Innovation Strategy Manager

Pioneer your career! Körber is the home for passionate people who innovate, collaborate, and love what they do. Entrepreneurial spirit is our joint DNA. We develop future technologies and support talents to deploy their skills and reach their full potential. Together, we aim to be the first to do the right thing at the right time.

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We are seeking an experienced professional to coordinate a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. The role requires strong expertise in strategic and conceptual work, consolidating a broad range of stakeholder perspectives, understanding both broadly used and upcoming technologies with the related industrial use cases. With the ability to drive projects, to monitor progress, and to enable effective communication on top management level and to the public.

Location: Hybrid work setup (Bangalore-based)

Team: Körber Group Function Innovation & Technology

Reports to: Executive VP Group Innovation & Technology, located in Europe

About Körber

Körber is a global technology group with deep industrial expertise and a strong innovation agenda. We operate across three Business Areas – Pharma, Supply Chain, and Technologies – delivering high-tech machinery, software, digital, and service solutions that are critical to our customers' success. Within the Group Innovation function, we define and drive the central innovation and technology roadmap for the Group. Our focus is on advancing strategic technology topics, enabling cross-business collaboration, and creating scalable innovation programs that support long-term, sustainable growth.

Role Overview

We are seeking an Innovation Strategy Manager to help shape and advance Körber's global, group-level innovation and technology agenda across Business Areas. This is not a traditional strategy role limited to slideware, nor a pure program management role focused only on execution. You will operate at the intersection of strategy, technology, and implementation: identifying relevant technology and innovation opportunities, structuring them into clear priorities and roadmaps, and aligning stakeholders around how to turn them into scalable outcomes.

You will be the bridge between Körber's central innovation frameworks and the teams translating them into products, capabilities, ventures, and strategic initiatives. You must be able to move fluidly between a discussion with senior leadership and a detailed conversation with engineers, architects, product managers, venture teams, and domain experts. You can dig deep and understand technical details, extract the key notions needed, and communicate the bigger picture clearly to a broad variety of internal and public audiences.

Your work will cover opportunity identification, portfolio and initiative prioritization, business case development, strategic framing, and implementation support. You will regularly synthesize input from technical experts, project and product managers, and colleagues from sales, marketing, and business functions. Where required, you will initiate change and alignment activities across teams, set up projects to generate insights or prepare decisions, and monitor execution against strategic intent and measurable outcomes. You will do this without direct line management authority, which means that influence, structure, and credibility are your primary tools.

Key Responsibilities

• Enable executive decision-making and organizational change by crafting compelling, insight-driven proposals which connect technology trends, innovation opportunities, and strategic priorities.
• Shape and evolve group-level innovation strategy aligned with the Group's central technology and innovation roadmap, with focus areas such as AI/ML, Digital Twins, Industrial IoT, Robotics, Autonomous Systems, and related emerging technologies.
• Develop clear and engaging narratives that translate technology trends, innovation topics, and strategic change initiatives into actionable and measurable roadmaps, workstreams, business cases, decision papers, pilots, and scale-up plans. To this end, identify, assess, and prioritize innovation opportunities, strategic themes, and use cases across Business Areas by combining technology, customer, market, and business perspectives.
• Prepare concise updates, reports, and executive-ready presentations for steering committees, reviews, and senior leadership decision forums.
• Support senior leadership with high-impact content for internal events and change initiatives, ensuring consistent messaging and strategic relevance.
• Ensure effective planning, coordination, and execution of key Innovation & Technology initiatives and governance forums, as central mechanisms for technology strategy and cross-business innovation.
• Set up, support and further develop the key strategic innovation projects of the Group, ensuring transparency on priorities, progress, and impact. Serve as a credible interface between Group Innovation and the Business Areas, able to engage meaningfully with engineers, architects, product leaders, venture teams, and senior business stakeholders.
• Plan and coordinate our leading governance body representing all operational units, coordinating inputs from Business Areas, Group Functions, and innovation initiatives to ensure coherent, group-wide perspectives.
• Facilitate structured collaboration, stakeholder alignment, and change activities across cross-functional and cross-business teams in a matrixed environment.
• Develop and maintain global group guidelines for Group Function Innovation & Technology.
• Steer external communications and thought-leadership positioning for Group Innovation & Technology with customers and technology partners, strengthening Körber’s profile as a leading innovation and technology partner in its ecosystems
• Shape and coordinate external messaging on innovation and technology topics in close collaboration with Group Communications
• Develop and support thought-leadership content (e.g., keynote presentations, articles, panels) for external conferences, customer events, and ecosystem platforms.
• Build and maintain relationships with key customers, technology partners, and relevant external networks to support Körber’s innovation positioning and collaboration opportunities
• Closely cooperate on all of this with Körber’s Executive VP for Innovation and Technology, located in Europe.
  
  
  

• 5-10 years of experience in innovation strategy, technology strategy, management consulting, innovation management, product strategy, or similar roles with a strong technology mandate. Previous experience in management consulting is a clear benefit.
• Ability to understand technology, even in cases of no prior exposure and to extract the key strategic implications quickly and accurately. Previous exposure to the following technologies will definitely be helpful for the start: AI/ML, Digital Twins, Industrial IoT, Robotics, Autonomous Systems, cloud-based digital solutions or related advanced manufacturing / Industry 4.0 technologies
• Ability to create the big strategic picture and communicate it clearly to a broad variety of audiences, including technical experts, development teams, managers, senior executives, and the general public.
• Ability to engage with people without the help of hierarchical structures and to align stakeholders through influence, credibility, and structured communication.
• Ability to set up, run, monitor, and complete projects turning ambiguous topics into clear plans with milestones, owners, and measurable outcomes.
• Experience in portfolio prioritization, business case development, KPI definition, and benefit tracking is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with agile or hybrid project management methodologies is a plus.
• Excellent English communication skills (written and verbal); German is an advantage. Needs to interact with people all over the world, across all time zones. International travel expected 3-4 times per year.
• Proactive, hands-on mindset with a strong sense of ownership, curiosity about technology, and the ability to move from strategic thinking to practical execution.
  
  
  

• Direct exposure to Körber's group-level innovation strategy and technology roadmap
• Opportunity to work across AI, Digital Twins, Robotics, IoT, and other frontier technology topics spanning multiple industries
• A central role in enabling collaboration and execution within a global innovation ecosystem
• Hybrid work setup (Bangalore-based)
• A dynamic, international environment with strong opportunities for learning and professional growth