Cracking opportunity to join a well-known and well loved FMCG food company. Innovation is driving their growth and future ambitions so they are looking to bring in some experts to help drive their porfolio of popular brands.
The role:
· Drive Front-End innovation strategy, to develop a strong and margin accretive innovation pipeline that delivers on the Strat Plan growth targets
· Develop a strong portfolio management approach to create a Pipeline that meets the needs of brands both in the near term and medium term, ensuring the optimal mix of Break Through, Reframe and Refresh
· Identify white space opportunities, grounded in strong consumer insight and translate them into a Pipeline of winning concepts to drive incremental penetration to achieve the ambitious Innovation Strat Plan growth targets
· Elevate the Pipeline thinking to create winning growth Platforms with the stretch to generate multiple winning concepts
· Accountable for creating and optimising the approach to delivering inspiring Ideation Workshops – that create a strong pool of winning ideas to pass Gate 1 and progress through winning concepts that meet the Gate 2 action standards
· Develop a systematic Idea Inspiration Programme that (a) inspires and captures ideas from employees and (b) captures and reviews winning competitor products in market to inspire our concept development. In a way that is ongoing across the year with regular screening to fill the pipeline
· Responsible for 1 direct report and guiding their creation of a winning pipeline of concepts for their specific brands. Ensuring a sufficient pipeline to deliver to the action standards at Gate 1 and Gate 2
· Take a portfolio approach to assessing and prioritising the portfolio launch phasing, based on the business feasibility verses size of prize potential.
· Lead cross-functional teams, developing a strong network across the business, with ability to get the very best from people through strong collaboration (Consumer Insight, Brand, R&D, Supply Chain, Finance, Category)
Essential to have the following:
· Creativity to invent the future of UK snacking by blending compelling insight, with the UK’s best loved snacking brands and your spark of imagination, drive and passion
· Strong strategic thinker – to stretch the Portfolio of brands into incremental, margin accretive new experiences
· Exceptional FMCG innovation and ideation experience, with a proven track record in how to create winning ideas, and strong growth platforms, inspired by insight and brand equity . Extensive experience accumulated in previous front end innovation roles.
· Strong people management and coaching skills to ensure team growth and development
· Outstanding leadership capability - can collaborate well to get the best from people and lead with conviction and the respect of the team and stakeholders
· Strong relationship building and alignment skills. Resilience combined with emotional intelligence to build collaborative powerful relationships
· Strong commercial experience
· Winning mind-set fuelled