Business advisor in sustainable business innovation

We are looking for someone who wants to help us catalyze sustainable innovation together with the private sector.

You are passionate about helping Swedish companies create, develop, and improve circular business. We want to catalyze sustainability transitions through business innovation for circular business models.

About the role and our way of working
The role includes both relationship building with our customers and partners as well as circular business development together with customers in the form of projects in our Circular Business Lab at RISE. In the https://www.ri.se/en/what-we-do/networks/circular-business-lab we work with clusters of companies and with individual organizations to support them in their transition toward circular business models. Our customers are mainly larger technology and product companies, but also service providers, consultants and other companies that have an important role at the system level in the transition to a circular economy.

With your RISE colleagues, you will help our research and innovation partners develop business opportunities that reduce their environmental impact and involve pushing the boundaries of conventional business decision-making. You will have immediate access to some of Sweden's most talented experts in circular economy, circular design, and scientific decision support. Within RISE, you have an additional 3300 specialists in almost every technical subject. You will likely rely on many of them. You will work as a member of a growing unit of business advisors and innovation leaders with a consulting background. You will also contribute to developing the Circular Business Lab as a functional unit within RISE.

Our idea
The basic idea for sustainable value creation that you will work with is as follows: digitalization-among other trends-is creating opportunities to take better advantage of the value embedded in products already in circulation. Today, it is common that products are replaced because the user is tired of the appearance, because of low performance, or because new regulations and/or new technologies make newer alternatives more attractive. We believe these deficiencies can be overcome, in part, with business models that incentivize producers and sellers to assume responsibility for the product’s lifecycle rather than transferring responsibility for product maintenance to the user. We see that both customer and producer can benefit from better utilization of economic value in already-produced components, materials and products. By accelerating the creation of these business opportunities, we catalyze business competitiveness and sustainable development.

Who are you?
We think you are likely to have had a recent networking and advisory role as a consultant or something similar. We guess that you have a few years of work experience after higher education, and see yourself more as a doer than as a strategist. You have experience leading development work with management teams and boards and are used to creating clarity for yourself and others in complex development projects. You know the craft of design-driven business development and are used to working in an agile, customer-driven, and co-creative way. You have a strong business focus and an understanding of how economic benefits, customer value, and environmental benefits interact in cases that are part of each company's decision to invest in circular business models.

To thrive in the role, you should believe that there are plenty of circumstances where the private sector can meaningfully take the lead in sustainability transitions. You are energized by meeting people and you see sales as something positive. You have experience shepherding business contacts toward formalized contracts.

Typical skills you would benefit from with us include project management, stakeholder management, business model innovation, service design, business design, design thinking, lean startup, customer development, circular economy, innovation management, business economics, corporate venturing. We don't expect you to master them all.

We are impatient about increasing the pace of sustainability transitions in business and want you to start working with us in early 2024.

About RISE and the unit
RISE is Sweden's research institute and is state-owned. Our mission is to promote sustainable growth in Sweden by strengthening the competitiveness and renewal of the private sector and contributing to the innovative development of society. The recruiting unit at RISE is called Business Design and has, since 2013, worked with knowledge-building in circular business model innovation in the areas of design, business ecosystems, decision support and circular coaching. Our starting point is that resource-productive circular business models can catalyze competitive sustainable transition and thus radically reduce climate and environmental impact in society. We believe that inspiring successful examples of truly sustainable circular business models is the fastest way to contribute to a transition to sustainability. We are a mix of PhD researchers and experienced business professionals that use academic research as the foundation for addressing practical workplace challenges. The group is located in Gothenburg and Stockholm.

Welcome with your application!
Want to know more contact Marcus Linder, unit manager Sustainable Business +46 10 228 40 27. Last application day is 26th of November 2023. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and interviews may be conducted during the application period. 

Our union representatives are Lazaros Tsantaridis, SACO, at 010 516 62 21, and Bertil Svensson, Unionen, at 010-516 53 56