Director, Strategic Innovation

CoBank • Greenwood Village, CO

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Strategic Innovation leads CoBank's enterprise innovation function and is responsible for translating emerging technologies, market trends, customer needs, and business challenges into practical opportunities that advance the bank's strategy and long-term competitiveness. Working in conjunction with the Strategic Analysis team, this role executes the vision, governance, operating model, and portfolio discipline for innovation across the organization. Working closely with executive leadership and internal stakeholders, the Director leads ideation, research, experimentation, proofs of concept, prototypes, and incubation efforts that can be scaled into business value. The role requires a strategic, entrepreneurial, and highly collaborative leader who can navigate ambiguity, influence across a matrixed environment, communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences, and foster a culture of disciplined innovation, curiosity, and measurable impact. This role is accountable for fostering creativity, driving the development of cutting-edge solutions and delivering tangible value through the consistent delivery of impactful innovation use cases.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Technology, Business, or a related field required
• 12 years of progressive experience in banking, financial services, cooperative finance, agribusiness finance, or another highly regulated environment required
• 7 years of supervisory/management experience required
• 4 years of leadership experience in innovation strategy, product management, digital transformation, venture research, process optimization, customer experience, or related discipline required
• Prior Experience leading cross-functional teams to develop business cases, evaluate technology-enabled opportunities, and deliver proofs of concept, prototypes, or scalable solutions required
• Strong understanding of emerging technologies, fintech trends, data and analytics, artificial intelligence, automation, digital banking, and their potential application in financial services and agriculture-oriented lending.
• Ability to understand modern technology platforms, cloud services, data architecture, application development concepts, and vendor solutions sufficiently to evaluate opportunities and engage credibly with technical teams.
• Familiarity with tech stacks like React, Vue.JS, Node.JS, Python, AWS native services, and other open source software.
• Demonstrated ability to move between strategic executive dialogue and detailed technology, process, product, and operating model discussions.
• Excellent collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams in a matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated experience building business cases, defining success metrics, measuring outcomes, and transitioning successful innovation concepts into implementation pathways.
• Excellent interpersonal, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Ability to interpret technical concepts for various audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multiple workstreams simultaneously.

Responsibilities

• Leads CoBank’s Strategic Innovation function, including direct people leadership, operating model development, portfolio management, and cross-functional engagement to identify, evaluate, and advance high-value innovation opportunities.
• Drives the innovation planning process and guide technology innovation roadmaps aligned to CoBank’s strategy and priorities.
• Manages the innovation portfolio and concept pipeline from discovery through ideation, business case articulation, proof of concept, prototype, incubation, and development. Responsible for innovation budget recommendations and resource allocation decisions.
• Collaborates effectively with a dedicated team of software development professionals to deliver innovation use cases that drive business value and that are compatible with the bank’s broader information technology environment, roadmap and business processes.
• Partners with internal stakeholders to evaluate feasibility, manage risks, define success measures, and ensure innovation efforts are practical, secure, compliant, and scalable. Establish innovation performance metrics and reporting to executive leadership.
• Engages executives, senior leaders, product owners, technologists, and subject matter experts to understand business needs, frame problems, prioritize opportunities, and guide solution development using agile, iterative, and human-centered approaches.
• Collaborates with stakeholders to understand business needs and challenges. Collaborate with data, technology, and operations to develop potential solutions within an agile framework.
• Builds innovation capability across the organization by facilitating idea generation, experimentation, knowledge sharing, change adoption, and disciplined learning from successes and failures.
• Conducts market research to identify capability gaps and opportunities for new innovation.
• Identifies and cultivate strategic partnerships with fintechs, startups and other external partners to enhance innovation capabilities.
• Represents CoBank as a credible thought leader on innovation, emerging technology, and financial services modernization within relevant industry forums, particularly across the Farm Credit System.
• As a people manager at CoBank, you will be expected to manage and lead associates. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, associate performance management, talent strategy, workforce planning, change management, conflict resolution, and relationship management. You will drive and be accountable for the team’s development, alignment with the division’s objectives, as well as with CoBank’s strategy and mission.

Benefits

• Time-Off Packages, 20 days of vacation, 10 paid sick days and 11 paid holidays
• Competitive Compensation & Incentive
• Benefits Packages, including Medical, Dental and Vision coverage, Disability, AD&D, and Life Insurance
• Robust associate training and development with CoBank University
• Tuition reimbursement for higher education
• Outstanding 401k: up to 6% matching and additional 3% non-elective contribution & Student Loan Match
• Community Impact: United Way Angel Day, Volunteer Day and Associate Directed Contribution
• Associate Resource Groups: creating a culture of respect and inclusion
• Recognize a fellow associate through our GEM awards

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director