Overview of the role:

• Consumer behaviours towards car buying & aftersales services experience are rapidly changing due to technology driven trends and new disruptive business models. In Al-Futtaim we are on a journey to transform our businesses to enhance value chain and provide best in class customer experiences in the new mobility space.
• The mission of the New Business (NB) team is to set the future strategy of automotive division and build the portfolio of the future by doing businesses that Al-Futtaim Automotive has not done before by exploring M&A, Joint Venture, partnership, and incubation opportunities in UAE and internationally.
• On the incubation side, the NB department is responsible for assessing innovative business ideas potentials, new brands across segments and geographical expansion with a focus on new mobility initiatives, gathering market data, define target processes/businesses and formulize business cases leading into agile cross-functional projects – entire end to end process ownership from ideation to execution by applying agile framework.
• The Head of Incubation and Brands Expansion is responsible to identify new business models and brands, build the incubation roadmap by developing market studies, identifying priority business ideas and define agile cross-functional teams. Together with the GM NB, the Head of Incubation and Brands Expansion creates business concepts and initiates agile incubation projects to sharpen our future in the automotive space alongside ever-changing mobility landscape. 
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• This role will work in a fast-paced, start-up like environment and collaborate with internal strategic partners by deploying agile methodology to accelerate experimenting and bringing new solutions to the market. Ideal candidate should have leadership experiences in innovative new business automotive projects combined with deep automotive know-how and agile methodology experiences.

What you will do:

Incubation and New Brands Planning:

• Create a funnel of future incubation and new brands ideas across segments and geographies (passenger cars, commercial vehicles and two-wheelers) to develop and commercialise by linking new initiatives with Auto 3 years strategy across brands and markets
• Lead continuous ideation process to formulate new business concepts with Department Heads and Brand MDs to prioritize the strategic project roadmap
• Evaluate the initial market potential of the defined ideas
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Incubation and New Brands Delivery (Exploration and Validation phase):

• Set up agile project plan, define the project leads and the cross-functional teams
• Develop product vision through workshops and strategy meetings
• Prepare the business cases to achieve the sign-off for the projects
• Develop tailor made auto agile processes to accelerate each of the development phases - exploration, validation, and execution
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Incubation and New Brands P&L management:

• Lead project budget management
• Deliver value realisation roadmap and implement portfolio dashboards to track progress
• Work with purchasing and finance to procure project team and market data requirements
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Incubation and New Brands team management:

• Coach and lead the team of experienced Senior Managers and subject matter expert consultants
• Serve as primary interface for the senior managers: guide them during project set up & execution and be familiar with progress of all initiatives 
• Be sparring partner and support for firefighting in case of project roadblocks
• Allocate new projects to the team under the parameters of capacity and knowledge
• Together with your team continuously evolve the way of working and contribute to the overall Al-Futtaim Automotive strategy and growth
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Incubation project & change management (Development and Implementation phase)

• Program and project management of priority and complex initiatives
• Gain alignment with leadership and negotiate with key stakeholders to identify and monitor specific and concrete actions that must be taken 
• Plan and secure appropriate resources to support various internal functions in an incubation project (marketing, network planning, IT, legal etc.) and drive synergies between these functions to roll out the project in an agile manner.
• Rapid and effective decision making to deliver successful projects and to support your team 
• Visible behavioral and cultural changes by application of change management techniques 
• Champion for digital adoption mindset and role model for the team
• Influence and minimize barriers and obstacles that may prevent or cause delays in achieving the desired successes and results

Skills

Required Skills to be successful:

• Extensive experience in strategy consultant, new business ventures, product/service development, startups and entrepreneurial endeavors.
• Experience in the automotive sector, Dealer or OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) or consultancy. 
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, capable of effectively engaging with diverse audiences and delivering compelling business cases.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with a proven ability to manage relationships with key stakeholders, fostering collaboration across different levels of an organization.

About the Team:

You will be reporting to GM - New Business 

What equips you for the role:

• Business or Finance University Degree - MBA highly preferable
• Minimum Experience and Knowledge: 
• 12 year+ experience in strategy consultant, new business, and product/service development within the Automotive industry with P&L responsibility 
• Expert knowledge of and experience in the automotive after-sales or sales industry is essential.
• Proven ability in building new, disruptive products/services and taking these to market establishing product market fit. (Start-up experience highly advantageous but not essential)
• Ability to develop business cases and due diligence activities
• Team management and cross functional team lead experience
• Excellent analytical skills
• Experience of working with multiple parties and a variety of services, with proven ability in negotiations with AGILE or other Project management qualification 
• Well-developed oral and written communication with strong ability to network
• Strong interpersonal, team building and negotiation skills
• Attention to details