Director-New Ventures & Service Business Incubation

Alps Alpine•Auburn Hills, MI

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

This role is responsible for building and managing a portfolio of new service business opportunities aligned with strategic priorities. The Director will create original business concepts, source ideas from various external and internal sources, and translate market trends into actionable business opportunities. A key aspect of the role involves establishing a repeatable process for evaluating, prioritizing, and advancing new business ideas, while maintaining a balanced venture pipeline. The position requires a disciplined approach to opportunity assessment, including developing business cases, identifying critical assumptions and risks, and making clear investment recommendations to senior management. Customer discovery, business model validation, and pilot execution are central to the role, requiring direct customer interaction, testing of business models, and leadership of cross-functional teams. Performance measurement through KPIs, evidence-based decision-making, and the ability to quickly close unsuccessful concepts are crucial. The role also involves creating commercialization plans, securing funding, and leading the transition of validated ventures into operating businesses. Budget management, resource allocation, team leadership, and partner/ecosystem development are also key responsibilities. The Director will build and lead high-performing venture teams, coach team members, and develop a venture incubation playbook. Strong communication skills with senior executives and a championing role for service-led business models are expected.

Requirements

Ten or more years of experience in new business development, venture building, business incubation, startup operations, service business development, general management, or a related field.
Five or more years of leadership experience involving cross-functional teams and complex business initiatives.
Demonstrated experience taking at least one new service, platform, product, or business model from concept through market validation and commercial launch.
Direct experience designing and operating pilot programs or test businesses.
Strong experience in customer discovery, value proposition testing, pricing validation, and Go, Pivot, or Stop decision-making.
Strong working knowledge of revenue models, unit economics, budgeting, financial forecasting, investment cases, and P&L fundamentals.
Experience managing budgets and allocating resources across multiple projects.
Experience building teams and recruiting employees or external specialists.
Ability to operate effectively in ambiguous situations without waiting for complete information or a fully established organization.
Experience working across technology, marketing, sales, operations, finance, and legal functions.
Strong partner development, negotiation, and senior stakeholder-management capabilities.
Ability to communicate complex business opportunities and recommendations clearly to executive management.
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience developing, testing, and launching new business or service concepts within a startup, early-stage business, or corporate innovation environment.
Experience building service-based, subscription, membership, digital platform, or B2B2C businesses.
Experience leading customer validation, pilot programs, or test-marketing initiatives.
Experience supporting the transition of a validated concept toward commercial launch.
Strong working knowledge of P&L, unit economics, budgeting, and financial business cases.
Experience developing partnerships and working with external technology or service providers.
Experience working across both entrepreneurial and established corporate environments.
Automotive industry experience is beneficial but not required.
MBA or other advanced degree is preferred but not required.

Responsibilities

Build and manage a portfolio of new service business opportunities aligned with the Business Unit’s strategic priorities.
Create original business concepts and actively source ideas from employees, customers, technology partners, startups, industry experts, and external ecosystems.
Translate market trends, customer problems, company capabilities, and emerging technologies into specific and actionable business opportunities.
Establish a repeatable process for collecting, evaluating, prioritizing, and advancing new business ideas.
Maintain a balanced venture pipeline across near-term, adjacent, and longer-term opportunities.
Develop and apply a disciplined evaluation framework covering customer need, willingness to pay, market potential, strategic fit, competitive advantage, technical feasibility, operational feasibility, regulatory risk, required investment, and potential profitability.
Build initial business cases, including revenue models, cost structures, unit economics, investment requirements, partner economics, and scalability assumptions.
Identify the most critical assumptions and risks that must be validated before additional investment is approved.
Recommend which opportunities should advance to testing, be revised, remain on hold, or be stopped.
Present clear investment recommendations to the Executive Director and other senior management stakeholders.
Lead direct customer discovery, including interviews, surveys, field observation, prototype feedback, pricing tests, and willingness-to-pay studies.
Validate the customer problem before committing significant resources to a solution.
Determine the most appropriate business model, including subscription, transaction, membership, marketplace, B2B, B2B2C, revenue-share, outcome-based, or partner-sponsored models.
Evaluate customer acquisition channels, retention drivers, service delivery requirements, and recurring-revenue potential.
Convert customer and partner feedback into specific changes to the value proposition and business model.
Define the scope, budget, timeline, success criteria, failure criteria, and decision gates for each test business.
Assume leadership of selected projects that may already be in customer validation, pilot, or test-marketing stages at the time of hire.
Launch new minimum viable services, prototypes, test-marketing programs, and commercial pilots.
Lead cross-functional pilot teams involving product, engineering, software, data, sales, marketing, finance, legal, customer support, and operations.
Secure the internal and external resources required to launch and operate each test business.
Establish operating processes that allow the team to test the complete customer experience, rather than only the underlying technology.
Resolve execution barriers and keep pilots moving toward defined learning and decision milestones.
Establish measurable KPIs before each pilot begins.
Track customer engagement, conversion, willingness to pay, retention, service utilization, partner participation, operational performance, unit economics, and scalability.
Separate actual market evidence from assumptions, enthusiasm, or internal opinion.
Determine, within an agreed test period, whether each venture should be scaled, modified, retested, paused, or discontinued.
Prepare concise and fact-based Go, Pivot, or Stop recommendations for the Executive Director.
Ensure that unsuccessful concepts are closed quickly and constructively, with key learning captured for future ventures.
Create an investment-grade commercialization plan for validated opportunities.
Define the go-to-market strategy, operating model, organizational requirements, technology roadmap, partner ecosystem, financial plan, and implementation milestones.
Secure executive approval and funding for commercialization.
Lead the transition from pilot or test marketing into a fully operating commercial business.
Establish the leadership, organizational structure, processes, and performance management system required for scale.
Determine when a validated venture should remain within the incubation team, transition to an existing organization, or become a dedicated new business operation.
Own and manage the approved new business development and pilot budget.
Allocate resources across projects based on strategic priority, market evidence, risk, and commercial potential.
Lead an initial team consisting of two direct reports, with support and oversight from the Deputy to the Executive Director.
Recruit additional employees, contractors, specialists, or external partners as required to build and scale new businesses.
Develop staffing and organizational plans for ventures moving from test marketing into commercial operation.
Maintain appropriate financial controls and provide regular budget and investment updates to management.
Identify and recruit strategic partners needed to complete the customer value proposition.
Develop relationships with technology providers, service operators, distributors, retailers, insurers, dealers, consumer platforms, and other potential ecosystem participants.
Structure pilot agreements and commercial models that appropriately allocate risk, investment, data rights, revenue, and future upside.
Lead commercial negotiations in cooperation with legal, finance, procurement, and executive stakeholders.
Validate that partners receive sufficient economic and operational value to support long-term participation.
Build and lead small, high-performing, cross-functional venture teams.
Create a working environment that combines entrepreneurial speed with appropriate corporate governance.
Coach team members in customer discovery, experimentation, business modeling, financial analysis, and evidence-based decision-making.
Build a repeatable venture incubation playbook for use across future service business initiatives.
Communicate progress, risks, learning, financial requirements, and decisions clearly to senior executives.
Serve as a champion for service-led and recurring-revenue business models across the organization.