At Board of Innovation our aim is to empower 100 million people to innovate, by building the most inspiring innovation agency. We're proud to work with clients like GE, Philips, Danone, AB InBev, ING and Roche - around the globe. Our overall goal is to have a long-term impact on the innovation culture and execute no-bullshit strategies for future growth. We help these corporates to build up innovation capabilities, so they can become more responsive in this fast-moving world. Our measure for success: facilitate the creation of 1000 new businesses.
Headquartered in Belgium for over ten years, we recently opened Board of Innovation’s second office in New York.
Next stop, Asia . We’re looking for an entrepreneurial co-founder, passionate about innovation, that wants to kickstart our new office in Singapore.

As a co-founder, you will lead the whole preparation, coordination and establishment of Board of Innovation’s new Asian office. Where do you start? Well, although we have some customers in the region already, mostly from scratch!

Consider this as a starting point for the role:

• In the initial phase, we fly you to our HQ’s and immerse you in hands-on project work and sparring sessions with our own business designers (while eating our famous Belgian fries) to fully grasp Board of Innovation’s unique value proposition, organisational culture and way of working.
• Your main responsibility will be business development
• You fuel the growth of Board of Innovation (as you own our Asian growth objectives) by developing business development strategies for new and existing business relationships.
• You create, maintain and leverage an extensive and relevant local network, leading to a strategic advantage and business. You act as a credible sounding board and trusted partner to these prospected clients’ executive stakeholders. By growing meaningful long-term partnerships and anticipating their challenges in innovation, you develop successful innovation strategies, as well as identify, conceptualize and create new product-market combinations.
• You’re always looking for the next opportunity, no matter where you are. You are eager to reach out to potential new leads to drum up new business. Supported by the HQ marketing team you also coordinate targeted outbound marketing and sales strategies including content, events and campaigns.
• You ensure high quality project delivery
• You define the initial sourcing strategies for client project execution (e.g. fly in BOI HQ consultants, build a local freelance network etc).
• You are also able to take on client projects yourself if needed, in which you support corporate innovation teams in their quest for new business opportunities (e.g. by generating actual new revenue streams, new product launches, etc). You are strong in facilitating and consulting these teams (and guide them through the different phases of innovative product or service developments - strategy fit, problem fit, solution fit, go-to-market).
• You lead the office A-Z
• After a successful market & business validation, you will also coordinate the legal and practical set-up of the new office and lead the office operations afterwards: from settling all legal requirements enabling you to operate the business, to finding an inspiring workspace, to recruiting an entrepreneurial team with superpowers, and setting up financial/sales targets and workflows etc. You will be supported in this journey by local experts and BOI HQ resources.

Requirements:

• You have an academic background in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Design, Business, Technology or a related field
• You have substantial experience in (corporate) innovation (eg as an innovation consultant, business model innovation expert, business designer, human-centered designer, design strategist, start-up founder, product manager, an entrepreneur, …)
• You have significant and successful business development experience (eg as a business developer, entrepreneur, consultant, …)
• You are fluent in English. Other Asian languages are an asset (such as Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Malaysian, etc)
• You have gained international work experience
• A strong local business network in South-East Asia is definitely a plus!
• You are a born entrepreneur: you thrive in ambiguity, get things done, and are result-oriented
• You are credible, you easily connect with people and you have a to-the-point communication style

Benefits:

• You get the chance to work on the most amazing innovation projects with Fortune 500 corporates and have a direct impact on their innovation strategies.
• You are directly impacting Board of Innovation's business strategies and growth.
• You'll get numerous on-the-job-and-beyond learning opportunities.
• You appreciate a place where you can be your whole self, and become part of highly talented, ambitious, (from time to time hilarious) international and diverse team
• You love to travel worldwide (and long for more checks on that bucket-list) and you are eager to build a international professional network
• You'll get an attractive compensation package with additional benefits.