Innovation Lead

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PeopleCaddie
United States, US
  • IT
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Job Title: PMO Innovation Analyst — Smartsheet SME

Company: Large Accounting Firm — Advisory Services

Location: Remote

Duration: 5+ Months

Pay Rate: $70-$85 per hour (C2C), depending on experience

Role Summary:

Lead the consolidation of Finance-domain innovation efforts and stand up a scalable, automated PMO operating platform. You will design a unified intake and triage workflow, mature innovation frameworks (ideation, scoring, PoC), and deploy AI- and automation-enabled solutions — centered on Smartsheet— while partnering closely with Finance, Product, Engineering, and Change Management.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Consolidate innovation initiatives across Finance; establish a single source of truth and portfolio view for ideas, PoCs, pilots, and scaled deployments.
  • Design and implement a unified, automated intake engine that aggregates requests from multiple teams/tools (e.g., Smartsheet forms, Jira, Google Sheets, email, Airtable) with standardized metadata, routing, SLAs, and auditability.
  • Serve as Smartsheet super-user: architect and optimize sheets, reports, dashboards, and WorkApps; implement Control Center blueprints, Dynamic View, DataMesh, and Bridge automations; advise on governance, security, and best practices.
  • Build and continuously improve innovation frameworks: ideation pipelines, scoring models, stage gates, PoC evaluation criteria, benefits realization, and ROI tracking.
  • Leverage AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini) and automation platforms (Smartsheet Bridge, Zapier, Airtable, Google Sheets, Jira) to streamline intake, triage, reporting, and decisioning; pilot AI agents within PM workflows.
  • Partner with Finance, Product, Engineering, and Change teams to co-design solutions that address complex business challenges; align to strategic goals set by the Director and day-to-day direction from the Program Manager.
  • Facilitate innovation workshops, design sprints, and brainstorming sessions; drive adoption and change management.
  • Develop and maintain KPI dashboards and reporting (Alteryx, Power BI, Tableau, Power Query) for pipeline health, throughput, cycle time, value realization, and adoption.
  • Integrate and maintain tooling for scalable, data-driven decision-making (APIs/webhooks between Smartsheet, Jira, Airtable, Google/M365); define taxonomy, data models, and role-based access.
  • Balance BAU operations (queue management, release/change control, documentation, training) with ambiguous, high-impact initiatives; provide clear executive-ready updates.

Qualifications:

  • 5+ years in PMO/Portfolio/Business Operations, ideally within Finance or enterprise functions; proven track record consolidating multi-team innovation portfolios.
  • 3+ years hands-on Smartsheet expertise (Control Center, Bridge, WorkApps, Dynamic View, DataMesh, dashboards, advanced automations); Smartsheet certification preferred.
  • Demonstrated experience building automated intake/triage workflows and cross-tool integrations (Smartsheet, Zapier, Jira, Airtable, Google Sheets; APIs/webhooks).
  • Experience designing and operating innovation frameworks: ideation pipelines, scoring models, PoC evaluation, ROI/value realization.
  • Proficiency with AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini) for workflow optimization; ability to deploy/iterate AI agents in PM processes; prompt engineering and AI governance awareness.
  • Strong analytics and reporting skills using Alteryx, Power BI or Tableau, and Power Query; SQL a plus.
  • Technical acumen and adaptability to rapidly learn tools like Coda and Airtable; bonus for Power Automate/Make, ServiceNow, or Jira administration.
  • Excellent facilitation, stakeholder management, and communication skills; comfortable operating from granular BAU to strategic, ambiguous initiatives.

Illustrative Success Measures:

  • Unified intake live with measurable reduction in cycle time and manual touchpoints.
  • Adoption of standardized innovation scoring and stage gates across Finance.
  • Automated reporting with trusted KPIs and executive dashboards.
  • Deployed AI agents delivering tangible efficiency and decision-quality improvements.
  • High stakeholder satisfaction and clear alignment to Program Manager and Director priorities.
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