INTERNAL - Operations Innovation Strategist

Job description

About us Avantpage builds communication workflows that help health and government organizations reach immigrant and LEP communities. We translate, print, mail, and track critical communications, so they arrive in the right language, on time, with proof of delivery. We operate globally from Davis, CA and we are always looking for professionals ready to live our values of empathy, innovation, and rigor. Job Overview The Operations Innovation Strategist is the Innovation team’s operational engine — the person who makes sure the bold ideas we scope actually work in the real world. Reporting to the Senior Innovation Strategist, this role grounds every innovation initiative in operational reality: validating that new products can be delivered within our workflows and SLAs, driving the internal optimizations and automations that make our offerings scalable, and owning the clean handoff of launched products into repeatable, well-documented operations. This is a builder’s role for someone who loves untangling how work actually gets done, then re-designing it to be faster, cleaner, and ready to scale. You will be a key partner in delivering on our 2026 goal of shipping the Innovation Roadmap on time — by making sure what we build is feasible before we build it, and operable after we launch it. Duties and Responsibilities Operational Feasibility & Validation Serve as the operational voice in discovery, framing, and mock-up reviews — pressure-testing new product concepts against real workflow capacity, staffing, and turnaround realities before they move to build. Validate workflow feasibility, SLA constraints, and cross-team dependencies for each initiative on the Innovation Roadmap, and provide clear go / no-go input at defined checkpoints. Maintain a living operational constraints log the Innovation team can rely on, so feasibility issues are surfaced during scoping rather than discovered during build. Translate operational concerns into structured, written feedback within agreed review windows, honoring the team’s written-record and sign-off protocols. Internal Optimization & New Build Identify, prioritize, and lead internal process optimizations that reduce cost, remove friction, and increase the capacity of Avantpage’s delivery operations. Map current-state workflows, define improved future-state processes, and build the automations, templates, and tooling that make them real. Partner with subject-matter experts across operations to standardize repeatable processes that can underpin scalable, product-oriented offerings. Measure the impact of optimization work — cycle time, error rates, cost per job, capacity freed — and report improvements against roadmap and margin goals. Product-to-Operations Handoff Own the transition of newly launched products from the Innovation team into standing operations — ensuring each has documented workflows, defined ownership, staffing, and SLAs before it is considered “live.” Develop operational playbooks, runbooks, and training materials that let delivery teams run new offerings confidently and consistently. Establish the operational metrics and monitoring that tell us whether a launched product is performing as designed, and feed early signals back into product refinement. Act as the connective tissue between Innovation and delivery teams, resolving handoff gaps and preventing “orphaned” products that launch but never fully operationalize. Cross-Functional Collaboration Work closely with the Senior Innovation Strategist, GTM Strategist, and VP of Innovation to keep operational feasibility aligned with product scope and commercial goals. Serve as a named, reachable working contact for operational questions throughout each product cycle, enabling faster processing and fewer blockers. Champion a culture of continuous improvement and thoughtful experimentation, helping teams test, validate, and scale ideas efficiently. Skills and Qualifications Required 3+ years in operations, business process improvement, program/project delivery, operations analysis, or a related field. Demonstrated success redesigning a workflow or process — with measurable gains in speed, cost, quality, or capacity. Strong systems thinking: able to see how a change in one workflow ripples across teams, SLAs, and cost structures. Hands-on comfort building automations, tools, or templates (e.g., workflow platforms, no/low-code tools, spreadsheets/scripts, or similar). Excellent documentation and communication skills; able to turn messy processes into clear playbooks and to give crisp go / no-go recommendations to VP-level stakeholders. Highly organized and self-directed, with a bias toward action and a track record of shipping improvements on time. Familiarity with AI, automation, and digital transformation trends and how to apply them to operational problems. Preferred Experience in language services, translation technology (e.g., MT, TMS, CAT tools), or a related B2B services or regulated-services industry. Exposure to agile, lean, or Six Sigma / continuous-improvement methodologies. Experience operationalizing new products or service lines — taking something from launch to steady-state delivery. What we offer Joining a vibrant multicultural team spread across the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe Professional development and growth opportunities in the localization industry Training in new tools, technologies, and processes Energetic, multicultural, and empathetic working environment