Job Description

Job Advert Summary

PURPOSE:

• Develop, implement, and maintain the organisation's disruptive innovation strategy aimed at identifying, evaluating, and implementing step change innovations aligned with the company's goals and objectives.

• Develop a deep understanding of disruptive innovation, open-innovation ecosystems, and the application of cutting-edge technologies to use as input to influence the group strategy.

• Introduce leadership to breakthrough and disruptive innovations, fostering a culture of innovative thinking.

• Actively build and manage a robust internal and external innovation ecosystem through diverse partnerships, sourcing, evaluating, and negotiating access to innovative solutions.

• Manage the entire lifecycle of disruptive innovation from ideation and incubation to testing and seamless deployment, driving transformative change across the organisation.

• Develop and communicate compelling business cases to support the implementation of disruptive innovations.

• Lead change management efforts, coordinate and collaborate with internal stakeholders, leveraging internal expertise for execution of disruptive innovation programs.

MAJOR CHALLENGES:

• Data security and cybersecurity

• Resistance to change and change management

• Cost and budget constraints

• Integration with existing/legacy systems

• Identifying applicability of disruptive innovations across the mining value chain

• Balancing the risk vs. reward, bearing in mind probability of failure when testing disruptive innovations

• Bridging the talent/skill gap required for disruptive innovations

• Infrastructure limitations which may hinder disruptive innovation testing and rollout

• Intellectual Property Protection

• Supply Chain Disruptions in terms of strategic partnerships as opposed to transactional engagements
• Lead times to value realisation of disruptive innovations

Minimum Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS:

• B Eng (Relevant) (Essential/Minimum or)
• B Degree (Hons) (Relevant) (Essential/Minimum)
• Management Development Programme (Essential/Minimum)
• Certificate Project Management (Recommended/Desirable)
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (Recommended/Desirable)
• Master of Management in Innovation Studi (Recommended/Desirable or)
• Masterxe2x80x99s in technology & Innovation Mngmt (Recommended/Desirable)

EXPERIENCE:

8-10 years Experience in innovation strategy development and deployment. Strong background in innovation, particularly in technology assessment, research, and incubation. Previous experience in efficiently assessing and successfully integrating cutting-edge technologies while prioritising safety and sustainability. A proven track record in fostering collaboration, managing organisational change, and driving sustainable innovation. Effective communication skills (including at board and exco level), stakeholder engagement, and the ability to navigate diverse challenges. (Essential/Minimum) Management
REQUIREMENTS:

• Psychometric Assessment (Essential/Minimum)
• Certificate of Fitness (Essential/Minimum)
• Registered with Professional Body (Essential/Minimum)
• Project Management Professional (Recommended/Desirable)

Duties & Responsibilities

Best Practice and Knowledge Management

• Intellectual property management and protection.
• Create and manage professional networks.
• Establish and maintain strong innovation ecosystem, eg. partnerships with research institutions, technical forums, industry associations, etc.
• Continuously monitor, exchange, and preserve information to facilitate effective knowledge management.
• Stay abreast of advances in people, process, and technology domains.
• Participate in Communities of Practice (COP's) in the Business Optimisation (Business Improvement (BI)), Information Management (IM) and Centre of Excellence (COE) environment.
• Encourage knowledge sharing and duplication of best practices.

Disruptive Innovation Strategy Development and Execution

• Develop a comprehensive disruptive innovation strategy aligned with organisational objectives for coal, energy, and new minerals businesses.
• Build and maintain a strong innovation ecosystem, including non- conventional partnerships that lead to exposure and access to disruptive innovations.
• Keep abreast of innovation trends and solutions and determine maturity and applicability.
• Lead the execution of the disruptive innovation strategy, ensuring alignment with organisational goals.
• Investigate use cases for disruptive solutions which can be leveraged to add value.
• Implement step-change disruptive innovations in alignment with Exxaroxe2x80x99s strategy.
• Establish an idea incubation and development process and implement a transparent innovation pipeline and portfolio management methods.
• Oversee the validation of disruptive ideas, manage the incubation process, and efficiently test technical feasibility and business cases across the entire value chain.
• Plan, coordinate, and manage innovation pocxe2x80x99s, ensuring timely and budget-compliance.
• Regularly assess progress, adjusting initiatives as needed to achieve transformative change.
• Collaborate with technical & IM functions to provide necessary infrastructure for strategy execution.
• Develop a business case-based framework via which to consistently assess technologies/initiatives over time according to financial and strategic metrics.

Effective People Management

• Performance management: Clarify roles/responsibilities and expectations. Define individual performance standards, monitor, and measure performance, reward and recognise high performance.
• Talent development: Provide ongoing mentoring, coaching and development feedback to employees. Promote culture of continuous learning.
• Culture/functional climate: Embody, translate, and entrench the Company culture and values in function, address behaviours that undermine values. Foster effective teamwork and unity. Manage functional climate in which diversity is appreciated, high performance thrives, people are involved, energised, committed, motivated, and recognised. Demonstrate and encourage collaboration including cross-functionally and create culture of collaboration.
• Change leadership: Provide direction, guidance and support to people having to adapt to change, keep them committed throughout. Actively support, advocate for, and embrace functional/organisational change and reinforce/role model the change. Address resistance, beliefs, mind-sets, behaviours, and emotions to help people adapt to change.
• Communication/engagement: Encourage open expression of ideas/opinions and foster dialogue. Seek out different opinions. Inform people of decisions, changes, and other relevant information. Proactively address conflicts and initiate difficult conversations

Governance & Processes

• Implement governance systems and processes to support disruption.
• Ensure all innovation initiatives adhere to industry regulations, ethical standards, and corporate social responsibility principles.
• Align with governance frameworks to monitor and guide innovation initiatives effectively.

Innovation Culture

• Implement continuous learning processes to nurture a culture that embraces disruptive innovation.
• Constantly seek opportunities for exposure to new industry agnostic thinking/ideas.
• Organise events and forums to stimulate creativity and idea generation.
• Foster and embrace the Groupxe2x80x99s culture while imbedding an innovation- driven culture and a continuous learning approach into the companies DNA.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration that encourages employees to generate disruptive ideas and explore innovative solutions.
• Emphasise the value of adaptability and continuous learning considering disruptive innovations.
• Recognise and celebrate innovative achievements to reinforce disruptive thinking.
• Develop training programs to bridge the talent/skill gap required for disruptive innovations, empowering employees with the necessary skills and knowledge.

Safe and Healthy Work Environment

• Maintain and ensure a healthy environment, safe operations and practices, ensuring compliance with all applicable Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) policies and procedures in line with set standards
• Ensure legislative compliance as a minimum standard
• Encourage a culture that focuses on safety in all operations
• Ensure compliance towards internal targets & the drive towards Zero- Harm

Behavioural Alignment
Demonstrates the following:

• Creativity, collaboration, sociable and awareness to the ecosystem
• Stewardship, accountability, ability to develop trust, safety conscious and ethical
• Ability to respond quickly to business needs/agility, flexibility, continuous learning, innovation and proven ability to experiment on creative business solutions
• Ability to be inclusive, eagerness for multiple skills, embraces multiple cultures, accepts different approaches and be human-centric/empathetic
• Results oriented, quality driven, excellence, entrepreneurial abilities, efficient and effective

The appointment will be made in accordance with Exxaroxe2x80x99s Employment Equity policy.
If you have not been contacted within 28 days of the closing date of this advertisement, please accept that your application was unsuccessful.