to AAA members and club partners, an expansion and diversification of our business, an associated expansion of our member base, and an advantage in the markets we serve.
Position
You will work collaboratively with the VP of Corporate Innovation to help support, design and build a professional corporate innovation program. You will support, develop and help manage a portfolio of new business pilots for the purpose of delivering insights and pilots into key areas of strategic interest. The Senior Innovation Associate works collaboratively with team members, support staff and cross-functional teams to enable new, disruptive business models and/or value propositions. The Senior Innovation Associate provides leadership in the development and evolution of our enterprise strategy, our hypotheses and opportunity areas for innovation to create an always-on agile iterative approach.
Responsibilities
- Maintain a pulse on current and future market trends, signals and patterns
- Develop a pipeline of new business concepts, informed by research, trends, and/or partnership opportunities
- Execute and manage proofs-of-concept (POCs) and pilots using a lean startup/agile approach
- Work with internal and external project and resource teams to drive projects from inception, to seed, build and scale process.
- Work closely with the Strategy & Innovation team and senior executives to help source potential ideas, execute validation activities, and provide insights and financial analytics to support product, service and/or partnership decisions.
- Collaborate with strategy and the corporate venture capital team to understand the competitive landscape, define strategic focus areas and identify key trends and emerging technologies/business models to explore
- Evaluate new growth ideas, including validation experiments, competitive analysis, and researching industry-specific knowledge
- Help establish portfolio management tracking and reporting for operational metrics and overall core innovation portfolio value over time
- Provide project-level analyses and define product-market fit validation experiments
- Develop creative, out-of-the-box solutions to find new ways of troubleshooting and working in/out of the system.
- Inspire design and strategic decisions within the organization using research findings and insights.
- Shape and leverage a variety of research methods, such as ethnography, while integrating qualitative and quantitative research to inform design, product/service requirements, behavioral science, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and more.
- Cultivate collaborative relationships with business unit leaders and others in the AAA ecosystem
- Co-lead team standups, sprint planning, synthesis meetings, and post-mortems with team.
- Translate and communicate insights & trends into future products, services, and experiences.
- Conduct ongoing communication with senior management, partners, and business leaders across internal and partner innovation spectrum regarding project status and progress.
Experience
- BA/BS required, MBA preferred
- Minimum 10 years’ experience in innovation, product management or related field
- Successful track record of conceptualizing and/or commercializing innovation concepts
- Strong project management skills with the ability to prioritize multiple project plans under tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment
- Knowledgeable of the startup and InsurTech ecosystem
- Intellectual curious with an ability to learn quickly
- Able to translate research insights into powerful stories that shift perspectives.
- Excellent oral, writing, editing, communication and storytelling skills through various mediums and formats.
- Excellent critical thinking skills and strategic aptitude
- Interpersonal communication and political acumen skills, including strong negotiation and problem recognition/avoidance/resolution skills.
- Ability to take initiative in ambiguous environment.
- Excellent critical thinking skills and strategic aptitude; ability to interpret data and provide creative conclusions/recommendations.
- Instill trust to build and manage relationships at all levels.
- Strong project management skills with the ability to prioritize multiple project plans under tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
- Ability to interpret data and provide creative conclusions/recommendations
- Self-starter with a bias towards action and a drive to build, bringing new ideas to life.
- Excellent oral, written communication and presentation skills
If interested, please apply here.
