Senior Innovation Manager

The Position

Roche Diagnostics Solutions (RDS) is the market leader in the In-Vitro Diagnostics business. Within that ecosystem, Research & Early Development is the home for early research activities and plays an integral role in rapidly delivering innovation in discovery and specific customer area needs. For the business to remain competitive, a dedicated management of innovation is of central importance.

As an Innovation Manager, you will be responsible for managing research process design to accelerate discovery while ensuring alignment with long-term business strategy. Your role requires strategic diplomacy, acting as a research ambassador and translating complex scientific impact into value propositions for diverse stakeholders.

The Opportunity:

• Influencing Without Authority:
  Using organizational and interpersonal awareness and finesse to drive delivery across levels.
• Systems Thinking:
  Navigating the interface between science, medical, and business sectors to manage dependencies at scale.
• Resilient Execution:
  Combining project management rigor with change management and persistence to ensure critical work reaches completion despite structural obstacles.
• Supports enterprise research in creating, funneling and harvesting cutting‑edge innovation ideas, acts as a neutral thought partner to practice idea acceptability.
• Hosts innovation challenges addressing shared problem statements of global RDS Research.
• Sparks and cultivates a cross‑divisional innovation mindset, acting as a change agent to coach the organization on the global research strategy, vision, and advocate for the customer and the business role in innovation.
• Uses independent evaluation, selection, and substantial adaptation and modification of standard project management and communication techniques, procedures and criteria to navigate the complex flexible dynamic nature of research and early development projects.
• Actively builds and cultivates connections into the scientific network and maintains expert knowledge of industry trends, competition, and emerging innovations, contributing to strategic innovation road‑mapping for early research.
• Organizes and facilitates interdisciplinary workshops applying innovative and agile methodologies to achieve workshop outcomes in creative and effective ways, contributing to problem discovery and challenge‑driven ideation.
• Plans, manages and monitors research operations to support the activities, processes, communication and digital infrastructure of research and early development and its innovation framework.
• Collaborates cross‑functionally with experts within Research & Development (R&D), CDMA (Clinical Development and Medical Affairs), Partnering and beyond.
• Monitors and optimizes processes to increase quality and efficiency standards, promotes and participates in professional development of best practices and process principles to manage risks and achieve objectives creatively and effectively.
• Coaches and trains other members of the team on subject matter expertise, develops new skills and provides ongoing, constructive feedback on performance and progress toward goals and expectations at the team and individual level.
• Contributes to events in the RDS Enterprise Research space, publications and conferences as needed.

Who You Are:

• You are trained as a scientist (biologist, biochemist, chemist, physicist or a similar degree), ideally with a doctorate and at least 1 year of experience in the life science industry, or a Master’s with at least 3‑5 years of experience in the life science industry.
• You possess profound Project Management skills, centered around communication and connection (methodologies, tools, mindsets). Experience managing DANCE (dynamic, ambiguous, non‑linear, complex and emergent) projects, especially in the research space, is preferred.
• You quickly understand complex tasks and translate them into something easy to execute. Operationalizing processes and handling complex ecosystems excites you.
• You are a highly skilled networker with high emotional intelligence, a neutral process‑focused mindset and the ability to establish strong and trusting relationships across many management levels.
• You…