Head of Innovation and Partnerships

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:
o Government bodies and regulators
o Other GLCs and public‑sector entities
o Universities, research institutions, and subject‑matter experts
o Technology partners, startups, accelerators, and venture capital players
o 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.