Innovation Consultant - Established Business Strategist in Cambridge

About Innovia

Innovia Technology makes innovation breakthroughs happen for the world’s leading companies. We solve complex innovation challenges and create new opportunities so our clients can outperform competitors and change the world for good.

Our clients include Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, LEGO, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Haleon, Shell, IWC Schaffhausen, Kenvue, Kraft Heinz, and The North Face. Clients work with Innovia Technology because our work leads to products and services that customers prefer - reaching markets faster and more efficiently than any realistic alternative.

The Opportunity

We have a mid-level consulting role that is suited to candidates who are looking to broaden their professional experience, taking on client and project responsibility. The role is ideal for someone with a strong academic background and applied experience who is motivated to pursue a consulting career in a creative, exploratory, and holistic environment.

What’s different about a role at Innovia is that you won’t join an isolated business strategy department, but instead will represent your field by joining project teams composed of experts in other disciplines - from product design to veterinary medicine, theoretical physics, plant science, engineering, behavioural science, and many more. As an Innovation Consultant, you’ll leverage your background in business strategy and broader know-how to solve complex challenges for Innovia’s clients:

• Showing awareness of client-business issues, building these into the way you approach the project.
• Working closely and effectively with consultants from all backgrounds.
• Communicating effectively with team members and clients, including in in-person meetings and workshops.

You will need to be motivated to engage significantly with, or lead projects for a wide variety of clients and sectors, including those for which business strategy is not the key discipline. Whilst experience in managing innovation projects is not a prerequisite for this role, we are looking for someone with the motivation and interest to take on full ownership of complex multidisciplinary innovation projects. We'll work with you to support your development - depending on your past experience this might involve shadowing experienced managers, mentoring or initially taking ownership of less demanding assignments.

Key Responsibilities

Working at Innovia will be different in a number of respects from a traditional role in business or management consultancy: greater variety of projects, stronger focus on early-stage innovation, better work life balance than many business or management consultancy roles, and a wider range of development tracks available – many consultants develop in unique ways, mixing responsibilities in a way that fits with their aspirations.

You will be:

• Helping corporate clients adopt new frameworks and ways of working to be able to navigate transformational change.
• Coaching and challenging corporate R&D teams in the development of new products, services and business models.
• Helping our client’s senior management and R&D teams to define and implement their innovation strategies.
• Supporting Innovia / client innovation teams in understanding commercial needs.
• Demonstrating the impact of innovation to the client corporation.
• Developing and contributing to innovation and business strategy capabilities within Innovia.
• Using your expertise to provide insight into commercial challenges, including market sizing, quantitative modelling and using strategic frameworks.

In addition, you will:

• Bring your expertise to innovation projects across a wide range of sectors.
• Apply structured, analytical, and creative thinking to generate and evaluate early-stage ideas.
• Take on project management of innovation projects, perhaps initially with support or following training. This will involve detailed planning, supplier and client liaison, team coordination, and day-to-day delivery.
• Contribute to selling new projects including creating compelling proposals and work programs, confidently engaging in client discussions, building trust, and persuasively communicating recommendations or concepts.
• Collaborate closely with consultants from different fields, sharing knowledge and skills to aid colleagues, and learning about new technical fields and industries.

The Candidate

You don’t need direct experience of innovation or consultancy, but it is important that you have the skills to build relationships with clients and that you are able to work within the constraints of business and commerce such as tight deadlines, uncertainties, and adapting to client needs.

Essential Capabilities

Technical expertise

• Hold a degree in a business field, or a degree in a STEM field plus a Master’s degree in business, economics or management.
• Have quantitative and qualitative business analysis skills, including e.g. NPV models, market size estimation, analysis of strategic positioning.

Consulting and commercial capability

• Must have experience of presenting to clients/internal stakeholders and in shaping projects to meet defined client or stakeholder objectives.
• Must be able to engage with discussions with clients considering the full breadth of their needs, including commercial priorities and business concerns.
• Have strong communication and storytelling skills, able to explain complex ideas clearly, simply, and persuasively to different audiences.

Collaboration and ways of working

• Are comfortable making informed decisions and progressing work without complete certainty, using sound judgement and clear assumptions.
• Are confident engaging with clients and stakeholders in ambiguous or fast-changing situations, helping shape discussions and bring clarity to complex challenges.
• Are naturally curious and proactive, with the ability to ask insightful questions, listen actively, and identify opportunities to improve outcomes.
• Have a strong interest in disciplines beyond your own, and enthusiasm for multidisciplinary collaboration.
• Are motivated to expand skills in holistic, front-end innovation - working comfortably on projects with higher levels of uncertainty and with broader interdisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrate effective teamwork and delegation, including effective motivation of those you delegate to and supervise.
• Demonstrate self-awareness of personal style and awareness of the needs of the people in the teams or among clients.
• Demonstrate both good judgement and willingness to seek help when required.

Desirable Experience

It would be an advantage (but not essential) if you also:

• Have experience in project or people management.
• Are able to facilitate parts of client meetings and basic interactive sessions (e.g. criteria setting).

Important Practical Considerations

Office attendance: For this role, we offer hybrid working on Mondays and Fridays, but a new joiner is expected to come to the office more frequently in the first few weeks to attend induction meetings and meet with relevant stakeholders.

Remote working: Unfortunately, this role is not suitable for applicants who wish to work 100% remotely.

Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday.

Role type: Permanent

Tech: We primarily use Apple laptops in our business.

Applications deadline: apply as soon as you can to have the best chance of success.

Right to work: The successful candidate must, by the commencement of employment, have the right to work in the UK.

Visa sponsorship: Innovia Technology may be able to sponsor a visa for this role, subject to Home Office eligibility requirements.

Confidentiality: Our clients trust us to work on their most complex and challenging projects. As an Innovation Consultant, you’ll be working directly on commercially sensitive projects. You will need to maintain confidentiality at all times. This means you won’t be able to share detailed information about your work in articles, social media, or public talks unless this is discussed and agreed with Innovia Technology.

Interview Process

Throughout the entire process, we'll explore:

• Your deep knowledge and understanding of business strategy and economics fundamentals
• Your skills in creativity and innovation
• Your aptitude to lead and manage complex interdisciplinary innovation projects

Stage 1: 30-minute technical interview via Zoom, exploring your understanding of subject-specific fundamentals.

Stage 2: If you are selected, you'll be invited to an in-person interview in our offices in Cambridge to further explore your technical skills. The interview will last up to 2.5 hours.

Stage 3: If you are selected to progress to the final stage, you’ll be invited to an in-person consultancy aptitude interview. The interview will last up to 1.5 hours.

How to Apply

Go to the ‘Apply for this job’ button. You’ll answer a few questions and need to upload two documents:

1. Your CV and Academic Transcripts merged in one file (should list the modules with grades you've obtained on your degrees)
2. Your Cover Letter (no more than 1 page long). Your covering letter should briefly describe your skills, motivation and interest in the role.

CV and cover letter files must be up to 15MB to upload.

Benefits

• Free buffet lunch provided daily
• Casual dress code
• Innovation and consultancy training
• True multidisciplinary working and collaboration
• Closely integrated into project teams
• Fully accessible office and adaptations to interview - tell us about your needs
• Free parking and bike racks monitored by CCTV

For more information on our benefits please visit our website: https://www.innoviatech.com/insight/the-benefits-of-working-at-innovia/

Reasonable adjustments

If you are invited to an interview, please let us know if you have any special requirements to support you with by emailing us at hr@innoviatech.com

Our commitment

We are committed to creating a supportive and inclusive workplace, are actively seeking to improve the diversity of our teams and welcome applications from under-represented groups. We treat people equitably regardless of their age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, religion, or political views. We especially encourage applications from people who are members of protected groups.