BA Digital Innovation Director

The organisation

AkzoNobel creates everyday essentials to make people’s lives more liveable and inspiring. As a leading global paints and coatings company and a major producer of specialty chemicals, we supply essential ingredients, essential protection and essential color to industries and consumers worldwide.

Backed by a pioneering heritage, our innovative products and sustainable technologies are designed to meet the growing demands of our fast-changing planet, while making life easier. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, we have approximately 45,000 people in around 80 countries, while our portfolio includes well-known brands such as Flexa, Sikkens, Alabastine and Jozo.

Consistently ranked as a leader in sustainability, we are dedicated to energizing cities and communities while creating a protected, colorful world where life is improved by what we do.

AkzoNobel’s business area (BA) Performance Coatings (PC) produces numerous leading products and brands that meet and anticipate the needs of customers all over Europe. 

Our (digital) innovation strategy encompasses a portfolio of transformative strategic initiatives at a BA level and embraces potentially disruptive technologies. Your mission in this role is to direct, coordinate and implement this strategy by overseeing initiatives from initial idea through the business case to successful launch. 

The position

As such, this is a high profile opportunity for a truly enthusiastic and visionary self-starter who can accept and enjoy a high level of autonomy. A pronounced digital mindset is essential, although you don’t require a deep technological understanding. You might currently be in a Marketing, R&D or IT role.

This is also a global role in which you spend around 40% of your time traveling and interacting with different cultures at all levels of our organization. Thus you must be able to make a (communication) stretch, from presenting to the ExCo to junior colleagues. The role offers scope for growth towards a position as, for instance, Marketing Director for one of our Strategic Market Units (SMU).

Is this a challenge that matches your skills and ambitions as someone who can embed a (digital) innovation structure in a corporate environment? Can you initiate, guide and empower strategic innovation teams, drawing on internal and external sources and energies to build an innovation eco-system? Do you have the drive to develop ideas from the ‘ground up’, not from hierarchical structures? Are you the type of person who finds solutions where others see problems, and then sees the project through to the end? Above all, can you make a real difference within our dynamic, multinational and multicultural business environment?

If you offer all this and more we invite you to apply for the role of BA Digital Innovation Director.

Tasks & responsibilities

This is a high profile role in which you can be based in either Amsterdam or Sassenheim, the Netherlands. Your core objective is to develop and manage a dynamic digital innovation portfolio of transformative projects, successfully driving initiatives from BA level into the SMUs and down to customers.

In doing so you work closely with a wide range of key stakeholders in the PC Leadership Team, defining and shaping your own role by demonstrating an ability to think outside the current portfolio and capabilities.

All of this requires you to build, guide and monitor Initiative Teams on a ‘go to market’ basis, whilst also putting together Venture Teams for high impact challenges. You also create and develop partnerships in relevant and emerging areas such as additive manufacturing, robotics, artificial intelligence and sensoring.
This demands that you are able to handle multiple programs with various streams simultaneously, always maintaining an overview.

At all times you pro-actively build both internal and external networks, ensuring that our human skills set matches changing requirements, and you involve our customers in the innovation process. Further, you perform competitive benchmarking and future trends mapping, and you report on progress continuously.

As Team Leader you set objectives, review development, and provide clear and constructive feedback. You also strengthen the talent pipeline and create an open environment in which everyone can perform at their best, while building a workforce to reflect the societies and markets in which we do business. 

Candidate profile

To apply for this position you must possess the following attributes:

• Master’s degree (scientific or commercial) and experience with successfully implementing transformative and incremental innovations in corporates;
• Agile, strategic and inspirational creative leader with strong influencing skills based on competency and delivery;
• Proven track record of working with external organizations and building partnerships and/or new business;
• Strong boardroom presence who understands disruption and the power of digital;
• Ideally you have an affinity with coatings and/or related industries;
• Good knowledge of office IT tools (MS Office, CRM etc) and fluent written and spoken English.

Interested?

You can apply to this position by using the link below. For further information, please contact Marjan van Grinsven, Talent Resourcing Manager, +31 (0)88 010 67 89, option 2. Only online applications will be accepted.

A pre-employment screening may form part of the selection process.

Agency or sales calls are not appreciated.