Forward Deployed Innovation Strategist

Overview

The Forward Deployed Innovation Strategist serves as a senior-level strategic resource within the DDC Strategic Innovation Team, bridging innovation capability development and strategic deployment to market vertical delivery teams. This role embodies a unique blend of intellectual capital creation, business growth, and hands-on client delivery through the consistent development, enhancement, and deployment of Solution Accelerators. Forward Deployed Innovation Strategists rotate seamlessly between supporting Strategic Innovation Team initiatives internally and serving as embedded members of subsidiary contract delivery teams.

These deployments typically span six months to two years, during which the Strategist directly contributes to high-visibility, mission-critical engagements by deploying and adapting Solution Accelerators as part of the delivery team.

What sets this role apart is the long-term commitment DDC makes to these individuals. Their careers are not bound to a single contract. Forward Deployed Innovation Strategists are selected for their deep expertise, leadership, and strategic impact. After completing their deployments, they return to the Innovation Team, not only to contribute traditionally but also to receive training and contribute to the latest generation of Solution Accelerators, ensuring they remain ready for future deployments.

This model enables them to grow, contribute, and lead across the enterprise over time, continuously expanding their knowledge and influence within DDC’s innovation ecosystem.

Solution Accelerators represent the core of DDC’s innovation portfolio and intellectual capital, integrating best practices, methodologies, and design patterns from leading open-source frameworks, standards, and industry maturity models. They embody an intelligent blend of people, process, and technology, with technology serving to enable process maturity and human capital effectiveness, never existing for technology's sake alone.

• Actively lead and participate in business growth initiatives, including pre-sales engagements, white paper development, and preparation of responses to RFIs and RFPs. Provide strategic thought leadership, deep subject matter expertise, and technical guidance throughout the business development lifecycle.
• Design, develop, and mature comprehensive Solution Accelerators aligned with DDC’s strategic market verticals, including runbooks, playbooks, BOE templates, position descriptions, marketing materials, capability slicks, proposal boilerplate, training programs, and education resources.
• Directly collaborate with subsidiaries and market vertical teams to ensure effective deployment and adoption of Solution Accelerators, providing hands-on support during critical initial implementation phases.
• Act as a strategic resource, anticipating future delivery needs and proactively preparing for deployment into high-visibility, strategic client engagements.
• Contribute extensively to intellectual capital development, including the continuous improvement and evolution of Solution Accelerators and other strategic innovation offerings.
• Provide strategic support to subsidiary operations, maintaining strong relationships with subsidiary leadership, delivery teams, and market vertical leaders.
• Serve as a mentor and guide for innovation team members and subsidiary staff, ensuring effective transfer of knowledge, methodologies, and adoption of Solution Accelerators.
• Conduct and support market and ethnographic research to ensure DDC innovation efforts are informed by deep customer insights and industry trends.
• Support the ongoing development of internal capabilities, including Virtual Lab Environments, innovation tools, and methodologies.
• Other duties as assigned.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future visa sponsorship.

• Bachelor’s degree required;
  Master’s degree in Business, Technology, Engineering, or a related field preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of professional experience spanning innovation management, technology solutioning, business…