SENIOR MANAGER, MARKETING – NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Main Responsibilities

 Drive and own new product development, marketing strategy, results.

- Creates and manages the new product development pipeline portfolio, to ensure successive annual roll-outs of value-added profitable products, to achieve 5-year plan growth targets.

- Collaborates cross-functionally to drive the Customer to Concept process to bring new products to market.

- Identifies marketing opportunities by analyzing and defining the total market, market share, competitor market share, and available market share by product market.

-  Provides leadership and support for the design, development, refinement, and implementation of products by initiating research to identify consumer needs; develop new products to meet consumer needs; research consumer acceptance of products; work with manufacturing to identify packaging improvements, identify co-pack opportunities; develop introductory market programs to introduce new products; and lead status meetings to drive programs or new product initiatives to market. Periodically presents project updates to the leadership team.

- Develop, maintain and update new product development "Concept to Customer” process to ensure a group of new concepts/products are available to be introduced and commercialized on an annual basis to include:

+ Ideation Capture

+ Funnel to Focus

+ Stage Gate Management

+ Performance Evaluation

+. Initiate and continue new concepts/products "Ideation” activities. Activities to include:

+ Ideation capture

+ Strategic alignment assessment

+ Ideation prioritization

-  Initiate and continue new concepts/products "Funnel to Focus” activities. Activities to include:

+ Proof of concept

+ Market viability validation

+ Business case development

+ Resource requirements

- Champion prioritized new concepts/products through the "Stage Gate” development process. Activities to include:

+Formulary and costing

+ Internal product/process validation testing

+ Specification data disbursement

+ Test pilot operational run

+ Customer/Market test

+ Production Scale up

- Handle all aspects of taking successful new product concepts through commercialization. Where appropriate, develop an introduction team with members from key functional areas to insure a coordinated and successful introduction.

- Responsible for Performance Evaluation Analysis.

Activities to include

+ Post launch ROI validation – sales and cost performance validation

+ Customer/Market feedback

+ Champion identified improvements

+ Ensure key learnings and best practice are documented and shared institutionally.

+ Implement improvements in project management tools and methodologies.

- Handle all customer specific requests and brand line extension activities within Retail and Food

Service to include:

+ Product Development

+ Consumer/Product Testing

+ Packaging

+ Introductory Marketing Support

- Maintain ongoing communication with Packaging, Procurement, Manufacturing and Engineering to insure a thorough understanding of emerging new ingredients, packaging and manufacturing technology. Incorporate this learning into new product development process.

- Assist VP of Sales & Marketing in providing timely communication between Marketing, Field Sales and the Broker Sales Force. Topics to include but not limited to syndicated data results, promotional sell sheets, program updates and sales collateral materials.

- Serve in cross-functional roles & responsibilities in support of corporate objectives

+ Lead role of the Product Management Team

+ Participation in Sales & Operations Planning process

+ Strategic Planning team

+ Other duties as assigned by VP Sales & Marketing or Executive Team

- Champion the identification, development and analysis of the project justification for capital projects related to cost savings, product improvements and new production capabilities tied to new product introductions

 Basic Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree required. Marketing, business management or a related discipline preferred.

- 10+ years of marketing experience preferably in FMCG industry

- Minimum of 8 years of business experience in the field of marketing, product management or sales. Experience in Project management, leading cross function teams, and using a product development process preferred. Must be willing to continue to advance education in project management

- Able to cope with a high degree of stress and demand required by the interaction with many departments. Must be able to actively participate in each functional area of the operation. Travel may be required to work with Regional Managers on major presentations

- Excellent written & verbal communication skills

- Creative thinker and problem solver

- Thriving in matrix environments and are adept at building relationships with different stakeholders

- Proven record of leadership in a work setting and/or through extracurricular activities

Preferred Qualifications

- Master’s Degree

- Direct experience building a new product marketing capability from scratch