Director of Innovation

Who we are...

Verra Mobility is a global leader in smart mobility. We develop technology-enabled solutions that help the world move safely and easily. We are fostering the development of safe cities, working with police departments and municipalities to install over 4,000 red-light, speed, and school bus stop arm safety cameras across North America. We are also creating smart roadways, serving the world's largest commercial fleets and rental car companies to manage tolling transactions and violations for over 8.5 million vehicles. And we are a leading provider of connected systems, processing nearly 165 million transactions each year across 50 individual tolling authorities. 

Position Overview

Director of Innovation at Verra Mobility, Government Solutions will lead a global team of highly passionate innovators and dreamers who engage customers and partners to identify market opportunities and create next generation of Safety and Mobility solutions that bring long-term value to Verra Mobility.

• This role exhibits a high degree of competence in the following areas:
  
  
  
  • Leadership, ideally experience leading geographically distributed global teams
  
  
  • Innovative thinking, with demonstrative top and bottom-line results
  
  
  • Market evaluation, ideally experience in distilling market insights to develop business strategies
  
  
  • Customer centricity, ideally experience with customers in multiple industries
  
  
  • Entrepreneurial drive, ideally experience in early-stage technology development
  
  
  • Product management, ideally with a balanced engineering & business background
  
  
  • Project management, ideally across multiple functional groups and internal/external teams
  
  
  • Relationship management, ideally direct experience working with customers
  
  
  • Persuasion, ideally experience communicating and influencing executive decisions
  
  

• The director of innovation will drive market and customer input to the strategic vision that will lead to scalable and repeatable competencies. This will be done by leveraging subject matter experts and collaborating with key stakeholders and its lines of business to drive best value through Verra Mobility’s innovation initiatives. Key traits include:
  
  
  
  • Industry working knowledge, ideally transportation and/or government sector
  
  
  • Domain working knowledge, ideally in automation, security, and data analytics
  
  
  • Product and marketing experience, ideally with both B2B and B2G models
  
  
  • Working knowledge across lines of business, including software engineering, product architecture, product management, and supporting functions such as finance, marketing, and operations
  
  

Essential Responsibilities

• Customer and Market Centricity
  
  
  
  • Create a market intelligence model to define the current market state, evaluate competitive position, identify growth opportunities, and help develop and deliver strategic innovation roadmap
  
  
  • Build a customer engagement model to consolidate cross-industry customer insights and drive Verra Mobility’s strategic plans for growth
  
  
  • Evaluate and review impact of emerging technology trends and incorporate into strategic innovation roadmap
  
  
  • Transform industry perception of Verra Mobility as an innovation leader
  
  

• Strategy and Opportunity Assessment
  
  
  
  • Help validate high growth opportunities and build a pipeline of Proof of Concepts with strategic customers
  
  
  • Assess potential partners based-on fit with Verra Mobility core competencies and estimate potential value-capture and risks
  
  
  • Potentially work with startups, universities, and public partnerships to validate new markets and far-out ideas
  
  
  • Create and communicate the long-term strategic Horizon 2 & 3 customer value and deliver long-term growth options and roadmap
  
  
  • Align across Verra Mobility on long-term growth strategy and priorities and help build and benchmark relevant growth KPIs
  
  

• People Leadership and Management
  
  
  
  • Build and foster highly competent team of experts & leaders driving Verra Mobility core values and fostering culture of innovation thinking
  
  
  • Help build bridges across the organization to firm up fruitful collaborations with engineering, product, strategy, finance, sales, marketing, HR, and operations
  
  
  • Provide strategic consulting and analytics to executive management and key business stakeholders on innovation strategies and risks
  
  

Competencies and Skills

• Innovation competencies
  
  
  
  • Champion market intelligence and consolidation of inputs and feedbacks from customers
  
  
  • Track emerging trends & develop novel ideas in a rapidly changing market
  
  
  • Take calculated risks and decide on a definite course of action
  
  
  • Redefine the business models and change the rules of the game
  
  
  • Lead solutions test and validation with customers/partners
  
  

• Influence competencies
  
  
  
  • Build and maintain a network of influence and support
  
  
  • Create and maintain strong long-term relationships within/out of the company
  
  
  • Able to navigate the balance of power and influence decision making at various decision points
  
  

• Leadership and strategy skills
  
  
  
  • Decision making in the context of big picture and long-term implications (disruptive innovation vs. sustaining innovation)
  
  
  • Commitment to customers/partners during complex engagements
  
  
  • Metrics-driven, result-oriented and agile execution
  
  
  • Team management/growth and agile execution
  
  
  • Innovative use of organizational capabilities
  
  

Qualifications

• 10 experience in product innovation and management in technology companies


• 7 years in direct leadership and/or cross functional team leadership experience (ideally with culturally diverse and geographically distributed teams)


• Demonstrated ability to successfully influence senior management and critical stakeholders and to communicate the group’s vision and accomplishments.


• Highly developed business acumen, strategic planning, organizational assessment, and process engineering skills


• Experience in creating and interpreting analytics to translate into ideas and/or actionable recommendations (preferred experience in market assessment, statistical analysis, financial projection, SWOT, and business case creation)


• Creative and strategic thinker, with excellent problem-solving skills and ability to manage culturally diverse internal and external customers, changing market requirements and shifting priorities


• Experience in public speaking and keynote presentations at industry events.


• Outstanding written and oral communication skills


• BA/BS Degree required


• MBA is highly preferred

Aligned with Verra Mobility Values: 

• Do What’s Right – We’re committed to doing the right thing for each other and for our customers – integrity is our DNA.


• Lead With Grace – We embrace the importance of our colleagues and customers and always treat them with kindness and grace.


• Own It – We foster a culture of accountability and excellence, where going the extra mile is standard practice.


• Win Together – We are ambitious and like to win, but we know we win more when we include others and work together.