At Contour, our mission is to transform the global trade industry so that businesses and communities can have a brighter future by having easy access to affordable trade finance products. Our technologists work to achieve this by digitising traditional trade finance processes using blockchain technology run on R3’s Corda platform, to create innovative solutions for the industry.
Contour’s Engineering team utilises the latest in distributed ledger technology (DLT) to solve complex decentralised problems. As a team, we are collaborative and are constantly looking at ways to enhance our product through the latest tools and technologies. We are a passionate team that promotes innovation, transparent knowledge-sharing and the idea that challenging one another will bring out the best in each of us.
Context of the role:
As the Head of Innovation, you will bring your experience to the senior management and the wider product and engineering teams to manage the process of bringing new and innovative products and processes, to the trade and trade finance industry. With a strong focus on solving a problem for our clients and a creative mind, you will brainstorm, formulate, and strategize new product development and partnership opportunities for inclusion into our product roadmap.
You will have experience in managing the process of innovation using industry-leading innovation frameworks and will be comfortable working on both incremental and radical innovations. You will be knowledgeable of the finance and international trade industries and the problems they face on a global scale, with an understanding of the challenges and barriers driving digital transformation within a corporate and/or bank environment. You will have intimate knowledge in how to develop and deliver software-based solutions, but also business models and partnership strategies that can create value.
Responsibilities
Job requirements Contour’s Engineering team utilises the latest in distributed ledger technology (DLT) to solve complex decentralised problems. As a team, we are collaborative and are constantly looking at ways to enhance our product through the latest tools and technologies. We are a passionate team that promotes innovation, transparent knowledge-sharing and the idea that challenging one another will bring out the best in each of us.
Context of the role:
As the Head of Innovation, you will bring your experience to the senior management and the wider product and engineering teams to manage the process of bringing new and innovative products and processes, to the trade and trade finance industry. With a strong focus on solving a problem for our clients and a creative mind, you will brainstorm, formulate, and strategize new product development and partnership opportunities for inclusion into our product roadmap.
You will have experience in managing the process of innovation using industry-leading innovation frameworks and will be comfortable working on both incremental and radical innovations. You will be knowledgeable of the finance and international trade industries and the problems they face on a global scale, with an understanding of the challenges and barriers driving digital transformation within a corporate and/or bank environment. You will have intimate knowledge in how to develop and deliver software-based solutions, but also business models and partnership strategies that can create value.
Responsibilities
- Brainstorms with the product and engineering team to discover new solutions and approaches to old problems.
- Collaborate with our existing customers, partners and other industry parties to ideate, prioritise, execute and review concepts and projects.
- Formulates effective new ideas and innovative strategies for product development, partnerships, marketing, or other business opportunities.
- Recognizes promising ideas and finds ways to introduce them into the company’s future plans and discards ideas that are ineffective, costly, not technically viable, or beyond the scope of the company’s mission.
- Strategises with product development teams to transform general ideas into workable solutions
- Analyses existing practices to isolate areas ripe for improvement or enhancement.
- Encourages creative thinking in employees and finds ways to nurture innovative thinking across all areas of the company.
- Follows customer responses to new ideas, tracks and analyses the success of new products or services, and responds to customer questions or concerns.
- Monitors research and development of other organisations to spot trends in innovation and supplement research findings in the trade and trade finance industry
- Evaluates the progress of innovation and adjusts the pace or direction of new projects in accordance.
- Work closely with senior management in developing annual plans and budgets for product development and innovation
- Proven experience in managing an innovation program within a corporate environment with a track record of delivering customer value
- Must be able to work creatively within a budget and use innovation to find ways of more effectively managing resources.
- Strong business knowledge, understanding of a variety of business practices, and familiarity with the trade and trade finance industry
- Must be able to collaborate with executives, creative teams, research and development, and product development teams.
- Must have excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to persuasively sell ideas.
- Must be willing to take calculated risks and manage expectations of both internal development teams and potential and existing customers.
- Experience in fintech or high growth corporate start-ups is a plus.
- Bachelor’s degree in a relevant business or technical field is required, with a Master’s degree preferred but not required.
- Knowledge of blockchain, Corda, distributed systems is a plus