Innovation Research Functional Lead

Brown Brothers Harriman•Jersey City, NJ

6d•$160,000 - $220,000

About The Position

Brown Brothers Harriman is seeking a Research Functional Lead to join Cable 5, its innovation practice, which identifies, investigates, and incubates potential new businesses through a stage-gated process from idea sourcing to MVP. This senior leadership role guides early-stage research strategy, concept development, and business design for new product concepts. The Research Functional Lead works across market research and business design, guiding concept teams from idea to product launch. The role provides tools, frameworks, and approaches that prioritize testing the most critical hypotheses first. Concepts are evaluated by validating that a relevant market problem exists, that a defensible solution and business model address it, and that the solution can be built. The role also helps lead the ongoing transformation of the research function and broader innovation practice, develops repeatable research capabilities, supports the use of AI tools for research, and contributes to talent management and development.

Requirements

10–15 years of experience in research, business design, innovation, and new product development.
Ability to translate research into business strategy and concept validation.
Strong understanding of market sizing, opportunity analysis, and early-stage product discovery.
Fluency in qualitative research methods, such as ethnography, blinded interviews, and prototype testing.
Experience working cross-functionally with product, design, engineering, and analytics.
Comfort navigating ambiguity, lean testing, and agile ways of working.
Experience building, managing, and developing a research team across multiple working concepts.
Ability to manage a complex ecosystem of internal subject matter experts and sponsors.
Ability to carry research into design practices and frameworks, such as value-chain building, journey mapping, and developing primary research stimuli.

Nice To Haves

Experience in financial services or technology.

Responsibilities

Lead the research and business design function across concept pods focused on early-stage innovation.
Work with Product, Design, Engineering, and Applied Intelligence Functional Leads and the Market Opportunity Development team to advance ideas from concept to market.
Own validation of market size and financial modeling for new concepts to ensure alignment with revenue growth goals.
Define and implement research plans to test customer desirability, market-size potential, and solution-shape options.
Guide researchers in qualitative and quantitative methods, including expert and customer-segment interviews, desk research, and early market testing.
Support iteration of concept direction based on research insights and sponsor feedback.
Develop repeatable frameworks and tools to scale research across the innovation portfolio, with potential use across the broader organization.
Collaborate with the Applied Intelligence Functional Lead to pursue and support implementation of AI tools and prompting techniques for thoughtful, accurate, independent, and sourceable research outputs.
As a senior leadership team member, lead continuous transformation of the research function and broader innovation practice to incorporate modern capabilities and technologies.
Participate in talent management, identify and develop innovation research talent, assess talent, and use and improve competency models.