Manager, Innovation

About the Role

We seek driven and inventive professionals passionate about impacting the aviation sector. You will join the corporate innovation team responsible for developing frameworks, enabling mechanisms, and partnerships that promote innovation throughout Changi Airport.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with innovators from different departments and business units to clearly define innovation pilot programs, refine problem definitions, delineate desired outcomes, and create efficient pilots aligned with CAG's strategic objectives.
• Manage the enterprise innovation budget, including annual planning and allocation of funds.
• Identify and communicate complex strategic innovation challenges to senior leadership, providing well-analyzed recommendations and making portfolio trade-offs where necessary.
• Continuously monitor both local and international trends in emerging technologies, industry disruptions, and competitor activity to uncover opportunities that enhance CAG's innovation pipeline and long-term competitive advantage.
• Serve as a strategic advisor to innovators within CAG by facilitating workshops on future operating models, discovering innovation opportunities, and guiding technology roadmaps grounded in strategy and operational needs.
• Develop and promote a unified innovation framework and evaluation criteria across the organization to establish a common language around experimentation.
• Partner with product owners to support the commercialization of intellectual property arising from innovation efforts.

Required Competencies

• Strategic and analytical thinking: Ability to integrate technology and market trends with organizational goals into a clear innovation agenda.
• Comfort with uncertainty: Move confidently forward without complete information, manage competing priorities, and maintain focus despite ambiguity.
• Stakeholder engagement: Skilled in managing diverse relationships, understanding when to provide guidance, when to challenge, and when to defer decisions.
• Strong communication: Can translate complex and ambiguous situations into clear, persuasive narratives that facilitate senior management decision-making.
• Technology literacy: Knowledgeable across a broad spectrum of technologies, capable of evaluating opportunities realistically and distinguishing true potential from hype.
• Business insight: Ability to conduct financial modeling for project evaluations and craft termsheets for commercialization collaborations.

Preferred Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent qualification.
• At least 5 years of relevant experience in innovation management, corporate strategy, management consulting, technology advisory, or related fields.
• Experience working in large, matrixed organizations, ideally within sectors such as aviation, infrastructure, real estate, hospitality, or technology.
• Familiarity with project appraisal and financial performance assessment is beneficial.
• Prior involvement with senior stakeholder management, including preparing materials and presentations for C-level executives or equivalent leaders.