Head of Innovation and Partnership

Transformation & Digital Division

Join us in being a Pos Malaysia Wira!

At Pos Malaysia, we are passionate about building trust to connect lives and businesses for a better tomorrow. As we transform this iconic 200‑year‑old national institution into a modern, digital, and innovation‑led enterprise, we are looking for a highly motivated, credible, and impact‑driven leader to join our Transformation & Digital (T&D) leadership team.

The Head of Innovation & Partnerships is a strategic leadership role reporting to the Head of Strategy & Planning, Transformation & Digital. This role is accountable for driving the end‑to‑end strategy lifecycle for T&D, building Pos Malaysia's innovation engine, and orchestrating a high‑impact ecosystem of external partners including government bodies, GLCs, academia, industry associations, startups, venture players, and technology partners.

This role is suited for a leader who thinks like a top‑tier consultant, builds like an operator, and delivers like a business owner.

Own ItStrategic Ownership & Enterprise Impact

• Take full ownership of the Transformation & Digital strategy lifecycle, from ideation and strategic framing through prioritisation, execution governance, and value realisation.
• Translate enterprise and Group strategy into clear strategic themes, roadmaps, and initiatives that drive transformation, growth, efficiency, and long‑term competitiveness.
• Establish disciplined strategy governance rhythms, including portfolio prioritisation, quarterly strategy reviews, and outcome tracking.
• Ensure strategy moves beyond planning into delivered, adopted, and measurable business outcomes.
• Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to the Head of Strategy & Planning and T&D leadership on strategic trade‑offs, emerging opportunities, and transformation priorities.

Build TrustInnovation Strategy & Operating Model Leadership

• Design, develop, and continuously evolve Pos Malaysia's Innovation Strategy, ensuring strong alignment with organisational strategy and the Group transformation programme.
• Build and operate a structured innovation operating model, covering opportunity sourcing, ideation, validation, incubation, piloting, and scaling.
• Establish innovation governance, funding models, risk controls, and decision frameworks that balance agility with enterprise discipline.
• Institutionalise innovation by creating repeatable systems, playbooks, and governance, not one‑off initiatives.

Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem Orchestration

• Establish and lead the Pos Malaysia Innovation Circle, defining its purpose, membership model, governance, cadence, and joint outcomes.
• Identify, originate, structure, and operationalise strategic partnerships with:
• Government bodies and regulators
• Other GLCs and public‑sector entities
• Universities, research institutions, and subject‑matter experts
• Technology partners, startups, accelerators, and venture capital players
• Industry bodies and professional associations
• Work closely with Legal, Procurement, Risk, and Compliance teams to ensure partnerships are governed responsibly, transparently, and sustainably.

One Team Cross‑Functional Leadership & Influence

• Act as a connector across business units, technology teams, operations, and corporate functions to ensure alignment and shared ownership of strategic outcomes.
• Partner closely with PMO, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Risk, Data Governance, and Cybersecurity to embed strategy and innovation into enterprise execution.
• Break down silos and foster a one‑team mindset across internal teams and external partners.
• Influence senior stakeholders without formal authority, aligning diverse perspectives toward common objectives.

Move FastAgile Strategy & Execution

• Develop and maintain forward‑looking, adaptable strategy and innovation roadmaps that respond to changing business needs, market dynamics, and technology trends.
• Champion agile, iterative ways of working across strategy and innovation initiatives, driving faster learning, quicker pilots, and informed scale decisions.
• Enable rapid experimentation while maintaining clear decision rights, risk management, and executive visibility.

Drive InnovationCulture, Capability & Continuous Improvement

• Champion a culture of curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement across T&D and the wider organisation.
• Build innovation capability through playbooks, toolkits, training, communities of practice, and thought leadership.
• Ensure innovation initiatives are grounded in clear value hypotheses, adoption plans, and success metrics from day one.
• Continuously scan the external landscape for emerging technologies, business models, and partnership opportunities relevant to Pos Malaysia.

Delight CustomersOutcome‑Driven, Customer‑Centric Strategy

• Anchor all strategy, innovation, and partnership initiatives in real customer, employee, and enterprise needs.
• Translate innovation into tangible improvements in customer experience, service reliability, operational efficiency, and new revenue generation.
• Support business leaders in prioritising initiatives that deliver the highest value to customers and stakeholders.
• Measure success through adoption, satisfaction, and sustained business impact, not activity.

Job RequirementsCore Experience & Background

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Technology, or a related field; MBA or equivalent strongly preferred.
• 12+ years of experience in strategy, innovation, partnerships, transformation, or corporate development, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
• Strong preference for candidates with prior experience in Big 4 strategy consulting firms, particularly those who have:
• Led enterprise or function‑level strategy engagements
• Designed operating models and governance frameworks
• Driven execution and change beyond slide delivery
• Proven experience building or leading innovation labs, centres of excellence, venture studios, or structured innovation programmes within large or complex organisations.
• Demonstrated track record of successfully delivering innovation initiatives from concept to pilot to scale, with clear evidence of:
• Business adoption
• Measurable value realisation
• Organisational capability uplift

Innovation Ecosystem & Network (Critical)

• Possess a strong, readily accessible professional network across the innovation ecosystem, including:
• Government agencies and regulators
• GLCs and public‑sector entities
• Universities, research institutions, and domain experts
• Technology partners, startups, accelerators, and venture capital players
• Industry bodies and professional associations
• Deep understanding of the Malaysian innovation ecosystem, including:
• Key innovation players and platforms
• Public and private innovation funding mechanisms (grants, venture capital, co‑funding models)
• Startup and scale‑up landscape relevant to logistics, e‑commerce, data, AI, and platforms
• Ability to activate this ecosystem quickly and credibly to support Pos Malaysia's innovation and transformation agenda.

Usable Methods, Models & Playbooks

• Bring practical, field‑tested approaches to:
• Enterprise strategy development and portfolio management
• Innovation strategy, governance, and operating models
• Partnership origination, structuring, and lifecycle management
• Demonstrated ability to adapt best practices to organisational maturity and governance realities rather than applying generic frameworks.
• Comfortable codifying approaches into repeatable playbooks and tools for enterprise adoption.

Leadership Attributes & Character Traits (Non‑Negotiables)

Candidates must clearly demonstrate the following traits through past behaviour and outcomes:

• Builder mindset: Creates systems, operating models, and platforms; not just ideas or presentations.
• Outcome obsession: Relentlessly focused on value realisation, adoption, and measurable impact.
• High integrity, governance‑first leadership: Understands that trust, data, and partnerships require strong controls and ethical decision‑making.
• Curiosity and learning agility: Actively keeps up with AI, technology, innovation models, and ecosystem shifts.
• Low ego, high collaboration: Enables others, shares credit, and orchestrates ecosystems effectively.
• Comfort with ambiguity: Operates confidently in uncertain environments while still driving clarity, structure, and decisions.

Why Join Us

This is a rare opportunity to shape the strategy, innovation agenda, and external ecosystem of a national institution undergoing one of the most ambitious transformations in its history. You will work closely with senior leadership, influence enterprise‑wide decisions, and help position Pos Malaysia as a future‑ready, innovation‑led organisation for the next generation.