Innovation & Growth Portfolio Leader

Vanguard Charitable; Malvern (Chester County); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Vanguard Charitable in Malvern, PA is seeking a strategic Head of New Ventures and Innovation to identify future growth sources, validate them, and chart the path to scale. You will translate donor, advisor, nonprofit, and partner insights into a portfolio of new ventures and run a disciplined experimentation engine to shape, test, fund, advance, pivot, or stop initiatives.

The role blends bold, original thinking with prudent judgment on financial, regulatory, operational, technology, brand, and

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required; related field preferred.
• Advanced degree or formal training in innovation or entrepreneurship preferred.

Responsibilities

• Build an ongoing discovery capability to identify unmet donor, advisor, nonprofit, and partner needs using direct client engagement and research.
• Scan adjacent industries for shifts and opportunities; define strategic opportunity spaces and growth theses.
• Build and operate the enterprise experimentation engine with intake, framing, hypothesis design, and learning documentation.
• Develop and manage a portfolio of growth hypotheses across revenue pools, clients, and business models; prioritize decisions.
• Lead hypothesis-specific experiments and assemble cross-functional teams to test high-risk assumptions quickly.
• Manage discovery and test budgets; track spend and learning against milestones; reallocate funds as evidence changes.
• Incubate validated concepts and define offers, operating models, and funding plans; transition ventures responsibly.
• Serve on the leadership team; communicate market insights, portfolio health, and strategic implications to executives.

Skills

Innovation leadership

Portfolio management

Hypothesis design

Experimentation

Executive communication

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

Vanguard Charitable in Malvern, PA is seeking a strategic Head of New Ventures and Innovation to identify future growth sources, validate them, and chart the path to scale. You will translate donor, advisor, nonprofit, and partner insights into a portfolio of new ventures and run a disciplined experimentation engine to shape, test, fund, advance, pivot, or stop initiatives.

The role blends bold, original thinking with prudent judgment on financial, regulatory, operational, technology, brand, and