What we’re looking for

You know how to innovate

You are highly experienced in design thinking, human-centred design, product development or a closely related innovation discipline. More importantly, you understand the thinking underneath the methods. You know when a framework helps, when it gets in the way, and how to adapt your approach to the problem in front of you.

You have launched things

We want someone who has taken new propositions, products or services beyond the Post-it-note stage and into a consumer market. You understand the messy middle between a good idea and something people actually use, buy, join, support or give to. Ideally, you’ve worked with MVPs, rapid experimentation, pilots or test-and-learn launches, and can show where real-world evidence changed the answer.

You start with people

Strong audience thinking should be instinctive to you. You are deeply curious about why people behave as they do and comfortable working with qualitative and quantitative insight. You can turn evidence into hypotheses, opportunities and decisions, and understand that being audience-led does not mean simply asking people what they want.

You think commercially

You can connect human desirability with commercial viability and practical feasibility. You’re comfortable talking about markets, revenue or income potential, acquisition, conversion, costs, investment, risk and return. You can interrogate a business case and help clients make sensible decisions about where to place their bets.

You have excellent strategic judgement

You can walk into complexity and find the important question. You spot patterns, tensions and assumptions others miss. You can synthesise quickly, develop a point of view and explain what should happen next. You use evidence and intuition together, and you’re comfortable saying, politely but clearly, “I don’t think that’s the right answer.”

You can lead people through uncertainty

You’re an excellent facilitator, but facilitation to us is not about neutrally shepherding people through an agenda. You know how to create the conditions for brilliant thinking, challenge a room, unlock difficult conversations and move a group towards a decision, without sanding all the edges off an idea.

Fundraising experience would help, but is not essential

A lot of our work sits within fundraising and the charity sector, so you will need to become fluent quickly in fundraising economics, supporter behaviour, acquisition, retention and lifetime value. We’re open to someone from innovation, product, digital, consumer strategy, service design or another relevant discipline if you can translate your experience into our world.

What being a Principal means at Aha

Our Principals are accountable for the quality, strategic integrity and commercial value of the work they oversee. You won’t need to personally do every piece of thinking. Part of your job is making other strategists better.

You’ll be accountable for innovation as an area of practice across Aha. That does not mean personally delivering every innovation project, or owning an innovation silo. It means holding the standard for this work wherever it appears: in proposition development, product and service design, fundraising strategy, supporter experience, insight-led growth, creative development, digital products, test-and-learn programmes and new commercial models.

You will work across many clients, teams and projects, often alongside insight, strategy, creative and delivery specialists. Your role will be to make sure the work is asking the right question, using the right evidence, taking the right level of creative and commercial risk, and leading to decisions that create value for the client and for Aha.

That commercial responsibility is critical. You will help us shape innovation work that is not only interesting, but valuable: work clients understand, buy, use, continue and build from. You will help us scope it properly, sell it confidently, protect its margin, spot future opportunities, and make sure it strengthens Aha’s reputation and offer over time.

You’ll work alongside Aha’s Conspirators (strategists, audience specialists and creatives), sometimes leading them closely and sometimes acting as the senior challenge point on their work. You’ll help them frame problems, interrogate evidence, develop stronger hypotheses, make choices and turn thinking into recommendations. Your job is to give them enough challenge, judgement and confidence that they can increasingly lead without you.

You’ll also help develop Aha itself: evolving our innovation methods, codifying what we believe, spotting opportunities, contributing to new business, developing the offer, and challenging us when you think there is a better way.

You might have come from…

There isn’t one perfect background. You might currently be working in an innovation consultancy, product studio, service design agency, consumer strategy consultancy or digital product business. You might have led innovation within a large consumer organisation. Or you might already work in fundraising and have an unusually strong track record of developing and launching new propositions and products.

We’re more interested in the evidence of how you think and what you’ve made happen than whether you’ve followed a conventional career path.

The person we’re looking for

Most importantly, you’ll combine imagination with judgement and execution. Lots of people can generate interesting ideas. We’re looking for someone who can work out which ones are worth pursuing, prove whether they’re right, and help get them into the world.

You’ll probably also be:

• relentlessly curious, but decisive when there is enough evidence to make a call;
• commercially minded, but highly audience-led;
• comfortable with ambiguity, and experimental and happy learning through doing;
• imaginative without becoming untethered from reality;
• confident challenging senior people, but generous with your thinking;
• comfortable admitting when a hypothesis was wrong;
• and excited by making other strategists better.