Innovation & Partnership Lead

Do you know how to turn strategic intent into meaningful collaboration? Join Group Digitalisation and the Digital Strategy & Acceleration team to help Saab realise the full potential of its digital transformation—through smart innovation and bold partnerships aimed at accelerating software and AI development across our product portfolio.

Your role

As Innovation & Partnership Lead, you will play a central role in shaping how Saab engages with both internal innovation hubs and the wider ecosystem of partners, start-ups, academia, and policy makers. You will be the vital link between strategy and execution—identifying capability needs, guiding when and how we should form partnerships, and establishing collaborations that deliver long-term value specifically focused on advancing software and AI capabilities.

In this role, you will:

• Align priorities between Saab’s digital strategy and our internal innovation hubs.
• Capture and channel insights from innovation hubs to influence product roadmaps and transformation priorities.
• Proactively scan, map, and engage the external partner landscape to identify strategic opportunities that accelerate software and AI development.
• Structure and manage strategic partnerships designed to complement and strengthen internal capabilities.
• Define governance models that ensure clarity, commitment, and delivery in each collaboration.
• Act as a visible representative of Saab’s digital transformation agenda in external forums.

Location is flexible and can be decided upon agreement.

Your profile

We’re looking for someone with a strong network and a strategic mindset—someone who knows how to navigate complex landscapes and identify where Saab should act, with whom, and when. You’re comfortable moving between external arenas and internal strategy rooms, and skilled at bringing clarity and direction to diverse stakeholders. Confident, curious, and diplomatic, you represent Saab with credibility and vision.

Requirements:

• Minimum 10 years of experience, including at least 5 years in innovation strategy, ecosystem engagement, or strategic partnerships—ideally within or adjacent to the defence sector.

• Strong understanding of the defence innovation ecosystem—including industry players, academia, tech start-ups, policy makers, and government-backed innovation hubs—with a well-established personal network and preferably a recognised personal brand.

• Experience structuring and managing strategic partnerships, with a focus on joint value creation and effective governance.
• Strong communicator with executive presence and the ability to shape narratives and gain alignment across complex stakeholder groups.
• Experience influencing and guiding innovation efforts across multiple teams and functions.
• Fluent in English, both written and spoken.

This position requires that you pass a security vetting based on the current regulations around/of security protection. For positions requiring security clearance additional obligations on citizenship may apply.

What you will be part of

Behind our innovations stand the people who make them possible. Brave pioneers and curious minds. Everyday heroes and inventive troubleshooters. Those who share deep knowledge and those who explore sky-high. And everyone in between.  ​

Joining us means making an impact together, contributing in our own unique ways. From crafting complex code and building impressive defence and security solutions to simply sharing a coffee with a colleague, every action counts. We encourage you to take on challenges, to create smart inventions and grow in our friendly and tech-savvy workspace. We have a solid mission to keep people and society safe.

Saab is a leading defence and security company with an enduring mission, to help nations keep their people and society safe. Empowered by its 25,500 talented people, Saab constantly pushes the boundaries of technology to create a safer and more sustainable world.

Saab designs, manufactures and maintains advanced systems in aeronautics, weapons, command and control, sensors and underwater systems. Saab is headquartered in Sweden. It has major operations all over the world and is part of the domestic defence capability of several nations. Read more about us here

Kindly observe that this is an ongoing recruitment process and that the position might be filled before the closing date of the advertisement.