Director, Innovation and Discovery (Remote)

Location: Remote

Virtual, work-from-home position. Work anywhere in the US, must live in the US

ABOUT CONTINUED

A leader in EdTech, Continued is a team of passionate individuals dedicated to empowering professionals and enhancing careers. We are fast-paced, nimble, and we laugh a lot. We are proud to be certified as a great workplace, ranked #35 in Fortune's 2025 Best Medium Workplaces, ranked #18 in Fortune's 2025 top 25 Small & Medium Workplaces for Women, and ranked #74 in Fortune’s 2024 Best Small & Medium Workplaces for Millennials by the independent analysts at Great Place to Work®. We are 100% virtual, scattered across the country, but we maintain a tight-knit culture driven by curiosity, a love of learning, and a desire to solve complex problems. Learn more about us at continued.com and parent company lacallegroup.com.

THE MISSION
We are seeking a Director to lead Continued’s Frontier Team, the group responsible for exploring what comes next for our business and products. This is a high-accountability role focused on the earliest stage of the idea lifecycle: taking in new ideas, pressure-testing them, and determining which are worth pursuing before they become roadmap commitments. You'll guide structured exploration of emerging opportunities, surface promising new capabilities, and rigorously vet bold ideas, then hand the strongest ones off to the teams that build them into real offerings. In this role you will collaborate closely with teams across the organization including marketing, brand, product, technology, and content.  

WHAT YOU’LL DO (The Impact)

• Portfolio Ownership: Run the pipeline of ideas under exploration end to end, from intake through vetting and active investigation.  Track progress, keep every project moving, and keep the executive team informed on status, evaluation, and recommendations for what to pursue, pause, or stop.
• Competitive Intelligence: Continuously scan the education and professional-development landscape and collaboratively translate market signals into Frontier project opportunities before the competition sees them.
• Design Thinking: Lead structured problem-framing, ideation, and rapid prototyping using rigorous design thinking methodology from concept to tangible artifact. Speak design, content, and creative language natively and simultaneously.  
• Frontier Review: Facilitate regular review with company leadership. Own the agenda, present the scores, and drive the decision making.
• Productization Handoff: Shepherd battle-tested projects into Continued’s operational hands and document R&D learnings that make every project — even terminated ones — a strategic asset.
• Innovation Infrastructure: Build and refine the processes, rubrics, and rituals that make the Frontier a repeatable, scalable innovation capability. Create a documented roadmap for the future with the goal of building a strategic and dynamic team.
• Stay Sharp: Keep pace with AI, simulation technology, gamification, and the broader ed-tech ecosystem — and bring that intelligence back to the team.

WHO YOU ARE

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Design, Instructional Technology, or a related field — or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• 7+ years of experience in product strategy, business consulting, innovation management, or instructional design — with at least 3 years owning a portfolio or program from concept through launch.

Your Profile

• Market Intelligence Obsessive: You track competitors, follow adjacent markets, and synthesize signals into strategic implications — you know what's happening at the edges of EdTech and what it means for Continued.
• Design Thinker: You've internalized design thinking as a methodology, not a buzzword, and you can move from problem-framing workshop to prototype brief in the same day. You speak creative and business at the same time, and each team accepts you as one of their own.
• Owner, Not Participant: You hold yourself to a high standard of personal accountability.  When a project is in your portfolio, you own its outcome, not just the process it was put through.
• Independent by Default: You set your own cadence, manage your own priorities, and create clarity in fast-moving environments rather than waiting for it to be provided. You lead with purpose.
• Commercially Sharp: You think about business model innovation and market opportunity with the same rigor you bring to product design, and you can tell the difference between a genuinely novel idea and something that just feels new. You don’t just lead with your gut; you bring strategic intelligence and insight to every move.
• Communicator with Presence: You present to executives without over-preparing, write with clarity and concision, and make messy R&D portfolios feel coherent and compelling. You are comfortable thinking on your feet.
• Visually Fluent: You produce decks, prototypes, and documentation that are sharp and well-designed — not because it's required, but because you know it changes how ideas land. You are creative and strategic.
• Culture Fit: You thrive on ambiguity, operate with urgency, and bring genuine curiosity to the mission of making professional education more engaging and effective.

Preferred but Not Required

• EdTech Insider: You've worked inside a professional education company or learning platform and carry a real understanding of how learners engage and how the industry is evolving.
• Venture Lens: You've evaluated ideas for real market potential — not just technical feasibility — in a startup, venture, or product strategy context.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Can work a full-time W2 position on core U.S. business hours in your time zone.
• Ability to fulfill the job requirements with or without reasonable accommodations.
• Must be located in the United States and be legally eligible to work for us without sponsorship.
• Travel is required for an all-company meeting, and may be required a few times per year for team or project meetings.
• Occasional after-hours/on-call for emergency support and special events (generally less than four times per year).

We prefer an excited candidate with a great attitude and less experience to an unmotivated or unengaged candidate with tons of experience.

WHY JOIN US?

• Work from home with a company-provided MacBook and internet stipend.
• 21 days of flexible PTO + your birthday + holidays (with flexible substitution).
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision group health insurance, flexible spending accounts, and more.
• 401k match, professional development budget, robust wellness programs, pet insurance and many more perks and benefits.

TO APPLY
To apply, please submit a cover letter with your application. In your cover letter, we’d love to hear about: 1) why you would make a great addition to our team, and 2) about a book you’ve read or video you’ve watched from which you learned something new or interesting.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that we collect and process your personal information as described in our Applicant Privacy Notice. Please review the Notice before applying.