Sr. Manager, Product Strategy & Innovation

About Kerry

Kerry is the world's leading taste and nutrition company for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries. Every day we partner with customers to create healthier, tastier and more sustainable products that are consumed by billions of people across the world. Our vision is to be our customers' most valued partner, creating a world of sustainable nutrition. A career with Kerry offers you an opportunity to shape the future of food while providing you opportunities to explore and grow in a truly global environment.

About the role

The Sr. Manager, Product Strategy & Innovation is a new position and will be a key member of the Kerry Brands Marketing team. Reporting to the Sr. Director of Brand Marketing and partnering closely with Brand Managers, this position will be responsible for developing cross-brand product portfolio strategies and new product development/innovation pipelines and processes. The role will own critical work streams across the portfolio of brands to accelerate growth through strategic innovation projects and customer-specific product opportunities. The Sr. Manager, Product Strategy & Innovation will flex between categories, brands, channels and customers depending on the opportunity. The successful candidate will be experienced conducting product gap analyses, identifying innovation platforms/pillars, qualifying concepts through qualitative and quantitative research, creating portfolio/product strategies, leading product opportunity sizing analyses and owning innovation pipelines and processes.

Key responsibilities

•  Develop a cross-brand portfolio strategy for B2B and B2C channels to drive tangible growth, identifying consolidation and innovation opportunities.
•  Develop innovative, creative and breakthrough product concepts that have the potential to grow the Brands business.
•  Partner with Insights to qualify new ideas with consumers and/or operators through qualitative and quantitative research.
•  Utilize data to identify Kerry Brands opportunity spaces and innovation platforms (flavor/taste trends, category trends, competitive activity, customer opportunities and future dynamics).
•  Work across Kerry Taste & Nutrition teams to pull through differentiated ingredient technologies into branded innovation and new product launches.
•  Partner with R&D to lead semi-annual innovation and ideation sessions on behalf of the Brand Managers to identify new product ideas.
•  Work with Sales on custom, non-exclusive product opportunities; utilize those opportunities to create scalable volume for branded expansion.
•  Perform market sizing analyses and assess overall brand fit to provide go/no-go recommendations.
•  Partner with Brand Managers, R&D, Finance, Procurement and Supply Chain to lead innovation projects through the development and commercialization process; stage innovation launches for hand-off to Brand Managers and Sales teams.
•  Work with Sales team to develop sales/volume targets for innovation across channels; partner with Finance to develop business cases.
•  Present recommendations and project updates to the leadership team for review and feedback.

Qualifications and skills

•  Requires a bachelor’s degree; master’s degree is preferred.
•  7+ years of brand/product marketing experience; 4+ in new product development/innovation in a CPG or food/beverage manufacturing company.

•  Experience with both B2B and B2C brands, with channel expertise in foodservice. 

•  Significant experience in cross-functional leadership, product portfolio management and innovation/product launches.
•  Ability to flexing between high-level strategy development and “in the trenches” project execution.
•  Highly collaborative, yet tenacious, with the ability to operate effectively within a matrixed environment.
•  Comfortable working in ambiguity; resilient with an ability to overcome setbacks and challenges.
•  Skilled at analyzing and synthesizing data to develop strategies, make recommendations, etc.
•  Superior strengths in the following areas:
- Analytical skills – Data and trend analysis, business case development, market sizing.
- New Product Development & Innovation – From concepting to product development to launch.
- Financial Performance – P&L understanding and ability to develop market sizing models.
- Insights – Familiar with primary and secondary market research sources and processes.
- Communication skills – Exceptional verbal, written and interpersonal skills.

- Travel required (up to 20%).