Director, Innovation Management - Advanced Concepts at Arc'teryx

Job description

Department: Advanced Concepts Reports to: Vice President, Advanced Concepts Location: North Vancouver, BC Your opportunity at Arc’teryx: As a Director, Innovation Management - Advanced Concepts (AC), you direct and lead an interdisciplinary team of innovator, builders, operators, futurists and change-drivers to deliver tangible solutions for the mountain athlete everywhere. You set the direction for the Innovation Management function within the Advanced Concepts team by driving portfolio management, insight and foresight activities, concept strategy, opportunity assessment and tracking, IP portfolio, innovation methodology, operational excellence, and represent the function within the AC Leadership team. You partner cross-functionally to drive incubation, execution and adoption of innovation concepts through the enterprise. In this role, you leverage your passion for delivering industry-shaping solutions to establish and maintain Arc’teryx’ position as a disruptive, bold and relevant design brand. This role is based out of our North Vancouver office. Meet your future team: The Advanced Concepts team drives breakthrough innovation in snow, trail and climb for the mountain athlete everywhere. Fueled by curiosity, we take a holistic approach to identifying future needs and tangible solutions across advanced materials, products, technologies, and experiences. We are a team of builders, problem solvers and outdoor enthusiasts. Our in-house end-to-end capabilities in research, engineering, design, development, digital and validation allow us to innovate head-to-toe solutions that bring the coast mountain experience to the world. Our unique methodology, mindset of sustainability and fanatic passion for product are at the heart of what we do. If you were the Director, Innovation Management - Advanced Concepts, here are some of the core activities you would be doing: Driving and leading the Innovation Management function within the Advanced Concepts team to maintain a strong innovation pipeline Driving and balancing a 3-, 5-, and 10-year innovation portfolio, ensuring the right mix of evolution, revolution, and breakthrough initiatives align to product strategy Defining clear horizon-specific success metrics, risk tolerance, and investment strategies across near- and far-term innovation bets Partnering with Design, Product, Merchandising, Supply Chain and Strategy leadership to translate long-range concepts into seasonal product strategies and drive end-to-end commercialization of innovation concepts, including business case validation, margin targets, and go-to-market alignment Leading AC’s tech‑scouting and foresight programs to fuel far‑future pipeline insights and guide cross‑functional strategy Establishing and managing processes and clear governance frameworks, including stage gates, criteria and investment prioritization models to ensure teams can execute effectively by clearly defining and aligning on the right scope, brief, budget and deliverables, while mobilizing the right team to achieve the required level of quality Identifying and developing scalable innovation platforms (materials, technologies, systems) that unlock multiple product applications over time Establishing and tracking innovation KPIs (e.g., adoption rate, revenue contribution, platform leverage, speed-to-market) Building and curating a strategic ecosystem (startups, academia, suppliers, venture partners) to accelerate differentiated innovation pipelines leading research, building insight, generating unique perspective, creating prototypes and performance validation approach across the innovation portfolio, while holding the highest standard for defining 'state of the art' Embedding innovation pathways into inline product roadmaps, ensuring seamless transition from concept to commercialization Creating and executing strategic and functional direction for internal engineering and design shop testing facilities, in partnership with the VP of Advanced Concepts M