Monroe Consulting Group, an Executive Recruitment firm, is partnering with an organisation in the logistics sector to hire a Head of Innovation & Partnerships (Transformation & Digital Division) This opportunity is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Position Overview
This role provides strategic leadership over enterprise transformation, innovation strategy, and external partnerships across the organisation. It plays a critical role in shaping long‑term competitiveness, value realisation, and ecosystem‑driven growth.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Ownership & Enterprise Impact
- Take full ownership of the Transformation & Digital strategy lifecycle, from ideation and strategic framing through prioritisation, execution governance, and value realisation.
- Translate enterprise and Group strategy into clear strategic themes, roadmaps, and initiatives that drive transformation, growth, efficiency, and long‑term competitiveness.
- Establish disciplined strategy governance rhythms, including portfolio prioritisation, quarterly strategy reviews, and outcome tracking.
- Ensure strategy moves beyond planning into delivered, adopted, and measurable business outcomes.
- Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to the Head of Strategy & Planning and Transformation & Digital leadership on strategic trade‑offs, emerging opportunities, and transformation priorities.
Innovation Strategy & Operating Model Leadership
- Design, develop, and continuously evolve the Innovation Strategy, ensuring strong alignment with organisational strategy and the Group transformation programme.
- Build and operate a structured innovation operating model, covering opportunity sourcing, ideation, validation, incubation, piloting, and scaling.
- Establish innovation governance, funding models, risk controls, and decision frameworks that balance agility with enterprise discipline.
- Institutionalise innovation by creating repeatable systems, playbooks, and governance, not one‑off initiatives.
Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem Orchestration
- Establish and lead the Innovation Circle, defining its purpose, membership model, governance, cadence, and joint outcomes.
- Identify, originate, structure, and operationalise strategic partnerships with:
- Government bodies and regulators
- Other GLCs and public‑sector entities
- Universities, research institutions, and subject‑matter experts
- Technology partners, startups, accelerators, and venture capital players
- Industry bodies and professional associations
- Work closely with Legal, Procurement, Risk, and Compliance teams to ensure partnerships are governed responsibly, transparently, and sustainably.
Cross‑Functional Leadership & Influence
- Act as a connector across business units, technology teams, operations, and corporate functions to ensure alignment and shared ownership of strategic outcomes.
- Partner closely with PMO, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Risk, Data Governance, and Cybersecurity to embed strategy and innovation into enterprise execution.
- Break down silos and foster a one‑team mindset across internal teams and external partners.
- Influence senior stakeholders without formal authority, aligning diverse perspectives toward common objectives.
Agile Strategy & Execution
- Develop and maintain forward‑looking, adaptable strategy and innovation roadmaps that respond to changing business needs, market dynamics, and technology trends.
- Champion agile, iterative ways of working across strategy and innovation initiatives, driving faster learning, quicker pilots, and informed scale decisions.
- Enable rapid experimentation while maintaining clear decision rights, risk management, and executive visibility.
Culture, Capability & Continuous Improvement
- Champion a culture of curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement across Transformation & Digital and the wider organisation.
- Build innovation capability through playbooks, toolkits, training, communities of practice, and thought leadership.
- Ensure innovation initiatives are grounded in clear value hypotheses, adoption plans, and success metrics from day one.
- Continuously scan the external landscape for emerging technologies, business models, and partnership opportunities relevant to the organisation.
Outcome‑Driven, Customer‑Centric Strategy
- Anchor all strategy, innovation, and partnership initiatives in real customer, employee, and enterprise needs.
- Translate innovation into tangible improvements in customer experience, service reliability, operational efficiency, and new revenue generation.
- Support business leaders in prioritising initiatives that deliver the highest value to customers and stakeholders.
- Measure success through adoption, satisfaction, and sustained business impact, not activity.
Key Requirements
Qualifications & Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Technology, or a related field; MBA or equivalent strongly preferred.
- 12+ years of experience in strategy, innovation, partnerships, transformation, or corporate development, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
- Strong preference for candidates with prior experience in Big 4 strategy consulting firms, particularly those who have led enterprise or function‑level strategy engagements, designed operating models and governance frameworks, and driven execution and change beyond slide delivery.
- Proven experience building or leading innovation labs, centres of excellence, venture studios, or structured innovation programmes within large or complex organisations.
- Demonstrated track record of delivering innovation initiatives from concept to pilot to scale with measurable business adoption, value realisation, and organisational capability uplift.
Technical / Functional Expertise
- Deep expertise across innovation strategy, governance, and operating models.
- Strong understanding of enterprise strategy development, portfolio management, and execution governance.
- Hands‑on experience in partnership origination, structuring, and lifecycle management.
- Strong familiarity with the Malaysian innovation ecosystem, including public and private funding mechanisms, startups, scale‑ups, and venture players relevant to logistics, e‑commerce, data, AI, and platform‑based business models.
- Proven ability to codify practical methods into repeatable playbooks, frameworks, and tools for enterprise adoption.
Soft Skills & Leadership Competencies
- Builder mindset with the ability to create systems, platforms, and operating models.
- Strong outcome orientation with relentless focus on measurable value and adoption.
- High integrity and governance‑first leadership approach.
- High levels of curiosity, learning agility, and comfort operating in ambiguous environments.
- Low‑ego, collaborative leadership style with the ability to orchestrate complex internal and external ecosystems.
