Senior Specialist - Incubation & Opportunity Assessment at Sasol

Purpose of Job

• To identify, evaluate, and progress innovation-driven business opportunities aligned with Sasol’s strategy and future value agenda. The role ensures robust assessment of exploratory and emerging opportunities, enabling the creation of a balanced opportunity funnel that delivers sustainable growth, diversification, and transformation of Sasol’s innovation portfolio. Building partnerships and collaborative networks to accelerate co-development and implementation is a critical requirement.

Key Accountabilities

• Conduct structured opportunity assessments to ensure strategic fit, value potential, and technical/market feasibility in line with Sasol’s Innovation strategy and incubation framework.
• Drive the BBST opportunity funnel development, ensuring coverage, diversification, and progression from early ideation and incubation to emerging business phases.
• Translate market, technology, and regulatory insights into innovation-driven business opportunities, leveraging partnerships, licensing, and external ecosystems.
• Collaborate with internal partners, including but not limited to stakeholders in Strategy & Sustainability, Business Building, and Research & Technology to incubate and mature opportunities up to Gate 1.
• Apply opportunity framing tools, value assurance reviews, and portfolio review processes to ensure consistent evaluation and decision-making.
• Provide clear recommendations to optimise portfolio health and accelerate delivery of Future Sasol.
• Drive quantitative and qualitative assessments with BBST teams, including EBITDA potential, capital requirements, risk assessment, sector/geographic diversity, and alignment with emission reduction and sustainability goals.
• Ensure knowledge sharing and capability building across the innovation network and communities of practice within business.
• Develop and maintain external intelligence networks to benchmark best practices and identify innovative pathways for growth.
• Foster collaboration across functions and maintain visible alignment with Sasol’s priorities (energy transition, sustainable fuels and chemicals, power business development, decoupling from oil dependency, etc.).
• Support the coordination and expansion of Sasol’s innovation ecosystem, including partnerships with startups, academia, research institutions, and industry consortia.
• Manage an internal innovation network of champions and cross-functional teams to drive knowledge sharing, collaboration, and innovation culture across the organisation.
• Identify and engage with external partners and platforms to co-develop solutions, accelerate access to new technologies, and strengthen Sasol’s innovation pipeline.
• Support the Innovation Centre of Excellence in embedding group-wide standards, governance, and best practices for innovation networks and partnerships.
• Act as a connector between internal stakeholders and external innovation communities to ensure alignment, visibility, and impact of Sasol’s innovation agenda.

Formal Education

• 4-year University Degree (Engineering, Business, Economics, or related field)
• Postgraduate qualification (e.g., MSc, MBA, or equivalent) advantageous

Min Experience

• 9+ years relevant experience in innovation management, business development, technology assessment, or strategic portfolio evaluation
• Exposure to energy, chemicals, or sustainability sectors preferred

Certification

• None required, though affiliation to professional innovation/business associations advantageous