Head of New Ventures

JOB SUMMARY

The Head of New Ventures and Innovation is accountable for discovering where Vanguard Charitable’s future growth will come from, proving whether it is real, and building the path to scale. Through deep understanding of donor, advisor, nonprofit, and partner needs, evolving consumer behaviors, industry shifts, emerging technologies, and developments in adjacent markets, this leader identifies opportunities capable of producing outsized sustainable revenue and mission impact. The role translates insight into a portfolio of new ventures and operates the disciplined experimentation engine used to shape, test, fund, advance, pivot, transfer, or stop them. The position combines bold, original thinking with sound judgment about financial, regulatory, operational, technology, brand, and reputational constraints; manages an initial innovation investment pool; and develops rigorous business cases for additional funding when evidence supports incubation, transition, or scale.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

• Build an ongoing discovery capability that identifies unmet and emerging needs among donors, advisors, nonprofits, and partners. Use direct client engagement, qualitative and quantitative research, behavioral observation, market data, and internal insight to understand changing expectations, friction points, motivations, and jobs to be done. (15%)
• Scan philanthropy, wealth management, financial services, fintech, technology, consumer markets, and adjacent industries for shifts, disruptions, emerging business models, and transferable ideas. Connect weak signals and seemingly unrelated developments to define strategic opportunity spaces and generate differentiated growth theses for Vanguard Charitable. (10%)
• Build and operate the enterprise experimentation engine, including clear intake, problem framing, hypothesis design, evidence standards, stage gates, decision rights, learning documentation, and pathways to advance, pivot, pause, transfer, or stop work. Create a repeatable system that increases the quality and pace of learning without lowering risk or control standards. (20%)
• Develop and actively manage a portfolio of growth hypotheses spanning new revenue pools, clients, business models, products, services, partnerships, channels, and capabilities. Translate external insight into compelling concepts, maintain a balanced portfolio, and make disciplined prioritization and go/no-go decisions. (15%)
• Design and lead hypothesis-specific experiments, prototypes, and pilots using fit-for-purpose resource models. Assemble small cross-functional teams and selectively use internal talent, contractors, consultants, vendors, strategic partners, research panels, accelerators, or other external capacity to test the highest-risk assumptions quickly and credibly. (15%)
• Manage a growth portfolio with transparency and discipline. Set discovery and test budgets, track spend and learning against milestones, reallocate funds as evidence changes, and build compelling business cases for additional investment that address client value, revenue potential, economics, strategic fit, risk, operating requirements, and the next evidence needed. (10%)
• Incubate validated concepts and create the path to launch or scale. Define the initial offer, experience, business and operating model, capability requirements, implementation sequence, ownership, and funding plan; partner with business leaders and enabling functions to transition ventures responsibly, and close unsuccessful concepts cleanly while retaining their learning. (5%)
• Serve as a member of the leadership team; help to shape enterprise priorities and talent needs; communicate market insights, portfolio health, decisions, and strategic implications to executive and governance audiences; influence across enabling and business functions; and strengthen a culture of curiosity, imagination, candor, and evidence-based risk-taking. (10%)

QUALIFICATIONS

Education & Training

• Bachelor’s degree required (Business, Economics, Public Policy, Data Science, or related field preferred)
• Advanced degree or formal training in innovation, venture building, product discovery, design, experimentation, or entrepreneurship preferred, not required.

Licensure & Certification

• None required. 

Knowledge, Skill, and Ability

• Knowledge of customer discovery, jobs-to-be-done, behavioral research, qualitative and quantitative insight methods, business model innovation, product or service incubation, lean experimentation, and portfolio management methods. 
• Knowledge of the forces shaping philanthropy, wealth management, financial services, technology, and consumer expectations, and able to identify relevant signals from adjacent sectors. 
• Knowledge of financial drivers and able to build revenue models, test economics, investment cases, scenario analyses, and funding recommendations appropriate to early-stage uncertainty. 
• Skilled in synthesizing client needs, behavioral observations, market intelligence, industry trends, and emerging technologies into distinct opportunity spaces and new growth concepts. 
• Skilled in connecting insights across seemingly unrelated markets or disciplines and applying them to create differentiated products, services, partnerships, channels, or business models. 
• Skilled in turning ambiguous opportunities into explicit hypotheses, testable assumptions, learning plans, measures, and clear decisions. 
• Skilled in designing low-cost, high-learning experiments and interpreting qualitative and quantitative evidence without overstating certainty. 
• Skilled in managing an innovation portfolio and budget, including sequencing bets, setting stage gates, reallocating resources, and stopping work when evidence does not support further investment. 
• Able to select and direct varied resource models, including cross-functional internal teams, fractional expertise, contractors, consultants, vendors, strategic partners, and external collaborators. 
• Able to generate original possibilities while working credibly within legal, compliance, financial, technology, operational, brand, and reputational constraints. 
• Skilled in executive communication and influence, including concise market perspectives, portfolio updates, business cases, recommendations, and candid articulation of what has been learned and what remains uncertain. 
• Able to lead through influence across functions, attract contributors to ambiguous work, build psychological safety for testing, and maintain accountability for decisions and outcomes. 
• Able to travel as business needs require. 

Experience

• Minimum of ten years of experience in innovation, new ventures, product or offer development, business strategy, entrepreneurship, growth, or a related discipline, including at least five years of leadership experience required. 

• Demonstrated experience uncovering unmet client or market needs and translating insight into new concepts, offers, ventures, or business models required. 

• Demonstrated experience building or materially improving an experimentation, incubation, venture, or innovation portfolio capability required. 

• Demonstrated experience taking new concepts from opportunity identification through testing and an evidence-based decision to stop, transition, launch, or scale required. 

• Experience managing investment budgets and securing incremental funding through business cases or governance decisions required. 

• Experience in financial services, fintech, philanthropy, nonprofit services, wealth management, or another regulated or trust-based environment preferred.