Join us as a City Innovation Coach

We are looking for an experienced senior City Innovation Coach to strengthen our coaching capacity for cities in the Nordic region within the newly launched Bloomberg Philanthropies Innovation Team (i-team) program.

In June 2025, 18 new European municipalities were selected to participate in the i-team program. Each i-team will include three specialized staff charged with helping city officials and civic partners design and implement solutions that meet pressing local challenges. The i-teams deploy data, gather insights, and coordinate across sectors to deliver practical, resident-centred outcomes.

These new i-teams will focus on issues ranging from fortifying disaster response to reducing youth poverty to lowering household energy burden and will be in: Brussels, Belgium; Zagreb, Croatia; Helsinki, Finland; Turku, Finland; Vantaa, Finland; Freiburg Im Breisgau, Germany; Leipzig, Germany; Mannheim, Germany; Oslo, Norway; Madrid, Spain; Valencia, Spain; Zaragoza, Spain; Stockholm, Sweden; Edinburgh, UK; North East Combined Authority, UK; Liverpool City Region, UK; Greater Manchester Combined Authority, UK; and South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, UK.

Demos Helsinki is the coordinating partner for the i-team program and we are looking for a City Innovation Coach who will strengthen city support in the Nordic region.

About Coaching Support 

In the i-team program, coaching is a structured method of working closely with the innovation team director. The goal of the City Innovation Coach is to support the innovation team in its day-to-day work addressing the city’s two priority challenges and strengthening the city’s overall innovation capacity.

A City Innovation Coach serves as a senior resource to the team, ensuring working on a critical path to achieve transformative success that improves the lives of residents. This role goes much beyond training or executive coaching; it involves hands-on involvement and guidance to unpack problems, unearth new insights, and develop cutting-edge solutions. The City Innovation Coach also helps the i-team navigate through administrative and cross-departmental dynamics and maintains alignment between city needs and program-level goals.

City Innovation Coach Responsibilities

In this role, the City Innovation Coach will support two cities in the Nordic region (on site and virtually) to:

Drive strategic focus:
Ensure the innovation team remains aligned with impact goals and maintains strategic focus, navigating complexity to stay on the critical path.

Strengthen the team’s capacity:
Build and nurture a strong, committed team culture. Provide practical, real-time guidance and problem-solving. Strengthen the team’s confidence to deliver meaningful results while sustaining a high-spirited, high-performing environment.

Stay closely connected to the team:
Maintain proximity to cities and understand their needs by engaging consistently, including in-person collaboration. Provide contextual and methodological support tailored to emerging challenges.

Spot and grasp opportunities for scaling innovation capacity:
Through hands-on support with priority challenges, help the team translate project learnings into longer-term innovation capabilities for the city. Support the institutionalization of practices, structures, and mindsets so that innovation becomes repeatable, sustainable, and owned beyond the i-team.

Foster learning and manage risks:
Identify risks proactively and support teams in mitigating them constructively. Engage with the coaching network, exchange insights, and contribute to collective learning at the program level across European regions.

As part of Demos Helsinki, you will work on the team that coordinates the programme in Europe and supports six of the 18 participating cities. You will also join a network of coaches working with other European cities.

Requirements

• Minimum 13+ years of experience working with the public sector, including some direct experience within government
• Exceptional knowledge and skills in design thinking, civic design, innovation portfolio management, change management or public transformation in the context of cities
• Proven experience working with senior civil servants, executives, and political leaders to support decision-making and balance competing priorities
• Demonstrated track record of delivering outcomes while leading complex challenges and/or change initiatives across departments, agendas, and constraints
• Strong facilitation, coaching, and advisory skills in complex environments (virtual and in-person)
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to build trust quickly across diverse groups – from senior leadership to residents
• Highly motivated and able to engage in a wide range of tasks, including field work with stakeholders, documenting learnings and program metrics, contributing to program insights, and collaborating with other coaches
• Fluency in English and Swedish required; knowledge of Norwegian is an asset
• Strong communication skills and high emotional intelligence, with the ability to influence without authority and to challenge, structure, and clarify decisions
• Mindset: experimental, result-oriented, confident, humble, and curious
• Location: Preferably based in the Nordic region. Candidates elsewhere in Europe may also be considered, provided they can work reliably in the CET/EEST time zone.

What does success look like?

This role places you at a critical success point in the programme. You will be successful if:

• Your support to the city i-team is valued and contributes to effective, impactful work throughout the programme journey – resulting in solutions to selected challenges that deliver tangible value for residents.
• Cities learn from new approaches and measurably strengthen their innovation capacity.

How to apply?

Please send your application and CV by 10th January 23:59 (Helsinki time) HERE

Applications will be reviewed and interviews will be scheduled on a rolling basis, prior to the application deadline.

The full-time salary for this position is €4,790 per month. We can consider alternative collaboration arrangements for this program, including part-time, provided availability is at least 3,5 days per week. Please raise and ask about this during the interview process, if you are interested in other arrangements to a full-time employment relationship.

For details related to the position and job description, please be in touch with Nina Langerholc (nina.langerholc@demoshelsinki.fi).