Lead - Business Unit Strategy

JOB PURPOSE

Leverage strong expertise in financial services and Fintech trends to lead the development of ADCB’s innovation and digital strategy, in partnership with ADCB’s business units to create revenue opportunities and differentiation within the financial services industry

ACCOUNTABILITIES

Group innovation and Digital Strategy Formulation:

Lead the development of ADCB’s innovation and digital strategy business wide, in partnership with Group Heads, driving customer journey innovations through idea generation and filtering sessions with clear use cases for testing and evolving concepts and present results to MEC to secure seed capital expenditure approval

Drive the digital and innovation agenda throughout the Group to deeply embed a culture of innovation within the organizational DNA, working closely with external consultants (as required) to ensure ADCB gets value from their assignments

Conduct market research in order to develop, test and refine ideas and prototypes

Governance Structure and Execution Framework:

Establish Group level and project level governance routines for innovation programme to ensure ADCB governance and quality standards are maintained Create and embed a product development framework including processes and toolkit to ensure effective and efficient execution of agreed initiatives

Use the ‘agile approach’, embracing ‘Scrum’ and ‘Lean Start Up’ methodologies to enable self-directed teams to execute against deliverables and equip employees and leaders with tools developed to enable successful delivery and to track performance against plans

Strategic Innovation Initiatives:

Advise Senior Leadership on the opportunities identified, from idea generation workshops conducted across the business, and provide recommendations for implementation to ensure the correct initiatives are prioritized and actioned

Activate collaborative ‘work cells’ to deliver against selected initiatives and provide direction and support to the teams and stakeholders to ensure successful delivery of minimum viable product

Monitor product performance against defined KPIs to ensure stakeholders understand whether to pivot, kill or accelerate the solution

Oversee successful handover to the business unit once the product has achieved product/market fit through demonstrated traction and provide initial support in scaling up to ensure initiatives are properly supported and delivered

Ensure knowledge and capability transfer to members of the business units through on the job training and coaching to ensure self-sufficiency after handover period

Programme Administration of ADCB iLab:

Develop budgets for various innovation and digitization initiatives and value propositions in cooperation with stakeholders to ensure appropriate level of resources, utilization and profitability

Create and maintain strong vendor relationships to ensure smooth and successful project related outcomes on specific engagements

Define and measure programme level KPIs and provide clear reporting dashboards to all levels of Senior Management as required to enable fact based, data driven decisions

People Management:

Manage self and team in line with ADCB’s people management policies, procedures, processes and practices to ensure adherence and to maximize own and employee contribution to business performance

Manage the effective achievement of the team’s objectives through setting individual objectives, managing performance, developing the team and providing formal and informal feedback to maxim

EXPERIENCE, QUALIFICATIONS & COMPETENCIES

Minimum Experience and Qualifications:

At least 8 years of experience in Strategic Programme Management in Financial Services with 5 years in a top tier financial organization in emerging and mature markets.

Undergraduate degree in engineering, finance or business

Master degree in engineering, finance or business [MBA]

Top tier institutions only

Knowledge and Skills:

Excellent organizational/project management skills working with multiple groups across geographies

Document structuring and story boarding capabilities

Strong understanding of distribution, products, sales management, and customer solutions

Excellent verbal and written communication skills at Executive Committee level

Expert level understanding of mobility and ecommerce and mcommerce solutions

Creative thinker with a natural curiosity and willingness to explore new technologies and business models

Be constructively discontent; constantly challenging the status quo using an entrepreneurial mind-set and a can do attitude

Stimulate discovery, experimenting in the art of the possible in order to uncover opportunities

Ability to acknowledge negative indicators early and take appropriate measure

Champion continuous improvement, never settling for current state, always looking to innovate

Drive the search of proven internal or external ideas, reapply and adapt them for benefit in alternative situation

Resilient when faced with strong levels of resistance, seeing challenges as opportunities to improve

Ability to work effectively with Executives and Senior Management across different business platforms

Strong leadership capability, excellent interpersonal skills, multicultural awareness and sensitivity