Steps To Recruiting An Innovation Director

So how do you go about recruiting an innovation director? In this blog post, we'll outline a few steps that will help you find the best candidate for the job!

Recruiting an Innovation Director or innovation leader for your business is probably in the top 3 key strategic decisions you will ever make. Get it right and your company will fly, get it wrong and it will be a very painful and costly exercise that could put your company back months or years against your strategy.

We recruit a lot of innovation leaders for our clients all over the world and across a broad range of industries. The most important thing we advise our clients on is taking the opportunity to think outside of your usual ideal profile. Do not look with blinkers at your competitors, and you are presented with the opportunity to make a disruptive but progressive hire.

Recruiting from competitors can be great but you should also include the following factors in your decision-making process;

• Their ability to build a followership and take people on the journey with them
• Are they passionate about new solutions?
• Do they think in terms of scale; scaling solutions and services?
• Are they able to bring together multiple functions to deliver – technical, sales, marketing – all moving in the same direction?
• Are they thinking about the future landscape, new technology, industry trends?
• Do they still demonstrate an appetite to learn and grow, is personal development important to them?
• Have they worked in different industries and can bring different perspectives?
• Are they out at exhibitions, giving public presentations or published in their field?
• Are they motivated for the right reasons or is it all about financial rewards?
• Can they demonstrate an ability to take a strategy/roadmap and bring this to life, with tangible business objectives?
• Do they have a proven track record of making quality decisions consistently?

There are a few additional factors to keep in mind when recruiting an innovation director:

1. Look for someone with a track record of driving innovation.

When recruiting an innovation director, it's important to find someone who has a proven track record of driving change and innovation within an organization. This person will need to be able to not only come up with new ideas, but also implement them successfully.

2. Look for someone with strong leadership skills.

In order to be successful, the innovation director will need to be able to lead and motivate the team. They'll need to be able to inspire others to buy into their vision and work towards common goals.

3. Find someone who is open to change.

The world of business is constantly changing, and the innovation director will need to be adaptable and willing to change with it. They'll need to be able to roll with the punches and think on their feet.

Recruiting an Innovation Leader is certainly not something you should do lightly and so I hope the above questions help you to appoint the right one for your business. If you need support recruiting a new innovation director or senior leadership please make contact. We provide a stress free, tailored, data-led approach ensuring you get the right leader first time. See our case studies from delighted clients some of whom had never used an Executive Search Firm and others who chose Collingwood Executive Search as their partner based on our aligned values and exceptional reputation of quality and service.