• Clearly Serves as a member of the Institute’s leadership team with a formal role in strategic planning, institutional governance discussions, and long-range resource allocation decisions. • Establishes and leads the strategic direction of the Innovate Pillar, including setting annual and multi-year objectives aligned with national security priorities and Vanderbilt’s institutional strategy. • Exercises independent judgment and decision-making authority in shaping innovation initiatives, partnerships, and research focus areas. • Owns and manages a defined innovation operating budget and sponsored research portfolio. • Establishes annual revenue targets for government and foundation-sponsored research and is accountable for achieving portfolio growth goals. • Leads financial forecasting and pipeline tracking for innovation-related funding opportunities. • Originates and leads large-scale proposal development efforts, including multi-investigator, multi-institution submissions. • Serves as principal strategist in identifying, cultivating, and securing funding from DoD, Intelligence Community, DOE, DHS, and other national security agencies. • Drives the growth of a high-impact research portfolio generating significant grant revenue. • Provides direct supervision and performance management of staff within the Innovate Pillar. • Leads cross-functional teams spanning faculty, researchers, students, and administrative staff. • Builds scalable operational processes to support innovation pipeline development. • Serves as the Institute’s designated innovation representative to senior government, military, laboratory, and industry stakeholders. • Represents the Institute independently in high-level engagements, briefings, and partnership negotiations. • Maintains and expands strategic relationships with national laboratories (Sandia, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, PNNL, etc.) and defense innovation organizations (DARPA, DIU, In-Q-Tel). • Independently identifies emerging national security challenges and formulates new innovation initiatives. • Designs and launches new research programs, applied innovation labs, and translational initiatives. • Shapes the Institute’s innovation identity at the institutional and national level.