Together with the Lead Scout, the role of Innovation Assistant is to support in scouting and communication with the relevant startups and SMEs to identify potential synergies that can benefit companies under the Holding in both financial and non-financial portfolios; This includes online and offline research of startups, planning and attending startup events, and meeting and evaluating startups;

Additionally, to support the Lead Scout in all the function-related initiatives that include, but not limited to innovation due diligence of Strategic Assets, use cases management, global and local/external and internal innovation intelligence gathering, etc.;

Responsibilitites:

• Support the Lead Scout in the sourcing efforts to build and maintain a pipeline of new innovation opportunities;
• Search and initially assess startups in different geographies; Main industry areas: Fintech, InsurTech, Retail Ecosystem, Retail Consumer, Hospitality and others;
• Contact startups and SMEs, conduct negotiations in the interests of Holding Companies on the launch of pilots/PoCs;
• Interact and build relationships with local and international partners of the innovation ecosystem – accelerators, incubators, universities, venture capital funds and corporations to build network and find synergies that can benefit the innovation-related initiatives of the Innovation Stream of the Holding;
• Support the Lead Scout in the innovation due diligence of the Holding Companies to identify specific innovation needs and usecases;
• Support the Lead Scout with the organization of meetings with external and internal innovation-related stakeholders, attend the meetings, contribute to the discussions and take notes as required;
• Keep up-to-date the database of the scouting pipeline and track the execution of the related action items via project management tools;
• Build relationships with Innovation Champions from Holding Companies to ensure effective communication, proper follow-up, milestones tracking of the respective innovation-related activities;
• Support development of regular trend analysis and function reporting as requested;
• Develop emerging technology radars, technology impact profiles, and organize informative bi-weely newsletters for Holding employees around the various emerging technology ecosystems, make respective updates on the website;
• Research and evaluate new ideas and potential opportunities for partnership with startups;
• Keep yourself up to date in the technological and business field to quickly and effectively recognize business opportunities and industry/market emerging trends

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in Azerbaijani, Russian, English is a must; Turkish is preferable;
• Corporate innovation, consulting, venture capital, or startup experience is highly desirable;
• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Business Administration, Corporate Finance, Business Analytics, Engineering is preferable;
• Computer Skills: Professional presentation skills, Microsoft Office programs, Google Suite apps, Wordpress, Mail Chimp;           
• Candidates should ideally have experience working with startups and/or knowledge about the startup ecosystem; We are looking for someone who has experience within search and who are creative in their approach; However, we believe in learning by doing and we measure people by how far they walk the talk; There will be many opportunities, but it’s your job to seize them;

Education, Experience and Skills Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting/Finance;
• Minimum 1 year of professional experience in the field;
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
• Proficiency in Azerbaijani and English
• Analytical thinking;
• Team work and collaboration skills;
• Result oriented;
• Accurate and timely execution of tasks