Head of New Ventures

About the role

The Head of New Ventures and Innovation is accountable for discovering where Vanguard Charitable’s future growth will come from, proving whether it is real, and building the path to scale. Through deep understanding of donor, advisor, nonprofit, and partner needs, evolving consumer behaviors, industry shifts, emerging technologies, and developments in adjacent markets, this leader identifies opportunities capable of producing outsized sustainable revenue and mission impact. The role translates insight into a portfolio of new ventures and operates the disciplined experimentation engine used to shape, test, fund, advance, pivot, transfer, or stop them. The position combines bold, original thinking with sound judgment about financial, regulatory, operational, technology, brand, and reputational constraints; manages an initial innovation investment pool; and develops rigorous business cases for additional funding when evidence supports incubation, transition, or scale.

Responsibilities

• Build an ongoing discovery capability that identifies unmet and emerging needs among donors, advisors, nonprofits, and partners. Use direct client engagement, qualitative and quantitative research, behavioral observation, market data, and internal insight to understand changing expectations, friction points, motivations, and jobs to be done. (15%)
• Scan philanthropy, wealth management, financial services, fintech, technology, consumer markets, and adjacent industries for shifts, disruptions, emerging business models, and transferable ideas. Connect weak signals and seemingly unrelated developments to define strategic opportunity spaces and generate differentiated growth theses for Vanguard Charitable. (10%)
• Build and operate the enterprise experimentation engine, including clear intake, problem framing, hypothesis design, evidence standards, stage gates, decision rights, learning documentation, and pathways to advance, pivot, pause, transfer, or stop work. Create a repeatable system that increases the quality and pace of learning without lowering risk or control standards. (20%)
• Develop and actively manage a portfolio of growth hypotheses spanning new revenue pools, clients, business models, products, services, partnerships, channels, and capabilities. Translate external insight into compelling concepts, maintain a balanced portfolio, and make disciplined prioritization and go/no-go decisions. (15%)
• Design and lead hypothesis-specific experiments, prototypes, and pilots using fit-for-purpose resource models. Assemble small cross-functional teams and selectively use internal talent, contractors, consultants, vendors, strategic partners, research panels, accelerators, or other external capacity to test the highest-risk assumptions quickly and credibly. (15%)
• Manage a growth portfolio with transparency and discipline. Set discovery and test budgets, track spend and learning against milestones, reallocate funds as evidence changes, and build compelling business cases for additional investment that address client value, revenue potential, economics, strategic fit, risk, operating requirements, and the next evidence needed. (10%)
• Incubate validated concepts and create the path to launch or scale. Define the initial offer, experience, business and operating model, capability requirements, implementation sequence, ownership, and funding plan; partner with business leaders and enabling functions to transition ventures responsibly, and close unsuccessful concepts cleanly while retaining their learning. (5%)
• Serve as a member of the leadership team; help to shape enterprise priorities and talent needs; communicate market insights, portfolio health, decisions, and strategic implications to executive and governance audiences; influence across enabling and business functions; and strengthen a culture of curiosity, imagination, candor, and evidence-based risk-taking. (10%)

Qualifications

• Education & Training: Bachelor’s degree required (Business, Economics, Public Policy, Data Science, or related field preferred); Advanced degree or formal training in innovation, venture building, product discovery, design, experimentation, or entrepreneurship preferred, not required.
• Licensure & Certification: None required.
• Experience: Minimum of ten years of experience in innovation, new ventures, product or offer development, business strategy, entrepreneurship, growth, or a related discipline, including at least five years of leadership experience required; Demonstrated experience uncovering unmet client or market needs and translating insight into new concepts, offers, ventures, or business models required; Demonstrated experience building or materially improving an experimentation, incubation, venture, or innovation portfolio capability required; Demonstrated experience taking new concepts from opportunity identification through testing and an evidence-based decision to stop, transition, launch, or scale required; Experience managing investment budgets and securing incremental funding through business cases or governance decisions required; Experience in financial services, fintech, philanthropy, nonprofit services, wealth management, or another regulated or trust-based environment preferred.

Skills

• Knowledge of customer discovery, jobs-to-be-done, behavioral research, qualitative and quantitative insight methods, business model innovation, product or service incubation, lean experimentation, and portfolio