Our client is a mission driven wellness brand dedicated to educating, supporting, and empowering people with safe, functional personal care solutions. Education and consumer care sit at the heart of everything the company does, and that purpose shapes every product it brings to market. The team is collaborative, inclusive, and deeply consumer focused, pairing a strong sense of mission with a high bar for product excellence. As the company builds its next generation of innovation, they are looking for a Senior Manager, Product Innovation to shape the future of a core category and help bring breakthrough solutions to market.
Position Overview
This role offers the rare chance to own the future of a category, setting the 18 to 36 month product roadmap and defining what the brand builds next. As the senior product authority for the category, you will turn consumer insight and market opportunity into clear product strategies and guide that work from early concept through prototyping, testing, claims, and commercial readiness. Reporting to the SVP of Product and Portfolio, you will lead strategic partnerships across R&D, Insights, Regulatory, Quality, Clinical, Finance, and Project Management, giving you broad visibility and real influence on the company’s growth. Beyond individual launches, you will shape how the organization develops products, building the standards and practices that will guide innovation for years to come.
Position Responsibilities
– Own the 18 to 36 month product roadmap for the category, translating unmet consumer needs, emerging trends, portfolio learning, and growth priorities into clear product opportunities.
– Develop strong product theses that define the consumer problem to solve, target user, performance ambition, competitive benchmark, and what must be true for the product to win.
– Lead product architecture and concept development, exploring multiple solution pathways before narrowing to the strongest recommendation.
– Serve as the primary product partner to R&D, guiding technical development against the product thesis, consumer need, cost guardrails, and commercialization requirements.
– Lead the consumer and product learning agenda, including concept testing, prototype evaluation, in home use tests, benchmarking, and claims mining, and translate findings into clear decisions on what should progress, change, or stop.
– Own claims architecture and evidence strategy in partnership with Regulatory, R&D, Insights, and external testing partners, setting validation requirements and decision thresholds so claims are meaningful, differentiated, and supportable. – Build and manage product development investment recommendations across research, prototyping, testing, clinicals, and claims substantiation, partnering with Finance and senior leadership on tradeoffs and prioritization.
– Partner with Portfolio Management, Brand, and Marketing so the roadmap reflects category strategy and in market learning, and provide product, claims, and education inputs as new products move toward launch. – Lead innovation reviews and product forums with concise recommendations, decisions, and key risks, and partner with project management to ensure timelines include the right learning, testing, regulatory, and commercialization milestones. – Build strong relationships across internal teams and external partners, and continuously strengthen how the organization develops products by codifying repeatable standards, protocols, and decision criteria. Position
Qualifications Required:
– A proven track record of leading consumer products from insight and concept through prototype development, testing, validation, and commercial launch.
– A minimum of 7 years of progressive experience in product management, product innovation, product development, or brand innovation within consumer packaged goods, or a combination of education and experience providing equivalent knowledge.
– Strong experience partnering with R&D and technical teams to translate consumer and business needs into clear product requirements, with the curiosity to engage deeply in technical discussions.
– Experience building research and testing plans, interpreting consumer and technical evidence, and making confident recommendations from incomplete or evolving information.
– Experience managing product development budgets, external research and testing partners, and multiple initiatives across a multiyear pipeline.
Preferred:
– Experience in beauty, personal care, feminine care, wellness, OTC, or consumer health.
– Experience with claims development and substantiation, competitive benchmarking, in home use tests, or clinical studies.
– Strong strategic communication skills with the ability to simplify complex product decisions for senior leaders.
If you’re ready to define the future of a category and take your career to the next level, we’d love to hear from you. Apply now and a member of Talentfoot’s recruitment team will be in touch should your track record of success, experience, skills, and qualifications match our client’s requirements.