Front-End Innovation R&D Manager / Sr. Manager

Job ID: 5450 

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) R&D Manager / Sr. Manager is responsible to envision and deliver winning and invention-complete product experiences, claims and supporting demos. They work as an integral part of the Newell FEI POD team to create transformational and expansive new products that serve as part of an optimized portfolio of projects designed to generate sustainable new value creation for Newell. They must be outstanding collaborators and integrators across functions, levels, and work processes.

They are natural connectors both inside Newell and with 3rd party experts, who are able to seek and bring expertise into the project to solve key challenges and design bigger and more robust solutions. They build the capability of the organization through best-in-class work processes and developing people’s expertise.

They are responsible for developing and designing intuitively better solutions that create clear value for all stakeholders (consumers, retailers and Newell). They must be desirable by enough consumers to meet the business model, feasible with a clear Segment strategy leveraging in-house and/or 3rd party supply bases and viable in terms of the holistic financial model.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS & DUTIES

Strategic Thinking

• Contributing into a Category innovation strategy and to lead a team to translate that strategy into actions and plans that create strategic competitive advantage.
• Defining opportunities to transform projects from one-off “products” to platforms with sustaining innovation that creates a bigger idea with sustained A&P support to drive habit formation
• Collaborating with Legal and Regulatory to ensure compliance and Freedom to Practices as well as to create opportunities for the creation of competitive Moats using a combination of techniques (patent, trademark, trade secret, supplier relationships, etc).

Products Research Expertise and Decision-Making

• Collaborating with Insights, Products Research and Marketing, the unlock deep human understanding and insights on unmet needs
• Experience and expertise in working with Products Research experts to apply insight methods and consumer learning plans (ethnography, psychology, sensory sciences, etc) to distill the information and identify new, unmet needs and to use behavioral science approaches to understand these tensions and dynamics
• Harnessing technologies from various sciences to answer “needs Briefs” by identifying unique technical solutions (and possibly inventions) that solve these unmet needs
• Skilled in objectively assessing solutions to determine fit with business model requirements, creating incremental value, exhausting optimization levers -and making difficult decisions even if it means sunsetting a project to make room for bigger ideas in the portfolio.

Agile Product Prototyping

• Brings strong experience in working with the Industrial Design team to hypothesize and iterate to build winning solutions to deliver unmet needs:
• Minimum Viable Prototyping: Can apply a range of MVP tools for fast cycle prototyping (digital, physical, chemical, etc).  Has mastery in building hypotheses, rapidly testing these and pivoting to refine the prototype
• Business Model Creation:  Has a sound understanding of Business Model creation and the need to iterate on prototypes to develop affordable solutions that are ‘good enough’ while being ‘surprisingly obvious’

 R&D Product, Process, Package and Design Integrations

• Has mastery in Open Innovation and is able to use a broad range of internal and external sources to support iterative product design
• Maintains a strong collaborative network with core business Product, Process, Package and Design leaders to pull them into FEI as appropriate, regularly tapping into their knowledge and mastery.
• Strong ability to translate technical points of superiority into intuitive, compelling and feasible claims and demos, leading claims support plans with Legal.
• Design process management: Working with the IDL and POD leader to ensure  that projects are accurately documented, R&D issues, barriers and decisions-needed are fully communicated, and that all project assumptions (critical issues, assumptions) are clear

QUALIFICATIONS

The successful candidate will have the following qualifications:   

• Manager: 5-7+ years of experience in Research & Development, ideally with 3+ years in innovation in CPG
• Senior Manager: 8+ years of experience in Research & Development, ideally with 3+ years in innovation in CPG
• Experience translating technical and consumer insights into the development of winning technical models, exciting user experiences and holistic propositions for multiple regions and/or retail channels
• Experience in optimizing product design to solve business model, IP, supply base or manufacturability challenges with strong technical and financial fluency
• Ability to operate both at the "big idea" level and in the “weeds” of building stimulus.
• Proven track record of working successfully cross-functionally across Marketing, Insights, Design, Legal, Regulatory and Finance.
• Strong communication skills and comfort presenting ideas to senior leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
• Experience with navigating ambiguity and adapting plans as new information emerges.
• Experience working in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment, with proven experience with rapid, hypothesis-based iterative learning and testing.
• A natural connector who can seek out internal and 3rd party expertise to bring in subject matter expertise to solve key project challenges.
• Has an entrepreneurial, curious and solutions-oriented mindset.   

WORK ENVIRONMENT

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

*Note: This position has the ability to be a Manager or a Senior Manager level position, depending on the candidate’s qualifications and experience

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.