Innovation Manager
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Job Summary
**Hybrid-Position is required to work a percentage of time each week out of either our Omaha, NE or Fargo, ND offices**
Farm Credit Services of America (FCSAmerica) is a great place to work. You see it in our people and the relationships they have with each other and our customers. Our passion and commitment to serving both rural America and each other is key to our success in the marketplace.
As an Innovation Manager on the Strategy and Innovation Team you are responsible for identifying and assessing innovation opportunities that will have a clear impact on the future success of the organization.
You are someone who knows how to research new product trends and maintain awareness of competitive trends across our many lines of business. You will explore what’s possible across the agriculture and financial services landscapes and then collaborate with the right internal and external partners to transform ideas into new solutions, business models, products, and services. Your day-to-day will include a mix of discovery and research, collaborative ideation, testing and experimentation, design sprint leadership, engagement with startups and industry partners, storytelling, and more. You will build and lead programs that spark a culture of innovation throughout the organization, and you will champion an active open innovation ecosystem within the broader industry.
Essential Duties & Responsibilities
- Provide support to the VP of Strategy & Innovation in the execution and evolution of Farm Credit Services of Americas innovation program.
- Act as a co-business owner for the organization’s strategic innovation process. Provide leadership for some initiatives and support leaders/teams with identification, research of and experimentation around ideas that surface through this process.
- Conduct industry analysis to identify industry trends, insights and white space.
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Collaborate with internal and customer facing teams to monitor the competition and Ag consumer market.
- Conduct solution research
- Track the development of key competitors and Ag market related interactive solutions
- Suggest key strategic direction to counter competitors
- Communicate to appropriate leadership key competitor direction and information about interactive solutions in the Ag marketplace
- Collaborate with key stakeholders to identify latent, unmet needs of customers and proactively develop recommendations for value-add solutions.
- Lead/shepherd ideas through the initiation, elaboration and valuation processes, including coordination of financial value analysis. Work with business unit/team to develop business cases for consideration by the appropriate approving body.
- Own and maintain business tools inherent to the initiation, elaboration and valuation process.
- Research and build business cases for internal and customer facing ideas that may evolve from various channels.
- Coordinate and facilitate ideation sessions, prepare communications as needed, present final recommendations to the appropriate audience to determine next steps and ensure smooth hand-off of approved projects to team(s) responsible for execution.
- Identify key organizational metrics and prepare quarterly reporting for key stakeholders. Develop and coordinate effective communications at an organizational level which may include both internal and external audiences.
- Participate in Business Unit Strategic Planning/Team Business Planning processes as needed.
Education Requirements
- Bachelors degree in Business, Marketing, Market Research, and/or Agriculture preferred
Years of Experience
- 6+ years experience in product management preferably in new product development, innovation management, and/or business strategy.
- Proven experience collecting and organizing research data and applying it to create business solutions and strategies.
- A background in qualitative/quantitative product research, Agriculture, or Financial Services is desired.
About Us:
FCSAmerica and Frontier Farm Credit are jointly managed financial cooperatives but are separately owned by their farmer and rancher customers. Our customer-owners are directly served by their local financial and crop insurance team.
FCSAmerica supports rural communities and agriculture in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. Frontier Farm Credit supports eastern Kansas. Together, we provide credit, crop insurance and other financial services to more than 60,000 agricultural producers and agribusinesses.
It takes a lot of expertise to meet the needs of today’s agricultural industry, and our combined 1,900 employees provide that in areas of lending, risk management, technology, marketing, customer and employee education.
We have job opportunities in Omaha, Nebraska, where FCSAmerica is headquartered, and 48 local offices across five states.
We take pride in serving every aspect of agriculture, from the young and beginning producer to some of the nation’s largest and most complex agribusinesses.
