Head of Innovation

Advocates for Human Potential, Inc. (AHP) is looking for a dynamic and driven leader to build an innovation pipeline that will shape the future of our business. As the Head of Innovation, you’ll play a central role in driving new ideas and ensuring that our innovation efforts are accountable and aligned with real customer needs.

The Head of Innovation will lead creation and management of a robust innovation pipeline, integrating a stage-gate process to evaluate, prioritize, and fund ideas in alignment with company priorities. This role requires a strategic leader who can define and implement a framework to solicit, evaluate, and validate ideas, ensuring that innovations are accountable to outcomes, customer willingness to pay, and long-term business goals. As the Head of Innovation, this job is not to create the new ideas and innovations yourself, but rather to source the best ideas and innovations from within AHP and external to the company (competitors, startups, academia, other) and then run those ideas through a rigorous business accelerator. Great innovations may become new companies, new divisions, new products, or enhanced internal efficiencies.

Key Responsibilities

• Innovation Pipeline & Stage Gate Process
• Develop and manage an innovation pipeline with clearly defined stage gates for idea evaluation, prioritization, and progression.
• Establish a structured framework for soliciting ideas from internal teams, clients, and external sources, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and customer demand.
• Implement a stage-gate process to assess the feasibility, scalability, and market fit of innovations at each stage, focusing on customer validation, financial viability, and ROI.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to evaluate ideas based on key metrics, including customer willingness to pay, feasibility, and strategic alignment, before committing resources to development.
• Provide a clear funding framework for innovation projects, allocating resources based on stage, risk, and potential return.
• Customer Validation & Market Fit
• Ensure early-stage validation of customer demand through market research, pilot programs, and direct customer feedback to assess willingness to pay.
• Develop business cases and financial models for new ideas, including market sizing, pricing strategies, and customer acquisition costs.
• Performance Tracking & Reporting
• Work with senior leadership to ensure innovation priorities are aligned with overall company strategy and resource allocation.
• Define and track KPIs for the innovation pipeline to measure progress, market readiness, and financial performance.
• Provide regular updates to senior leadership on innovation initiatives, including successes, challenges, and recommendations for scaling or pivoting projects.
  

Qualifications

• Education
• Master’s degree in Business, Technology, Engineering, or related is preferred.
• Experience
• 10+ years of experience in corporate innovation, business development, or product management, with at least 3-5 years in a leadership role.
• Experience forming and structuring new companies or business units, including managing equity distribution and shareholder agreements.
• Proven ability to validate market demand and customer willingness to pay through research and pilot programs.
• Strong leadership and communication skills to engage cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrated passion for advancing behavioral health equity and improving public health systems.
  

Salary Range: $175,000 - $200,000

AHP, to be transparent with applicants about salary and in compliance with various state pay disclosure requirements, publishes the following information, which is current as of the posting date. The base salary range above represents the low and high end of the AHP salary range for this position. Actual salaries will vary and may be high or low in the range based on various factors, including but not limited to location, experience, and education. The range listed is just one component of AHP’s total employee compensation package.

Other rewards may include annual bonuses, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition, AHP provides a variety of benefits to employees, including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family, a retirement plan with a 3% match, student loan repayment assistance, employer-paid life and disability insurance, generous paid time off, and much more.

More About AHP

AHP influences change in health and business systems to support vulnerable populations, from creating policy to ground-level, hands-on work. We help organizations and individuals reach their full potential through professional consulting, research, evaluation, and data analytics; technical assistance and training; virtual solutions, publications, and events.

Our areas of expertise include behavioral health, mental health policy and services, substance use disorders, co-occurring disorders, workforce development, homelessness, housing and employment, programs, trauma-informed care, criminal justice, women and children, veterans, health care reform, and population health management.

AHP is proud to have been certified as a Great Place to Work® for nine consecutive years. We earned this credential based on extensive employee ratings in anonymous surveys. We value employee well-being and are actively engaged in creating an environment that supports work-life balance, self-care, and mental and emotional health. AHP has also been honored as one of the 2024 Top 15 Midsize Companies in the U.S. by LinkedIn (24) LinkedIn. This recognition celebrates organizations with 250 to 5,000 workers, acknowledging their role in shaping the contemporary employment landscape.

AHP is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or protected veteran status.