Head of Innovation & New Product Development

The role will require: 

• Great consumer and customer understanding to generate insights on consumer behaviour that would deliver successful innovations uptake and great commercial execution. 
  
• Inspiring leadership and influencing skills both within project teams, with internal departments and with senior leaders around the business. 
  
• Strong team leadership to deliver brilliant execution through agency partners for both above-the-line and below-the-line work to deliver the innovations in an accessible way that meets consumer needs and is profitable to the business. 
  

Top Five Skills & Accountabilities 

• Product Innovation: Through a natural instinct of what consumers want, lead the development of Concepts, Design & Communications for both new brand launches as well as brand extensions on existing brands. Complete this through the GATE process, influencing & inspiring the organization behind your vision. 
  
• Project management: leading the development of multiple innovation projects at once, you will be an expert in project management & mastering a range of project management tools such as Zoho to deliver all projects on time & within budget. 
  
• World-Class Execution Launches: Working in partnership with the Supply chain, defend brand managers and the commercial team to develop and commercialize the product innovation. Will require clear setting of the execution standards and goals for launches, delivering & executing full consumer & commercial launches flawlessly, to time & to budget. This will include new brand launches as well as rolling out brand renovations and refreshes. 
  
• Influencing & Inspiring. It is critical that you can effectively influence & inspire the cross-functional project team to deliver the projects. This means genuine relationships, tough conversations when needed & above all to be a master of inspiring the business to the opportunity innovation has for the business in the future. 
  
• Performance management: Through a strong understanding of the business and understanding the relative commercial levers required to deliver the performance ambitions you will consistently measure and intervene to make sure all projects deliver to target. Timely escalations and course correction based on judgement from the performance tracking

Qualifications & Experience Required: 

• You have 7+ years of marketing, product innovation or commercial experience & have a proven track record of amazing results. 
  
• You will demonstrate meticulous project management, strong marketing judgement & commercial grounding to ensure delivery of plans. 
  
• You will have a strong entrepreneurial flair to both identify new opportunities & navigate your project challenges through the complex business landscape. 
  
• A good communicator, you build strong interpersonal networks within the business & have the ability to manage stakeholders in a clear concise manner. You are comfortable managing complexity with a demonstrated track record of managing an agenda of multiple priorities & stakeholders, juggling multiple projects & complex project timeline. 
  
• You demonstrate drive, delivery & determination. 
  
• Resilience is key! You should be result oriented with a track record of consistently delivering strong performance. 
  
• Line management & leadership. Leading, inspiring & coaching cross functional team members and 3rd party agencies.