Responsibilities

• Cross-functional Team Leadership: Lead and inspire multi-disciplinary innovation project teams (Marketing, Human Insights, R&D, Design, Science & Technology), fostering an entrepreneurial startup mindset focused on agility, speed, and continuous experimentation.
• Pain Point & Insight Mastery: Champion consumer pain points and unmet needs at every stage of discovery, ensuring all front-end initiatives remain anchored in verified human truths.
• Concept Prototyping & Design: Partner with R&D and Design teams to rapidly translate pain points into concepts, and physical/digital prototypes.
• Rapid Test & Learn Experimentation: In partnership with HI, run rapid consumer experiments to validate desirability.
• Bring in Voices Beyond Consumers: Partner early with customer teams, buyers, and external networks (startups, academic researchers, nutritionists, and entrepreneurs) to pressure-test, co-create, and refine emerging propositions.
• Value Proposition & Business Framing: Craft robust Value Proposition Canvases, preliminary business models, and early unit economics to substantiate scalable platform opportunities.
• Deliver & Handoff: Package insights, early validation proof points, and business cases into Project Briefs for seamless handover to intrapreneur and commercialization teams.
• Foresight & Signal Spotting: Leverage AI tools, digital trend platforms, regional customer/consumer connections, and science and technology developments to monitor emerging macro trends, cultural shifts, and dietary behaviors for early recognition and fast-follow concept development.
• Performance Tracking & Agility: Track discovery platform milestones, align initiatives with enterprise strategy, and utilize KPIs to continuously improve front-end innovation speed, learning velocity, and pipeline impact.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, or a related field required
• Master's Degree or MBA in Marketing, Innovation, or Business Strategy preferred
• 7–10+ years of progressive experience in CPG brand marketing, front-end innovation, new product development (NPD) required
• Demonstrated mastery in applying Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile co-creation methodologies to build early-stage concepts
• Deep consumer insights fluency, with proven experience designing qualitative discovery sprints, behavioral research, and proposition testing
• Strong commercial acumen with an understanding of P&L drivers, margin structures, and early-stage business case modeling
• Proven ability to build and manage external partnership networks (startups, academic institutions, incubators, and specialized subject-matter experts)
• Exceptional storytelling and executive presentation skills with a track record of influencing senior leadership and cross-functional partners
• Highly comfortable navigating ambiguity, driving self-directed initiatives, and pivoting based on experimental data

Preferred

• Master's Degree or MBA in Marketing, Innovation, or Business Strategy preferred