Innovation Hub Manager

Kaelo; Sandton; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Kaelo seeks an Innovation Hub Manager to lead its research and development capability, driving AI-driven product concepts from idea to production. You will build a capable team, empower the AI Architect, and govern the portfolio with stage-gated processes to deliver commercial value.

The role focuses on managing and maturing innovations, collaborating with executives, and ensuring responsible AI, information security, and data protection policies are followed across initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science or a related field.
• Postgraduate qualification or formal training in AI, product or innovation management is advantageous.
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in technology, including at least 3 years managing teams in a research, innovation, product or advanced engineering function.
• Experience taking new technology concepts from idea through POC to production adoption.
• Knowledge of AI landscape, including LLMs, agentic systems and ML operations.
• Experience establishing governance for exploratory work, including stage gating and portfolio-level decision making.
• Track record of engaging executive stakeholders and securing sponsorship for speculative investment.

Responsibilities

• Manage the Innovation Hub, setting direction and prioritising initiatives.
• Develop and retain AI, analysis and design skills within a largely greenfield team.
• Empower the AI Architect to set reference architecture and standards.
• Set objectives, manage performance and budget for the department.
• Develop SOPs for stage-gate, experimentation and handover.
• Enforce Kaelo policies including responsible AI and data protection.
• Translate AI strategy into a sequenced portfolio balancing near-term value and long-term capability.
• Run stage-gated governance to fund initiatives incrementally and stop unpromising ones.
• Horizon-scan emerging tech and assess applicability to health insurance and financial services.
• Report portfolio progress and realised benefits to IT Executive.
• Engage stakeholders to identify opportunities with commercial or member value.
• Ensure each initiative has use case, value hypothesis and success criteria.
• Measure realised benefit after production and build partner relationships.
• Establish responsible AI practices covering fairness, bias, explainability and oversight.
• Govern data use in experimentation with POPIA compliance.
• Assess third-party model risk and ensure security requirements from the outset.
• Agree acceptance criteria with Systems Solutions Manager for production deployment.
• Ensure documentation, test coverage, observability and runbooks for production.
• Plan and resource productionisation with Systems Solutions.
• Act as a trusted partner to the business and communicate progress clearly.

Skills

AI/ML knowledge

Governance

Stakeholder influence

Team development

Rapid prototyping

Product discovery

Experimentation

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering/IS/Data Science

Postgraduate qualification in AI/innovation management (advantage)

8+ years technology experience including 3+ years leading teams

Tools

AI architecture guidance

Policy enforcement SOPs

Job description

About Kaelo
Kaelo provides essential healthcare solutions ensuring the physical and psychosocial wellbeing of all South Africans towards lasting social change. Kaelo meets the Healthcare needs of Corporate and Retail clients across South Africa - products offerings include Medical Insurance, Medical Aid, Gap Insurance, Kaelo Money and employee assistance programmes.

Job Description

REQ-02

Role Purpose

The Innovation Hub Manager builds and runs Kaelo’s research and development capability. The department exists to identify, prove and industrialise new product concepts, agentic and AI-based capability, and emerging technology that can create commercial advantage for the organisation. It works ahead of the production estate, taking ideas from opportunity through to a proven, de-risked solution that graduates into Systems Solutions for production ownership.

This is a management role rather than a hands-on engineering role. The incumbent supports the IT Executive in executing the AI and innovation strategy, acting as an enabler, and is accountable for the quality of the innovation pipeline, the rigour with which ideas are tested and the commercial return the portfolio generates. They achieve this by building a capable team from a largely greenfield base, empowering the AI Architect to own technical direction, and holding the portfolio to account through stage-gated governance, documented operating procedures and honest reporting of results.

Key Responsibilities

1. Managing & Team Capability

• Manage the Innovation Hub, setting into action the direction set by the IT Executive, prioritising initiatives, establishing ways of working and maintaining a culture in which disciplined experimentation and early stopping are treated as productive outcomes.
• Manage the team from a largely greenfield base; develop and retain scarce AI, analysis and design skills.
• Delegate technical ownership appropriately, empowering the AI Architect to set reference architecture and engineering standards.
• Set objectives, manage performance and manage departmental budget, capacity, partners and vendors.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the Innovation Hub, including stage-gate, experimentation and handover procedures.
• Operationalise and enforce Kaelo’s policies within the department, including responsible AI, information security and data protection policies, and address non-compliance.

2. Innovation Strategy & Portfolio

• Translate the AI and innovation strategy set by the IT Executive into a sequenced portfolio of initiatives balancing near-term return against longer-horizon capability.
• Run stage-gated governance through the Project Manager so that initiatives are funded incrementally and stopped decisively when evidence does not support them.
• Horizon-scan emerging technology, particularly in artificial intelligence, and assess its applicability to health insurance and financial services.
• Report portfolio progress, learning and realised benefit to the IT Executive and business leadership.

3. Opportunity Identification & Commercial Validation

• Engage business and executive stakeholders to identify opportunities of genuine commercial or member value.
• Ensure every initiative has a framed use case, value hypothesis, success criteria and measurement approach before build effort is committed.
• Ensure realised benefit is measured honestly after solutions reach production.
• Build relationships with external partners, vendors, start-ups and academic institutions where they accelerate capability.

4. Responsible AI & Risk

• Establish responsible AI practices covering fairness, bias, explainability, human oversight, data provenance and model risk.
• Ensure the use of member or production data in experimentation is governed, minimised, anonymised where possible and formally approved under POPIA.
• Ensure third-party and model supply chain risk from AI vendors and foundation model providers is assessed and managed.
• Ensure security requirements are considered from the outset, in partnership with the Security Engineer, rather than retrofitted at handover.

5. Graduation to Production

• Agree with the Systems Solutions Manager the acceptance criteria and boundary of responsibility for solutions entering production.
• Ensure graduating solutions carry the documentation, test coverage, observability and operational runbooks required for production acceptance.
• Ensure productionisation work is planned and resourced jointly with Systems Solutions.

6. Stakeholders & Governance

• Act as a trusted partner to the business, building demand for the Hub’s work while setting realistic expectations of what AI can deliver.
• Identify, record and elevate delivery, ethical, regulatory and vendor risks.
• Maintain the records required to evidence governance of the innovation portfolio to internal audit and regulators.
• Align the department’s work to, and execute, the direction and strategy set by the IT Executive.
• Communicate progress to the IT Executive, and elevate issues, risks and decisions requiring direction promptly and transparently.

Qualifications

REQ-02

Qualifications & Experience

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science or a related field.
• Postgraduate qualification, or formal training in artificial intelligence, product or innovation management, advantageous.
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in technology, including at least 3 years managing teams in a research, innovation, product or advanced engineering function.
• Demonstrated experience taking new technology concepts from idea through proof of concept to production adoption.
• Practical, current knowledge of the AI landscape, including large language models, agentic systems and machine learning operations.
• Experience establishing governance for exploratory work, including stage gating and portfolio‑level decision making.
• Track record of engaging executive stakeholders and securing sponsorship for speculative investment.

Preferred Experience

• Financial services, health insurance, medical schemes or healthtech.
• Experience implementing responsible AI or model risk governance frameworks.
• Experience managing partnerships with technology vendors, start‑ups or academic institutions.
• Decisiveness — backs promising initiatives and stops unpromising ones without sunk‑cost bias.
• Managing Through Others — empowers the AI Architect and team to own technical detail and holds them to account.
• Stakeholder Influence — builds executive sponsorship and organisational appetite for change.
• Team Development — attracts, develops and retains scarce AI and innovation talent.
• Intellectual Honesty — reports results as they are, including negative ones.

Working Technical Understanding

• AI and machine learning landscape — LLMs, agentic systems, classical ML
• AI reference architecture and platform principles
• Responsible AI, model risk, bias and explainability
• Innovation portfolio management and stage‑gated governance
• Rapid prototyping, product discovery and experimentation methods
• AI data readiness and data platform principles
• Vendor, partner and model supply chain management
• Benefit measurement and portfolio reporting
• SOP development and policy enforcement

Key Performance Indicators

• Realised commercial or member value from initiatives that reached production.
• Throughput of the innovation pipeline from idea through to graduation or stop decision.
• Timeliness of stage‑gate decisions and proportion of initiatives correctly stopped.
• Quality of handover to Systems Solutions, measured by post‑graduation rework.
• Maturity of the responsible AI governance framework.
• Delivery of the departmental build‑out against the approved resourcing plan.
• Team engagement, capability growth and retention.
• Coverage and currency of departmental SOPs, and adherence to SOPs and policies, measured through audits and spot checks.

Regulatory, Risk & Information Security Responsibilities

• Comply with POPIA in the handling of personal and special personal information, including member health information, and with the Cybercrimes Act, reporting any suspected unlawful access or compromise without delay.
• Adhere to Kaelo information security policies and the frameworks the organisation aligns to, including FSCA Joint Standard 2 of 2024, ISO/IEC 27001, the CIS Controls and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
• Maintain the evidence required to support the ISMS and internal, external and certification audits within the area of responsibility.
• Escalate security incidents, control weaknesses and operational risks promptly, and complete all mandatory compliance and awareness training.

Additional Information

Personal Attributes

• Accountability
• Action orientated
• Communication
• Business writing skills
• Manage complexity
• Decision thinking
• Resilient and adaptive
• Resourceful
• Demonstrates self-awareness
• Significance and values orientated

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