Challenge

The global recruitment firm required a consultant to design and establish the Innovation Lab including: 
- Setting the mandate 
- Establishing the vision
- Developing organisational structure
- Governance
- Determining resourcing needs
- Determining investment requirements

For this recruitment firm, the ideal consultant would have:
- Former Management Consultant experience or Strategy expertise (at least 8 yrs experience)
- Experience starting a new business venture or advising start-up businesses
- Experience in an Innovation Lab would be highly regarded (but is not essential)
- Entrepreneurial, ambitious and commercial experience

Although the firm is primarily an HR solutions organisation, this project did not require someone with HR experience. Instead the company preferred someone with a diverse, commercial background.

About The Firm

Expert360's client is a top global organisation specialising in talent management and recruitment. Their industry is at risk of disruption with the emergence of new digital innovations and technology - they want to lead the change.

"Like in other industries, the risk of disruption to existing business models in Human Resources is significant, with many new businesses and products approaching recruitment and process management tasks in a more data driven, algorithmic way (among others). It was fantastic to work with a forward-thinking CEO and management team to position this global recruitment firm for an innovative future."

Harry

Expert360 Consultant

About The Expert

Harry is a former top Management Consultant, progressing from Port Jackson Partners where he was an Associate Principal to Co-found a startup incubator. Harry’s expertise in structuring businesses to maximise collaboration in combination with his Management Consulting toolkit made him the ideal candidate for this role.

Solution

Harry and his team ran workshops with senior management on the stages of the innovation process, common innovation models, and operating structures and cultures for success.

With that content in mind, principles and objectives were set collaboratively in the recruitment firm's context, and the team developed a specific design to meet the client's needs.

After socialising the model, the team fleshed out key design elements in detail to get the initiative 'implementation ready', and to secure board-level support.

Harry's Team:

Lewis:
- Spent 3 years in Silicon Valley
- Actively involved in designing and launching Flextronics in-house incubator
- Negotiated commercial deals with several Silicon Valley start-ups and innovation hubs (Google X, Plug & Play, Square)
- Harvard MBA

Rob:
- 3 years on several start-ups
- Deep technical skills, including coding, database, web development
- Worked at Fishburners start-up co-working space for 12 months
- Raised capital from several angels
- 4 years at Port Jackson Partners

Combined expertise:
- Working in incubators
- Establishing in-house innovation labs
- Harvard Business School's latest innovation thinking