Innovation and Research Manager

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About The Tesco Labs Team

Tesco labs is Tesco Technology's research and development team. Based in Welwyn Garden City the team was conceived to shine light on future opportunities and challenges for Tesco. Labs is a trusted source on emerging technology and is focused on prototyping and testing new ideas in technology areas that could significantly impact customers and the business in the future. More information about the team can be found on our website: www.tescolabs.com.

Main Responsibilities

Open Innovation and Research Manager

Whilst specific responsibilities will be dependent upon the changing needs of the Tesco business, the following provides an overview of the role's key responsibilities and measures:

Open Innovation

* Act as our technology scout, looking for new innovative companies and people to collaborate with.

* Continuously review and manage our start-up engagement program, currently running with JVP, Israel. Connect startups with business stakeholders and clearly define measures of success for proof of concepts.

* Manage relationships with large suppliers to stay on top of the innovations they're working on.

* Create and manage academic research partnerships, look to sponsor PhD students in the fields that we are interested in.

* Feed this work into the labs product teams and work with the teams to create an experiments

Research

* Identify future technology trends and their intersection with business challenges in order to highlight and prioritise future areas of work for the labs team.

* Research into specific technologies; produce papers, summaries and / or masterclasses to share learning and stimulate debate.

* Help the product teams stretch their thinking by continuously providing them with stimulous about what is happening in the space they are working in.

* Regularly hold trend / new tech debrief sessions and encourage discussion and ideation about what this might mean for Tesco.

* Excite everyone about innovation and lead by example. Foster collaboration across teams and departments, and bring people and ideas together.

* Engage with and influence stakeholders at all levels and generate enthusiasm and excitement around innovation to gain buy in and support for the work we do.

* Maintain a great set of internal contacts and keep a pulse on the business strategy

* This role will best suit an individual who enjoys working as part of a team, is well organised, pragmatic and a lateral thinker with an inquisitive mind who is motivated to make change for the better and, most importantly, puts our customers first.

Ideal Candidate

Key Skills and Experience

You'll need to have demonstrated experience of:

A good network of startups, investors, accelerators and other members of the early stage tech community.

* Excellent verbal and written communication skills

* A brilliant networker

* A deep understanding of technology and how things work.

* A passion for innovation and a desire to impact the future of retail

* Phd or demonstrable experience in a research role

Personal

* Deeply curious, tenacious and open mindset.

* Flexibility, ability to plan and organise, responsiveness, creativity, self-starter

* Able to build solid working relationships with peers and senior leadership

* Ability to demonstrate strong written, verbal communication and presentation skills to all levels of seniority and disciplines within the organisation.

* Someone who wants to have fun while they work