Strategic Partnerships & Open Innovation Director - SB&I Lab - ,

About the SB&I Lab

The Sustainable Business & Innovation (SB&I) Lab is a new strategic investment program to enable and accelerate Nike's growth through sustainability. The Lab will help Nike's business units achieve their visionary sustainability goals by procuring external innovation and business models that can 'jump the curb' and plug the gaps in our sustainability innovation pipeline. With a focus on speeding and scaling up the biggest sustainability wins, the Lab will build Nike expertise in structuring the most effective commercial & contractual partnerships for sustainability innovation with startups, entrepreneurs, research institutions, non-profits and other corporations. Using multiple tools to achieve this mission, the Lab will invest in early and growth stage businesses, form partnerships and alliances with institutions, governments and NGOs, utilize open innovation tools, and provide business model assistance.

The Lab will focus on two portfolios critical to Nike's sustainability vision, resilience and long-term business growth:

1. Closed Loop - A vision for zero waste of natural resources in a product's journey from raw materials to finished state to post-consumer stage, and

2. Activating the Inactive - Motivating and inspiring inactive populations to lead more active and healthy lives.

Overall, The Lab will complement Nike's internal research and innovation for sustainability. It will play a critical role in enabling Nike to thrive in a resource constrained world and to improve lives through activity.

As the Director of Strategic Partnerships and Open Innovation, you will be reporting to the General Manager of the SB&I Lab and responsible for four key priorities:

1. Leveraging partnerships & open innovation to source future sustainability investments - The Lab's Strategic Partnerships role will work with the Lab's investment partner roles to shape and utilize new partnerships reduce the costs and accelerate the time to execution of finding, sourcing and bringing to scale the sustainability innovations that the Lab is looking for across its two sustainability portfolios. Much of the innovation that Nike's sustainability vision requires is happening beyond its doors. This innovation is diffused geographically as well as across different institutions, sectors and sources. Some will need to be assembled and stitched together as new business models across several systems and industries to make the underlying economics and scale feasible.

2. Designing and managing strategic partnerships for new business models and eco-systems. This role will partner with the internal Nike teams to identify, create and stimulate the cross-industry and cross-sector alliances that will be required to fund and incubate new business models along the Lab's two portfolios. This will include managing and developing the SB&I Lab's current partnerships like the GreenXchange, LAUNCH etc. In particular, this role will be hands-on in developing and managing high-value and long-term partnerships for the Lab with major institutions, foundations, corporate and large investors. This will involve taking a sophisticated approach, including the critical steps of prospect identification and targeting, value proposition development, business model alignment among multiple parties, negotiation and close.

3. Stimulating the pipeline for the SB&I Lab's investment portfolios. While the SB&I Lab's investment team will be focused on near-term deals and investment opportunities, this role will be critical in developing the long-term pipeline through (i) creating strategic partnerships with the major open innovation platforms, (ii) grafting a sustainable business model agenda (aligned with Lab's portfolios) on to the leading global business model competitions, (iii) designing a process and partnerships for the Lab to source sustainability innovations from emerging markets, and (iv) developing partnerships with 'proof-of-concept' / incubation / commercialization centers at leading universities. A prerequisite for these activities is the ability to envision and articulate an overarching architecture for each of the two initiatives, what pieces will be needed, and how the pieces will come together.

4. Managing external communications & positioning of the SB&I Lab. The SB&I Lab has no peers today in the corporate investing world. There are sustainability-minded investment groups but few of these aim to drive systemic change across both the environmental and health & wellness arenas. The Lab's deal flow and capacity to move the needle on its two portfolios, will be dependent on (i) how well the Lab's vision and investment strategy is articulated, (ii) ensuring that key stakeholders know of the Lab and how to engage it and (iii) the Lab's message is consistently heard at the right forums. This role will be responsible for all three objectives. In addition to driving strong marketing efforts, he/she will deliver presentations, seminars and speeches to relevant audiences to enhance the Lab's reputation and stature within the industry. The role will also be responsible for managing the Lab's external advisor / expert network. The role will also be partnering with the Lab lead and the two investment portfolio leads to craft the internal Nike communications and positioning for the Lab.

The ideal candidate will have proven experience leading strategic account or partnership development, which may include significant open innovation platforms. Experience in working within a strategic investment group (whether venture capital or mission-related investing) will particularly be highly valued. A deep understanding of open innovation principles and players will be important for the success of this role. This includes experience with technology platforms and community management. In addition, knowledge of either / both of the Lab's portfolio areas will be viewed favorably.

We seek evidence of competence in the following critical areas:

· Results Orientation. The successful candidate will be energized by a challenge and have a track record of meeting and exceeding goals by overcoming obstacles and finding creative solutions and approaches to delivering results. He/she will have a history of taking initiative and developing new ideas against which investments can be made. A strong intellect and superior skills in communication, interpersonal relations and presentation, combined with a sense of urgency, drive, initiative and integrity, will be keys to success.

· Sustainability Impact. The successful candidate will bring a history of shaping and leading strategic partnerships for market-based solutions to address large sustainability issues. This individual will be passionate about making a positive difference through innovative new business models. In addition, this individual will be able to point to examples where they have quickly established credibility and new relationships within a nascent industry, enhancing his/her organization's profile in the process. This individual will have a track record of building win-win propositions that result in profitable, long-term partnerships. Finally, the successful candidate will also bring strong negotiation experience, in particular the proven ability to successfully manage complex, lengthy and multi-faceted partnership discussions through to conclusion.

· Commercial Orientation. The successful candidate will ideally bring experience of alliance development and management or partner management within a commercial / business development / investment context, combined with strong business acumen. He/she will possess the ability to quickly develop new insights by synthesizing and integrating information from multiple sources, and demonstrating the ability to move decisively.

· Team Leadership & Collaboration Skills. The successful candidate will be actively engaged in partnering within the Lab's team, the larger Nike Sustainability team, the even larger Nike team in addition to the potential external partners. He/she must be team oriented and adept at collaborative consultation, while also prepared to act with conviction and stand behind and take responsibility for decisions and actions.

SB&I Integration Director - ,

The Sustainable Business & Innovation (SB&I) function will enable Nike to thrive in a resource constrained world by accelerating Nike's transition to a mix of more sustainable, resilient and innovative business models.

The Integration and Ops team is one amongst six teams that make up the global approx 130 people strong SB&I function at Nike. The other five SB&I teams are:

(i) The Sustainable Design team - Educating, coaching and partnering with Nike's design and product innovation functions to drive more sustainable design decisions, processes and practices

(ii) The Sustainable Manufacturing & Sourcing team - Educating, coaching and partnering with Nike's manufacturing, operations, sourcing & supply chain functions to drive a lean, green and empowered supply chain

(iii) The Sustainable Marketplace team - Educating, coaching and partnering with Nike's consumer-facing functions (the territory, category and retail teams) to create a competitive advantage from sustainability in the marketplace

(iv) The Sustainable Business Lab - a strategic investment program to drive Nike growth through the procurement of sustainability innovation and investments in new more sustainable business models

(v) The Mobilize team - Mobilizing Nike employees and external stakeholders (civil society, industry associations, non-profits, advocacy groups etc) around Nike's sustainability advocacy plan

The Business Integration & Operations team

The Integration and Ops team will be a new group within SB&I, formed in part from the previous SB&I operations team. It will consist of two sub-teams:

a) A Center of Excellence (CoE) on Sustainability Integration - to help the SB&I teams and key Nike leadership in having a consistent and comprehensive approach to defining, communicating and measuring sustainability (as relevant to each business unit) and embedding sustainability in their business processes, practices and policies.

b) A Business Operations team - to help SB&I leadership better run their global teams by having effective, predictable and efficient business strategy, planning, budgeting, accounting, project & portfolio management and IT processes.

Beyond functional responsibilities, the Director of the Business Integration & Ops team will have to develop a new team and culture, refine its vision and 3 year strategy and then communicate it to internal SB&I teams and stakeholders.

Role's Responsibilities

As our Director for Business Integration & Ops, you'll the pivotal architect of the enterprise-wide change management effort being driven by SB&I to embed sustainability across all Nike's key business processes, practices and policies. You'll partner with and actively coach the SB&I leadership team on how to engage, educate and drive change in the Nike business units that they influence. To do this, you'll set a vision and prioritized roadmap for integrating sustainability into Nike's strategy-setting and decision-making processes, calendars and business support systems. You'll manage and guide the lead for the Business Integration CoE - and help the person define sustainability standards & targets, best practices, standard toolkits and processes that will enable the SB&I teams in educating, inspiring and managing change in their corresponding Nike business units. You'll guide the CoE lead in the annual integration review to (i) map the maturity & status on integration efforts and relationships, (ii) do a gap analysis of critical integration topics and stakeholders, and (iii) plan 2 year integration strategy, priorities, activities, resources etc.

You'll also manage and guide the Business Operations lead, ensuring that the team delivers operational excellence around sustainability performance management, sustainability reporting, information / data management, project accounting, and technology / systems etc. You'll lead the integration CoE and Operations teams in designing and executing the process to track, analyze and review SB&I's global innovation & project portfolio. You'll also manage and guide Nike's Climate & Energy director (reporting to you) in shaping up a vision, systems and metrics around a Nike Inc wide de-carbonizing strategy (including energy, waste and water footprint strategy). You'll be a key thinking partner and chief of staff to the SB&I VP and partner with the SB&I leadership team (LT) to craft the overall sustainability vision, 3 year strategy roadmap and targets / KPIs for Nike, that aligns with, supports and is formally integrated into the Corporate and business unit strategy plans. In addition, you'll help the SB&I LT in further helping Nike business units understand what the overall Nike sustainability vision means for each of them, the three key levers they can each pull to make a difference, measures of success for each lever and accountabilities / ownership for impact.

USA Nike Jobs - Corporate & Social Responsibility

Strategic Partnerships & Open Innovation Director - SB&I Lab - ,

SB&I Integration Director - ,