RoomIt by CWT is looking for a talented Innovation Manager. The Innovation Manager role is part of the Strategy team which seats within the RoomIt Marketing team. 

The RoomIt Innovation Manager will mainly perform the upstream analysis of inbound opportunities and will also directly drive the identification and assessment of innovative solutions for existing challenges. This great team player will perform the necessary analysis of the client needs, include the hotelier view, build the competitive positioning and review the value chain. This self-motivated individual will help position the solutions with the technology and corporate innovation teams. Such a rational and structuring professional will then drive the success metric definition and measurement during the proof of concept and pilot phases while making sure each key function at stake is well engaged.

Located in downtown Chicago, RoomIt was the recently launched as the Hotel Distribution business by Carlson Wagonlit Travel.  This is your chance to get in on the ground floor of this exciting new business and to help shape our future.

This future “RoomIter” will have a successful record of applying and developing business models at business unit or company-level to shape mid- to long-term company strategy. 

Main Responsibilities: 

This individual will have intellectual curiosity, strong strategic thinking skills and be financially astute as well as demonstrated capability to interact and present professionally at C-level level. 

• Shares RoomIt strategic objectives to corporate innovation team to guide their ideation process and sourcing of start-ups 
• Ranks opportunities from the corporate ideation process
• Drive own identification of innovations
• Identifies and develops new revenue streams and new product development strategies 
• Identifies growth opportunities, business model innovation, facilitates cross-business unit initiatives
• Analyzes each opportunity in light of the value chain, the competition environment 
• Liaises with RoomIt technology team to include their own assessment in overall evaluation
• Presents overall evaluation of opportunities to the functional and senior leaders
• Define success factors and KPIs of supported POCs and pilots and performs actual performance measurement and feedback to business stakeholders and senior management
• Identifying strategic partnerships including financial, customer and intellectual property implications 
• You will report to RoomIt strategy director who is also managing strategy, data analysis and market insights, all within the Marketing function

Qualifications:

• At least Master degree in business, ideally MBA
• 4 to 6 years of experience, ideally in consulting or in an e-commerce function - company
• Innovation process experience
• Analytical, strategic, considering all dimensions of a business, showing a sense of entrepreneurship
• Critical mind-set, thinking outside the box, discover other areas of the world and other cultures
• Appetite to discover new business models, new industries
• Ideally good understanding of the business travel industry with knowledge on hotel industry
• Knowledge or experience in other industries shall bring new perspective to RoomIt
• Very collaborative and multi-functional experience
• Has a strong ability to lead and drive results with high autonomy
• Capacity to turn ideas into action plans and apply project management skills
• Capability to work in a an start up environment as well as in large and matrix-based organizations
• Excellent communication skills including capacity to interact with C-Level with ease
• Mastering of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel