AD&D Idea Incubator Principal Sr

Cirrus•Duluth, MN

About The Position

The AD&D Idea Incubator, Senior Principal is a high-impact individual-contributor role responsible for defining, supporting, and executing the ideation process within the Advanced Design & Development (AD&D) organization. This role serves as the early-stage catalyst for identifying, evaluating, and maturing new product ideas, technologies, partnerships, and business plans that will shape the future of personal aviation. This position owns the definition, process execution, and results coming out of the Ideation process. It blends engineering expertise with business acumen, data analytics, and structured innovation processes. This position supports engineers from across the company by funneling, maturing, and filtering ideas through the earliest phases of product development. This role performs strategic analysis, builds business cases, and identifies opportunities for new products, partnerships, technologies, and markets. This role influences early decision-making and shapes the foundation for future Cirrus product directions. The successful candidate will be a strong communicator, experienced in ideation, business modeling, and market analytics, and skilled at synthesizing diverse inputs into actionable insights.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Aerospace, Mechanical, Systems, or related discipline).
Master of Business Administration degree required.
12+ years experience in ideation, concept development, innovation process facilitation, or product strategy.
Familiarity with aircraft markets and aerospace technology trends.
Strong analytical skills including market sizing and financial modeling.
Experience with market research, competitive analysis, and opportunity sizing.
Strong communication skills with ability to synthesize complex information into actionable insights.
Ability to work cross-functionally and influence without authority.
Comfort operating in ambiguous environments and refining poorly defined concepts.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with fluency in English.
Proficiency with Microsoft Office tools

Nice To Haves

Working knowledge of advanced technologies.
Experience with financial modeling, data analytics, and visualization tools (Excel modeling, Python, Power BI).
Previous experience in business development, entrepreneurship, startup environments, or early-stage business creation.
Previous experience in creating business plans, market entry strategies, or commercialization models.
Previous experience working with advanced technologies, emerging markets, or innovation ecosystems.
Personal aviation experience, a pilot’s license (private or higher) is a plus.
Familiarity with other high technology industries (non-aviation).
Experience collaborating with suppliers, universities, or external partners during early concept exploration.

Responsibilities

Define, manage, and drive the AD&D Ideation Process, including idea generation, concept maturation and evaluation, and business case development.
Lead Cirrus’ front-end innovation pipeline, transforming early ideas into structured opportunities with clear assumptions, risks, benefits, and alignment with business strategy.
Support engineers in shaping raw ideas into clear, actionable value propositions.
Facilitate workshops, brainstorming sessions, and structured concept development.
Conduct detailed market research, benchmarking, competitive analyses, and financial analyses.
Build business plans including market sizing, financial projections, and risk assessments.
Provide recommendations to leadership on advancing concepts into development.
Identify and evaluate suppliers, startups, and external partners and manage early‑stage partner relationships.
Build financial and analytical models to assess viability and determine ‘should we do it?’.
Develop business cases and author business plans for emerging opportunities.
Contribute to authoring and help refine market requirements and objectives and design requirements and objectives to meet business plan needs.
Collaborate with teams across all business units to align conceptual ideas with technical and business feasibility.
Foster a culture of curiosity, open innovation, and strategic experimentation across Cirrus.
Prepare and deliver presentations that clearly communicate findings and recommendations to leadership.
Communicate effectively and efficiently to diverse audiences, including engineering, marketing, operations, program management, finance, and executive leadership.
Complete assigned tasks on time and budget.
Travel up to 25% may be required.