Global Innovation Director Contract Logistics

Consult; Ashby-de-la-Zouch; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

CEVA Logistics seeks a Global Director Innovation for Contract Logistics to shape the Warehouse of Tomorrow, drive scalable innovation and partner with ecosystems worldwide. This role leads the transformation from culture to structured delivery, spanning robotics, AI, digital platforms and strategic partnerships, ensuring practical business impact across growth, speed, quality, and retention.

The role focuses on turning concepts into validated, repeatable solutions and driving adoption across

Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience in innovation, transformation and operational excellence.
• Proven ability to move strategy to execution with measurable impact.
• Experience with robotics, automation, AI or digital solutions in complex settings.
• Experience leading global, cross-functional programs with senior stakeholders.
• Strong governance, value tracking and business case development.
• Ability to collaborate with external partners and senior leadership.

Responsibilities

• Define, own and evolve the global Contract Logistics Innovation Strategy.
• Translate ambition into clear priorities and execution plans.
• Manage strategy across Tomorrow, Next and Now horizons.
• Position CEVA as a thought leader in future logistics.
• Align innovation with growth, speed, cost, quality and retention.
• Lead future Warehouse of Tomorrow vision and R&D initiatives.
• Oversee pilots, PoCs and live testing with clear success criteria.
• Productise concepts into deployment approaches and playbooks.
• Scale proven solutions across regions and sites.
• Drive adoption and measure impact on productivity and cost.

Skills

Innovation leadership

Strategic planning

Cross-functional leadership

Stakeholder management

Robotics and AI

Operational excellence

Job description

Important! The work location is flexible and will be defined according to the selected candidate.

YOUR ROLE

The Global Director Innovation – Contract Logistics is responsible for defining and delivering CEVA’s global innovation strategy, ensuring innovation drives measurable business impact across growth, cost, speed, quality, and talent.

The role leads the transformation from innovation culture to structured delivery, overseeing a global ecosystem of Robotics, AI & Digital, and Innovation Culture, while shaping the Warehouse of Tomorrow through R&D and strategic partnerships.

The role ensures that innovation is not an isolated function, but a core business capability scaling proven solutions, transforming operations, and building future competitive advantage.

The Global Innovation Director leads the strategy to: Shape Tomorrow. Transform Next. Scale Now.

This means shaping the Warehouse of Tomorrow, transforming operations through new capabilities, and scaling proven solutions across the global Contract Logistics network.

The role connects people, technology, execution, regions, operations, customers, partners and global functions to ensure innovation becomes a practical business capability, not a separate activity.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

1. Global Innovation Strategy & Direction

• Define, own and evolve the Global Contract Logistics Innovation Strategy.
• Translate the ambition to “pioneer impactful and scalable solutions to transform operations and define the Warehouse of Tomorrow” into clear priorities and execution plans.
• Ensure the strategy is structured across three horizons:
• Tomorrow: shape the Warehouse of Tomorrow
• Next: transform operations to enable scaling
• Now: fast deployment of proven concepts
• Position CEVA as a thought leader in the future of Contract Logistics and warehousing.
• Ensure innovation supports the key business outcomes of growth, speed, cost, quality and retention.

2. Shape Tomorrow – Future Vision & R&D

• Lead the development of the Warehouse of Tomorrow vision for Contract Logistics.
• Drive future-focused innovation through R&D, horizon scanning, strategic partnerships and ecosystem collaboration.
• Scan and map technologies with operational potential, including robotics, AI, automation, digital solutions and emerging warehouse technologies.
• Build partnerships with startups, academia, customers, industry experts, R&D groups and CMA CGM ecosystem partners.
• Sponsor future cases through demos, PoCs, PoTs and scientific / thought-leadership initiatives.
• Ensure future technologies are explored with a clear path toward operational validation and scale.

3. Transform Next – From Concepts to Scalable Solutions

• Lead the transformation of promising concepts into validated, repeatable and scalable solutions.
• Oversee pilots, MVPs, PoCs and live operational testing.
• Ensure every initiative has clear success criteria, business relevance and measurable operational value.
• Apply a disciplined pass, advance, pivot or fail-fast decision logic.
• Drive productisation of proven concepts into solution packages, including:
• business case
• playbook
• deployment approach
• vendor / partner model
• limitations and conditions
• KPI and value-tracking method
• Ensure solutions are ready to move from innovation into business-as-usual operations.

4. Scale Now – Replication & Business Impact

• Accelerate the deployment of proven innovation solutions across regions, countries and sites.
• Ensure scalable solutions are embedded into daily operations and handed over to BAU as finished productised packages.
• Partner with Operations, Engineering, BPE, IT, Finance and regional teams to support adoption.
• Drive standardisation, replication and adoption of proven technologies.
• Ensure innovation is measured by adoption and impact — not activity.
• Focus on delivering measurable value through productivity, cost reduction, quality improvement, speed, customer value and employee engagement.

5. Global Innovation Portfolio Leadership

• Own and manage the global innovation portfolio across:
• Robotics & Automation
• AI & Digital
• Innovation Culture
• PMO / Communications / Foundation
• Warehouse of Tomorrow initiatives
• Balance the portfolio across short-term scaling, medium-term transformation and long-term R&D.
• Prioritise initiatives based on business impact, scalability, strategic fit and operational readiness.
• Ensure clear governance, funding alignment, risk management and executive visibility.
• Provide structured steerco updates and decision points to senior leadership.

6. Robotics, AI & Digital Innovation Leadership

• Lead the direction and integration of Robotics, AI and Digital innovation within Contract Logistics.
• Ensure Robotics focuses on both scalable automation and next-generation R&D capabilities.
• Ensure AI & Digital focuses on both fast deployment of proven concepts and validation of new capabilities through PoC, MVP and pilots.
• Drive cross-pillar collaboration between Robotics, AI & Digital and Innovation Culture.
• Avoid siloed innovation by connecting technology initiatives into end-to-end operational use cases.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

Knowledge & Experience

• Significant experience in innovation, transformation, operational excellence, engineering, automation, digital or supply chain leadership. à +10 years
• Strong understanding of Contract Logistics operations and warehouse environments.
• Experience leading complex, global, cross-functional programs.
• Proven ability to move from strategy to execution and measurable impact.
• Experience with robotics, automation, AI, digital solutions or advanced warehouse technologies.
• Experience working with senior leadership, regional teams and external partners.
• Strong understanding of business case development, scalability, governance and value tracking.

Skills & Competencies

• Strategic thinking with strong operational execution.
• Ability to translate vision into clear priorities, roadmaps and delivery plans.
• Strong leadership, influencing and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to connect technology, people, process and business value.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity while creating structure and clarity.
• Strong commercial and value-driven mindset.
• Ability to challenge vendors, partners and internal stakeholders constructively.
• Strong portfolio and governance discipline.
• Ability to build networks and communities across regions and cultures.

As a global organization, and as part of the CMA CGM Group, diversity is critical to our business success; only when we can reflect the cultures, languages, behaviors and local knowledge of our customers, we can succeed. By employing people with different experiences and abilities, we expand our knowledge and increase our creativity and innovation.