Senior/Lead Innovation Advisor

Marathon Petroleum Corporation•Findlay, OH

4d•Onsite

About The Position

The Innovation Advisor serves as VCO's subject matter expert for innovation, experimentation, and emerging capabilities within the Plan-to-Produce process. The role provides strategic guidance on innovation opportunities, emerging technologies, and new methods of working, helping leaders identify, prioritize, and evaluate initiatives that improve decision quality, operational performance, and business value. The Innovation Advisor applies deep expertise in innovation management, optimization, analytics, automation, and business transformation to help VCO determine where innovation investment and experimentation can create the greatest impact. The role leads development and management of the VCO innovation portfolio from opportunity discovery through pilot execution, business value assessment, and transition readiness. Responsibilities include identifying unmet business needs, researching emerging technologies and industry trends, establishing experimentation strategies, framing innovation opportunities, guiding pilot execution, and developing recommendations that influence process, technology, and transformation decisions. Successful innovations are transitioned to the appropriate process, technology, or implementation teams for broader development, standardization, and deployment. The Innovation Advisor serves as an internal consultant across VCO, partnering with Planning, Commercial, Digital, Operations Research, and other stakeholders to evaluate complex business challenges and identify opportunities for innovation-driven improvement. This role provides technical and methodological leadership for innovation initiatives, helping establish best practices, experimentation standards, and repeatable approaches that improve innovation effectiveness across the organization. The position may lead highly visible cross-functional initiatives involving multiple organizations, competing priorities, and moderate organizational complexity. Through this work, the Innovation Advisor helps shape VCO's innovation agenda, accelerate organizational learning, and create sustainable pathways from emerging concepts to enterprise value realization.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Operations Research, Data Science, or a related field or similar demonstrated experience.
Four (4) or more years of relevant experience in innovation, optimization, operations research, advanced analytics, process improvement, digital transformation, business transformation, or related disciplines (for Senior Innovation Advisor).
Eight (8) or more years of relevant experience in innovation, optimization, operations research, advanced analytics, process improvement, digital transformation, business transformation, or related disciplines (for Lead Innovation Advisor).
Demonstrated leadership of complex cross-functional initiatives involving multiple stakeholder groups, competing priorities, and moderate organizational complexity.
Experience assessing emerging technologies, developing business cases, and translating innovation concepts into practical business applications.
Ability to explore, prototype, and test new concepts in ambiguous environments while driving structured experimentation, learning, and business value evaluation.
Ability to plan, coordinate, and manage innovation initiatives, pilots, and proofs‑of‑concept from concept through completion including coordination of cross-functional pilots, innovation initiatives, and transformation activities.
Solid grounding in optimization, modeling, analytics, decision-support methods, or digital business capabilities, with curiosity for emerging technologies and innovative approaches.
Effective at engaging planning, digital, technical, and business partners, synthesizing diverse perspectives, identifying common business priorities, and advancing innovation initiatives without direct authority.
Ability to assess emerging technologies, intelligent automation capabilities, and AI-enabled business solutions for potential application, scalability, and value creation.
Ability to assess emerging business and technology trends, identify high-value opportunities, and translate them into practical innovation themes, pilot concepts, and business recommendations.
Recognized ability to serve as a trusted advisor to business leaders, translating emerging technologies, business challenges, and innovation opportunities into actionable recommendations, investment priorities, and transformation initiatives.

Responsibilities

Serves as the subject matter expert and internal consultant for innovation, experimentation, and emerging capabilities within the Plan-to-Produce process, advising business leaders on opportunities, risks, and potential value.
Builds and manages the VCO innovation portfolio, helping prioritize opportunities and advance experimentation efforts aligned with business objectives and transformation goals.
Identifies unmet business needs, capability gaps, and emerging opportunities through engagement with planners, schedulers, optimizers, and business stakeholders across the value chain.
Researches emerging technologies, methodologies, and industry trends related to planning, optimization, analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, and digital decision support, translating findings into actionable innovation opportunities.
Applies structured experimentation methods, evaluation criteria, and innovation frameworks to assess and compare innovation opportunities.
Leads pilots, prototypes, proofs of concept, and other complex innovation initiatives, providing technical and methodological leadership throughout experimentation activities.
Leads evaluation of complex business challenges and innovation opportunities using broad business, process, and technology perspectives to recommend solutions, investment decisions, and transformation pathways.
Assesses technical feasibility, scalability, organizational readiness, strategic alignment, implementation considerations, and business value to guide progression, expansion, transition, or retirement decisions.
Supports the development and adoption of innovation best practices and standard methodologies that improve the effectiveness and consistency of experimentation activities.
Leads cross-functional teams and stakeholders in the planning and execution of innovation initiatives with moderate complexity, organizational impact, and resource requirements.
Owns innovation initiatives through pilot evaluation and transition readiness, partnering with implementation teams to advance successful concepts into broader development, standardization, deployment, or operating-model integration pathways.
Synthesizes findings, lessons learned, and value realization opportunities into recommendations that influence future process improvements, technology investments, capability development, and transformation priorities.