Innovation Manager

Salary Range - $10,819.00 -$13,794.00

Location - Columbus, NE; Columbus General Office

Employment Type: Full-time

Posting Date: 7/2/2026
Closing Date: 7/16/2026

Are you hard-working and eager to make a meaningful impact in the ever-emerging energy industry? Come join us!

By joining the Nebraska Public Power District team, you’re becoming part of a close-knit community that embodies the values and traditions of the state. More than generating and delivering power, we empower our employees to thrive both personally and professionally. With safety at the helm, we have created a supportive and inclusive work environment that fosters innovation and growth. Here, you’re not just an employee; you're a valued member of a family that respects and supports each other.

Our power grid has been consistently ranked one of the most reliable and resilient, but our reputation for excellence extends beyond our customer service to our employee satisfaction. Many of our team members have built lifelong careers here, advancing through the ranks thanks to our robust training programs and opportunities for professional development. With us, you’ll find a place where your efforts are recognized and rewarded, where you’re making a deep impact on the communities around you, and where you can truly power a career that you can be proud of.

Get to know us more here

Position Summary

The Innovation Manager leads the District’s Innovation function within the Business Transformation department and serves as a strategic partner in advancing modernization, operational excellence, and long-term organizational capability. Reporting to the Director of Business Transformation, this role is responsible for guiding the development, evaluation, and implementation of innovative strategies, technologies, products, services, and business processes that support the District’s strategic priorities and evolving utility landscape.

The Innovation Manager oversees a multidisciplinary innovation team focused on identifying emerging trends, assessing new technologies, facilitating experimentation, and accelerating the adoption of scalable solutions across the enterprise. This role drives collaboration with business units, operational teams, and executive leadership to translate opportunities into measurable business value while balancing innovation with operational reliability, governance, and risk management.

The incumbent provides leadership, technical direction, and portfolio oversight for innovation initiatives, pilots, and transformation efforts. This includes fostering cross-functional alignment, establishing repeatable innovation frameworks and processes, and helping business units navigate organizational change associated with new capabilities and ways of working.

In addition to delivering innovation outcomes, the Innovation Manager plays a key role in cultivating a culture of continuous learning, curiosity, and experimentation throughout the organization. The role champions modern practices related to emerging technologies, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, process innovation, customer experience, and grid modernization while ensuring alignment with the District’s public power mission and values.

The Innovation Manager directly supervises the Innovation team and works closely with leaders across the organization to position innovation as a strategic enabler of reliable, affordable, and forward-looking public power services.

Education, Training and Experience

Requires a bachelor's degree in an area of specialty AND 5 years of experience where business transformation and leadership have been successfully demonstrated by the incumbent. Requires 5 years of experience in the utility industry.

Training and/or experience in concepts such as Design Thinking, Product Development, and Artificial Intelligence that can help to identify, capture, optimize, deliver, and drive transformation throughout an organization is required. Master's Degree preferred.

Licenses and/or Certifications

Licenses or certifications related to continuous improvement or innovations are preferred.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Leads the District’s Innovation function in support of the District’s Business Transformation strategy, ensuring innovation efforts are aligned with organizational priorities, operational needs, and the District’s long-term strategic objectives.

Provides leadership and direction for the Innovation team, including prioritization of initiatives, portfolio oversight, resource planning, budget management, and professional development of team members.

Partners with business units, operational leaders, and executive leadership to identify opportunities for innovation, modernization, and organizational improvement that enhance reliability, efficiency, customer experience, employee experience, and overall business performance.

Establishes and maintains structured innovation frameworks, governance processes, and repeatable methodologies that enable responsible experimentation, rapid learning, and scalable implementation of new ideas and technologies.

Oversees the evaluation, development, piloting, and implementation of emerging capabilities, and innovative business solutions, including opportunities related to artificial intelligence, automation, analytics, and grid modernization.

Provides strategic and technical guidance for innovation initiatives, ensuring projects are appropriately scoped, governed, measured, and aligned with enterprise objectives and operational standards.

Monitors and communicates the performance, outcomes, and value realization of innovation initiatives through established metrics, reporting, and executive-level updates.

Represents the District in external partnerships, industry forums, research collaborations, and strategic engagements related to innovation and utility modernization.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities (Continued)

Manage the innovation team to deliver identified key technology pilots validating the edge case solutions for new products and services and ultimately implement proven project pilots as selected.

Manage the program to educate the District on Innovation and other related tools.

Establish continuous personal development for employees. Practice career planning, coaching, training, and counseling in the work group. Mentor and develop technical skills as required within the work group and immement knowledge retention processes as necessary.

The incumbent, coordinated with the Director of Corporate Strategy and Performance and Director of Transformation, participates in the analysis, evaluation and development of long-term innovation initiatives consistent with the enterprise's long-term business strategy.

The incumbent will be accountable to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with senior management, internal teams, and other key stakeholders which will enable and support the successful implementation of transformation and innovation initiatives. Influence key stakeholders across the district to influence culture, build alignment, and support ownership of transformation initiatives. The incumbent will provide coaching to the team on building and maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship between the team and management and other stakeholders.

Accountable for other duties as assigned.

Core Competencies

Customer Focus

Employees & Teamwork/Diversity & Inclusion

Integrity/Excellence

Public Service/Environmental Stewardship

Safety

Salary Information - Nebraska Public Power District offers a competitive starting salary with opportunities for growth. In addition to the base salary range listed below, NPPD employees may also be eligible for our Annual Incentive Program (AIP) that may supplement total compensation at a level above and beyond the stated salary range. Successful applicants will be provided more information regarding the incentive program at the time of an interview.

Pay Grade - 16 Monthly

Typical Pay Grade Starting Salary Range: $10,819.00 - $13,794.00

Travel Required: 25% to 50% (With no or minimal overnight stays, less than 3 per month, typically within state of Nebraska) Travel required may fluctuate by business need. This is an estimate and will be discussed further with candidates that receive an interview.

Nebraska Public Power District offers a competitive starting salary and an excellent benefits package including medical and dental insurance, 401K retirement plan, paid holidays, paid vacation, paid medical, training opportunities and more.

If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request a reasonable accommodation as part of the employment selection process, please contact Human Resources at Nebraska Public Power District.

Nebraska Public Power District is an Equal Opportunity Employer

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