Innovation Engagement Director

Why this role matters:

Take on a pivotal role at the forefront of “outside-in” innovation, where you’ll shape the future of the Network API ecosystem. As an Innovation Engagement Manager, you will identify and unlock new use cases and opportunities with leading customers and partners, driving transformative solutions as we look to establish the network API space. Leveraging your consultative acumen and exceptional communication skills, you’ll empower customers to embrace innovative products and realize tangible value.

This is a bold new direction for our business, demanding individuals who thrive in dynamic environments and are adept at fostering high-impact relationships across internal teams and external stakeholders. Your ability to navigate complexity, influence decision-making, and deliver measurable outcomes will be key to achieving success for our customers and positioning the organization as a leader in innovation.

The Innovation Office at Vonage is tasked to:

1. Drive the company's business innovation efforts, through solid strategic analysis, superior tactical planning and firm execution, including operating and business model innovation.
2. Establish industry-leading ecosystem to accelerate innovation, involving customers, developers, service providers and other partners.
3. Obsess over customer success and engage with prioritized customers to identify opportunities to accelerate their ability to improve operational efficiencies, improve their CX, and/or grow their business.
4. Offer end-to-end solutions to customers leveraging Ericsson’s deep knowledge of mobile networks and Vonage’s deep expertise in API offerings.
5. Cultivate and leverage critical strategic partnerships and alliances to accelerate demand generation for network APIs.
6. Establish industry-defining developer experience and engagement. 
7. Establish Vonage as a thought leader in leveraging network APIs to uniquely enable the digital transformation of industries and the public sector.

Your key responsibilities:

• Identify new business opportunities by interfacing with lead customers and partners to maximize end-to-end value creation for both operators and enterprises.
• Lead a team and serve as the primary customer interface to drive end to end innovation engagements.
• Lead discussions with the customer to map out potential areas to collaborate on; and synthesize and align on the key pain points and eventually the problem statement.. 
• Collaborate and engage in strategic workshops with the customer to develop paper solutions and its key attributes; and articulate and illustrate customer/developer success
• Apply structure to the idea, defining business rationale and value argumentation, and testing for strategic fit, business viability and technical feasibility.
• Proceed to engage with product teams, solution engineers, and technical subject matter experts to conduct a thorough technical feasibility assessment.
• Identify innovative partnership opportunities with existing and new partners to address any capability gaps to bring idea / solution to fruition.
• Assist in defining commercial and GTM flows to drive triple-win scenarios for Vonage, partners, and customers.
• Develop new innovative business / commercial models that drives value-based pricing for maximum value creation.
• Provide solution consulting to customers on how to best utilize and customize products.
• Act as business consultants from initiation through industrialization stages.
• Help to define the path to launch and eventually illustrate path to scale.
• Prepare detailed handover material for the BUs.

What you'll bring:

Ideally we are looking for someone with experience in Management Consultancy, or a role where you have been front and centre with customers on building out new solutions that aid in driving innovation - this could have been in Customer Success, Solutions Engineer roles as examples. 

• Customer obsession: Experience in interfacing with customers to extract addressable pain points, co-developing solution concepts, and illustrating path to success.  
• Consultative Selling: Demonstrated ability to craft compelling narratives and data-driven business cases that secure stakeholder buy-in and illustrate clear value argumentation.
• Solution Consulting: Deep expertise in guiding customers on the adoption and customization of products to align with their goals and objectives.
• Business and Commercial Acumen: Strong understanding of value-based pricing, revenue models, and developing triple-win scenarios for all stakeholders involved.
• Market Introduction and Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy: Experience in supporting market launches and shaping effective GTM motions tailored to customer and business needs.
• Partnership Development: Track record of identifying and fostering high-value partnerships to address capability gaps and co-create solutions.
• Complex Stakeholder Management: Ability to influence and build strong relationships across diverse internal and external teams to drive alignment and results.
• Communication Excellence: Exceptional storytelling, presentation, and negotiation skills to clearly articulate complex ideas and solutions.
• Leadership and Influence: Strong leadership presence with the ability to guide cross-functional teams through ideation to industrialization stages.
• Results-Oriented Mindset: Focused on delivering measurable outcomes, ensuring both customer success and organizational growth.

Lastly, a nice to have would be familiarity with the Network API landscape, including emerging trends, technological capabilities, and market drivers - but any experience in the CPaaS / Communication API space would also be hugely advantageous.#LI-HB