Chief Innovation Officer: Mission and Responsibilities

The Chief Innovation Officer is a critical role for the modern corporation. Yet, very often, it is not properly defined or utilized. In this article, I am responding to one of the most frequent questions I receive in the context of Corporate Innovation and attempting to define the mission and the responsibilities of the CINO.

In our fast-changing business world and with Artificial Intelligence reshaping everything, the importance of Innovation is becoming ever more critical: more than ever, companies need to establish a powerful Innovation Function. Powered by a talented Innovation Team (what I call in a different article, The Dream Team of Innovation), the Innovation Function helps business leaders discover new opportunities, validate them and make the right investments as part of a balanced Innovation Portfolio. The establishment and operation of this ‘Innovation Function’ and the diverse, cross-disciplinary Innovation Team is not easy – it requires strong leadership and a very special combination of skills and talents.

You can think of the Chief Innovation Officer as the leader of the Innovation Function, or the orchestrator of Corporate Innovation, or simply, the one who empowers the company to innovate at pace and at scale. At the same time, the Chief Innovation Officer is the one who links innovation efforts with the organizational purpose and the strategic planning of the company: the CINO ensures that the C-Suite is aligned with the innovation programs and they can clearly see its long-term value. And this role, will only get even more important in the future.

But, what is the mission and the exact responsibilities of this critical innovation role?

The Mission of the Chief Innovation Officer

I would say that the mission of the Chief Innovation Officer is simply ‘to empower the company to thrive through the discovery and pursuit of new business opportunities.’ If we unpack this, the Chief Innovation Officer must find ways to [a] improve the rate at which high-potential new opportunities are spotted, [b] identify the most promising of these opportunities and validate them, [c] drive alignment among the leaders of the organization to make the right investments – to pursue these opportunities further and eventually bring new products and services to the market: real value through novelty.

The Responsibilities of the Chief Innovation Officer

There are various definitions of the Chief Innovation Officer role out there – depending on the focus of the company, its innovation maturity and organizational complexity. However, here is a list of the essential responsibilities I would attach to the Chief Innovation Officer role.

1. Enable and empower innovation. Simply put, this is to make sure that the business environment encourages the generation and circulation of ideas, promotes experimentation and collaboration, and welcomes (certain types of) failures as the means of learning and continuous improvement. This innovation-friendly environment requires skills, culture, processes, resources and tools. The Chief Innovation Officer is accountable for onboarding the right innovation talents, shaping the innovation culture, designing and optimizing the right processes and providing the technology to make innovation faster and more effective.

2. Establish an effective opportunity discovery process. The Chief Innovation Officer must introduce and establish an end-to-end innovation process that helps the innovation team and the organization identify and validate opportunities faster. The CINO must find ways to clearly set the right focus for innovation (i.e., identify problems worth solving in alignment with the strategy of the organization), enable ideation (idea generation, sharing, collaboration), streamline experimentation and validation (the tools, teams and processes that help test, de-risk, validate ideas fast and inexpensively.)

3. Set the right Culture of Innovation. At the cultural level, the Chief Innovation Officer must find ways – programs, events, innovation initiatives, etc. - to foster a genuine Culture of Innovation. This special culture is built on top of a growth and learning mindset combined with openness, safety (to experiment with ideas), and the readiness to take calculated risks. For a definition and detailed presentation of the Culture of Innovation see here. The Chief Innovation Officer must be an inspiring figure, attracting interest in the Innovation Process and leading by example – acting themselves as innovators.

4. Introduce the right methods and technologies. The Chief Innovation Officer must be able to introduce the appropriate innovation tools and resources that empower teams to innovate faster and more effectively. These tools – (see the Innovation Technology Stack) may include an Innovation Management Platform or Idea Management, along with collaboration systems, prototyping tools, templates, gamification tools and more.

5. Maintain a healthy Innovation Opportunity Portfolio. The CINO must prioritize effectively and make wise investments in developing new ideas and shaping R&D projects. To do so, the Chief Innovation Officer must design a solid intake process (for opportunities and potential projects) and a smart project assessment model – to allow good prioritization and a balanced Innovation Portfolio (both from a risk and potential value perspective).

6. Measure Innovation Performance. The Chief Innovation Officer must design and use the appropriate Innovation Performance Measurement system and use it both to steer the process (in a continual improvement fashion) and to communicate the ‘State of Innovation’ to the top management of the company. For a consultation on how to measure innovation, contact us here.

The Chief Innovation Officer is also responsible for connecting with the broader ecosystem – in an open innovation context – but also for establishing a competition scan or scouting process. The latter, regularly sums up the latest and greatest technologies, most recent developments, academic publications, and emerging technologies, which is particularly important as an additional source of inspiration for opportunity spotting.

Check also this article describing the skills and talents of a successful Chief Innovation Officer and our unique advisory offering: Chief Innovation Officer On Demand program

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Coming soon: The profile and skills of the successful Chief Innovation Officer, A detailed job description for CINOs and the associated success factors and criteria. Subscribe to get notified.