Innovation Specialist

U.S. Bank; Minneapolis (MN); On-site; USD 105,000 - 124,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

401(k)

Paid vacation

Paid holidays

Job summary

U.S. Bank is seeking an Innovation Specialist to lead opportunities from discovery to commercialization readiness.

You will blend customer insight, product management, venture-building, strategy, experimentation, and financial analysis to identify and validate new growth opportunities across the enterprise. The ideal candidate will conduct customer research, develop financial models, create prototypes, and influence strategic decisions while operating in ambiguity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience.
• 4+ years of experience in product management, innovation, strategy, venture development, consulting, research, product marketing, or related fields.
• Experience leading initiatives from concept through implementation or commercialization.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and business case development capabilities.
• Experience conducting customer research and translating insights into action.
• Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence outcomes across complex stakeholder environments.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguity and uncertainty.

Responsibilities

• Identify unmet customer needs and emerging trends to inform opportunities.
• Conduct customer research, interviews, and market analyses.
• Develop insight-driven opportunity areas aligned to priorities.
• Lead opportunities through Discovery, Validate, and Accelerate stages.
• Build learning plans and evidence-based validation strategies.
• Design experiments to test desirability, feasibility, and viability.
• Develop value propositions, business models, and commercialization plans.
• Establish success metrics and measure outcomes during experiments.
• Create business cases supported by customer, competitive, and financial evidence.
• Partner with lines of business to define ownership and scaling.
• Communicate findings to senior leaders with compelling storytelling.

Skills

Analytical skills

Customer research

Financial modeling

Executive communication

Influence across stakeholders

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Lean Startup

Design Thinking

Jobs to Be Done

Job description

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.

Job Description

Are you naturally curious? Do you see the world as it might be and wonder, “What if?” Do you get excited about emerging technologies, changing customer behaviors, market disruption, and new business models? Do you enjoy turning uncertainty into insight, insight into opportunity, and opportunity into measurable business value? If so, keep reading. The Emerging Products team is responsible for identifying, validating, and commercializing new growth opportunities for U.S. Bank. We partner across business lines to discover unmet customer needs, evaluate emerging technologies, develop new business models, and transform promising concepts into scalable products and services. We are seeking an Innovation Specialist to lead opportunities from initial discovery through commercialization readiness. This role combines customer insight, product management, venture building, business strategy, experimentation, and financial analysis. You will work across the enterprise to identify what is next, determine what is worth pursuing, and help build the evidence required to make informed investment decisions. This role aligns to the Emerging Products team's focus on opportunity discovery, experimentation, commercialization, and business-line partnership.

The ideal candidate is equally comfortable conducting customer research, facilitating executive discussions, developing financial models, building prototypes, testing assumptions, and influencing strategic decisions. If you're not interested in what's next, this role probably isn't for you. If you aren't energized by learning, experimentation, and solving ambiguous problems, this role probably isn't for you. If you thrive on turning ideas into businesses, we'd love to talk.

What You’ll Do

Discover New Opportunities

• Identify unmet customer needs, emerging trends, regulatory shifts, market disruptions, and technology opportunities.
• Conduct customer research, interviews, market analysis, and competitive assessments.
• Develop insight-driven opportunity areas aligned to enterprise and business-line priorities.
• Continuously monitor developments across fintech, banking, AI, data, identity, payments, wealth, and adjacent industries.

Lead Discovery and Validation

• Lead opportunities through the Emerging Products lifecycle, including Explore Backlog, Discovery, Validate, and Accelerate stages.
• Build Learning Plans and evidence-based validation strategies.
• Design experiments to test customer desirability, technical feasibility, commercial viability, and operational readiness.
• Develop and refine value propositions, business models, pricing strategies, and commercialization approaches.
• Determine when opportunities should advance, pivot, pause, or stop based on evidence.

Build Concepts and Test Solutions

• Lead development of concepts, prototypes, proofs of value, MVPs, pilots, and market tests.
• Partner with research, design, engineering, operations, legal, risk, marketing, and business-line stakeholders.
• Translate customer needs and market insights into testable solutions.
• Establish success metrics and measure outcomes throughout experimentation activities.

Develop Business Cases and Commercialization Strategies

• Create business cases supported by customer, competitive, operational, and financial evidence.
• Assess TAM, market attractiveness, customer economics, profitability, and growth potential.
• Develop executive recommendations and investment proposals.
• Partner with business lines to define ownership, funding, scaling strategies, and transition plans.

Influence Enterprise Innovation

• Facilitate discussions with senior leaders on emerging opportunities and strategic investments.
• Communicate findings, recommendations, and lessons learned through compelling storytelling and executive-ready presentations.
• Contribute to the evolution of innovation practices, methodologies, and portfolio management capabilities.
• Serve as a trusted advisor on emerging customer needs, technologies, and business opportunities.

Success in This Role

Success is measured by outcomes rather than activity. Examples include:

• Validating significant customer or business opportunities.
• Advancing opportunities through the Emerging Products pipeline.
• Delivering evidence-based recommendations that improve investment decisions.
• Launching successful pilots and commercialization initiatives.
• Helping business lines identify new revenue, customer growth, or efficiency opportunities.
• Accelerating learning while reducing risk and uncertainty.
• Successfully transitioning validated opportunities into scalable businesses or products.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience.
• 4+ years of experience in product management, innovation, strategy, venture development, consulting, research, product marketing, or related fields.
• Experience leading initiatives from concept through implementation or commercialization.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and business case development capabilities.
• Experience conducting customer research and translating insights into action.
• Excellent written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence outcomes across complex stakeholder environments.
• Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in ambiguity and uncertainty.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within banking, payments, fintech, wealth management, lending, or related financial services industries.
• Experience with Lean Startup, Design Thinking, Jobs to Be Done, Business Model Canvas, and experimentation methodologies.
• Demonstrated success bringing new products, services, or capabilities to market.
• Experience evaluating emerging technologies and translating technology trends into business opportunities.
• AI fluency and familiarity with practical AI applications across customer and business experiences.
• Strong quantitative skills including forecasting, financial modeling, and opportunity sizing.
• Experience working within Agile environments.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is: Customer obsessed. Naturally curious. Comfortable challenging assumptions. A strong researcher and rapid learner. Highly analytical while remaining creatively minded. Able to connect customer needs, business strategy, technology capabilities, and financial outcomes. Energized by experimentation and evidence-based decision making. Equally comfortable exploring new ideas and executing against measurable outcomes.

Why This Role Matters

The future growth of U.S. Bank will depend on our ability to recognize emerging opportunities before others do, validate them quickly, and convert promising ideas into meaningful customer and business outcomes. As an Innovation Specialist, you will help shape that future by identifying what is next, determining what matters, and helping the enterprise make smarter investment decisions that create long‑term value for customers, business lines, and shareholders.

Location Expectations

This role requires working from a U.S. Bank location three (3) or more days per week. If there’s anything we can do to accommodate a disability during any portion of the application or hiring process, please refer to our disability accommodations for applicants.

Benefits

• Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)
• Basic term and optional term life insurance
• Short‑term and long‑term disability
• Pregnancy disability and parental leave
• 401(k) and employer‑funded retirement plan
• Paid vacation (from two to five weeks depending on salary grade and tenure)
• Up to 11 paid holiday opportunities
• Adoption assistance
• Sick and Safe Leave accruals of one hour for every 30 worked, up to 80 hours per calendar year unless otherwise provided by law
• Review our full benefits available by employment status here.

U.S. Bank is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status, and other factors protected under applicable law.

E-Verify U.S. Bank participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program in all facilities located in the United States and certain U.S. territories. The E-Verify program is an Internet‑based employment eligibility verification system operated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Learn more about the E‑Verify program.

The salary range reflects figures based on the primary location, which is listed first. The actual range for the role may differ based on the location of the role. In addition to salary, U.S. Bank offers a comprehensive benefits package, including incentive and recognition programs, equity stock purchase 401(k) contribution and pension (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Pay Range: $105,400.00 - $124,000.00 U.S. Bank will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment. U.S. Bank conducts background checks consistent with applicable local laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act as well as the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. U.S. Bank is subject to, and conducts background checks consistent with the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA). In addition, certain positions may also be subject to the requirements of FINRA, NMLS registration, Reg Z, Reg G, OFAC, the NFA, the FCPA, the Bank Secrecy Act, the SAFE Act, and/or federal guidelines applicable to an agreement, such as those related to ethics, safety, or operational procedures. Applicants must be able to comply with U.S. Bank policies and procedures including the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct and related workplace conduct and safety policies. Posting may be closed earlier due to high volume of applicants.

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever‑growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.