Front-End Innovation, POD Leader

Job ID: 5439 

Location: Atlanta, GA 

Newell Brands is a leading consumer products company with a portfolio of iconic brands like Graco®, Coleman®, Oster®, Rubbermaid®, Sharpie® and Yankee Candle® - and 24,000 talented teammates around the world. Our culture is built on values in action: Integrity, Teamwork, Passion for Winning, Ownership, and Leadership. We work together to win, grow, and make a real impact—supported by a high-performing, inclusive, and collaborative environment where you can be your best, every day. 

The Front-End Innovation (FEI) POD Leader will own the innovation strategy, focused on expanding and transforming the market for the business. They will lead the development and validation, ensuring it becomes a key engine of long-term growth for the business.

This individual will build an innovation program that continuously identifies and validates new-to-brand categories, new benefits, and functionalities as well as breakthroughs in performance, benefits, and/or costs. The POD leader will collaborate with other cross-functional team members to uncover unmet needs, conceptualize new product opportunities and move them through the FEI validation process to Project Charter, ensuring both strong consumer and financial viability prior to handing off to the Go-To-Market teams. The POD leader is responsible for documenting projects, surfacing Sprint or barrier needs and enabling a smooth transition from FEI to the base business, enabling the Go-To-Market teams to launch a robust portfolio of innovation.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS & DUTIES

Functions and duties of this role include, but not limited to:  

• Leading the development of the FEI innovation strategy (Expand and Transform) that drives Segment growth and strengthens brand equity.

• Owning the ongoing creation and maintenance of the innovation pipeline, determining the future growth plans for multiple existing and new product platforms.  

• Developing strong innovation propositions that are commercially desirable, technically feasible and financially viable, considering the competitive landscape, pricing, profitability, region and/or retailer requirements, supply capability and strong scientific/technical rationale.

• Securing senior leadership support for the innovation program by presenting a clear business case, inclusive of consumer need and potential market impact.

• Leading the cross-functional team, clarifying priorities for cross-functional partners, and managing/organizing the many moving parts across all innovation projects.   

• Identifying and evaluating market opportunities, consumer trends, available technologies, category adjacencies, and competitive products to shape future innovations and inspire curiosity and exploration in the team

• Partnering closely with Consumer Market Insights to consistently identify consumer unmet needs and opportunities to positively disrupt the market and create value for the Segment 

• Partnering with Consumer Market Insights to identify new jobs-to-be-done, validate product concepts, and conduct rapid iterations on product design     

• Partnering with Product Development & Design to bring feasible solutions to meet consumer needs
• Partnering with Finance to ensure sufficient business model assumptions and inputs are understood
• Ensure accurate documentation of FEI Stage Gate, Sprint Recommendation and Needs Brief documents
• Enable a productive & solutions-minded working environment for the working team
• Partnering with the PMO to adhere to the cross-functional FEI stage gate process and deliverables   

• Partnering with the go-to-market team to hand off the project effectively, ensuring they are set up to successfully to execute in-market
• Influencing key stakeholders with effective communication skills and storytelling   

QUALIFICATIONS

The successful candidate will have the following qualifications:   

• 10-15+ years of experience in leading one or more of the areas of innovation within R&D, Product Development, Consumer Insights, Consumer Innovation, Brand Management, and/or Sales.
• 7+ years of experience in innovation in CPG
• 5+ years of experience managing a team and developing a high performance cross-functional organization with effective communication skills  
• Experience developing innovation programs and leading early stage validation of its projects
• Proven track record of delivering successful innovation across renovation to product line extension as well as disruptive/blue ocean innovation   
• Strong financial fluency; ideally has experience owning or having accountability to the P&L
• Experience working in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment, with proven experience with rapid, hypothesis-based iterative learning and testing.
• Analytical thinker comfortable with using consumer, category, trends, and market insights to inform strategy 
• Experience working in consumer brands that built categories or disrupted categories 
• Experience developing innovation products for multiple regions and/or retail channels, including retail, e-commerce/DTC. Experience partnering with key customer teams and builders. 
• Strong cross-functional leadership and partnership skills 
• Ability to think strategically and creatively while managing multiple projects and stakeholders simultaneously.   
• Bringing disruptive thinking and consumer insight to drive long term growth
• Has an entrepreneurial, curious, and solutions-oriented mindset.   

WORK ENVIRONMENT

A collaborative, small, dedicated innovation team comprised of multi-functional experts. Co-located with POD members in Atlanta.

Newell Brands (NASDAQ: NWL) is a leading global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands, including Rubbermaid, Sharpie, Graco, Coleman, Rubbermaid Commercial Products, Yankee Candle, Paper Mate, FoodSaver, Dymo, EXPO, Elmer’s, Oster, NUK, Spontex and Campingaz. We are focused on delighting consumers by lighting up everyday moments. Newell Brands and its subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and comply with applicable employment laws. EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled are encouraged to apply.