Key Responsibilities
- Lead end-to-end management of breakthrough innovation initiatives from ideation through prototyping, validation, and handover to product teams or commercialization.
- Drive project planning, resource allocation, risk management, and delivery against milestones while maintaining flexibility for iterative discovery.
- Facilitate collaboration with cross-functional teams including scientists, engineers, designers, researchers, commercial stakeholders, etc.
- Champion consumer-centricity: ensure projects are grounded in user insights and deliver meaningful consumer value.
- Translate complex technical concepts into clear, business-focused communications for global commercial stakeholders.
- Build and maintain alignment across diverse stakeholders (product, marketing, sales, supply chain, legal), resolving conflicts and prioritizing effectively.
- Operate pragmatically and objectively :assess situations, weigh options, and choose the most efficient path forward.
- Foster a culture of experimentation: design experiments, learn quickly from failures, and iterate to improve outcomes.
- Maintain resilience and perseverance through project setbacks; manage uncertainty and sustain team motivation.
- Track and report project status, key metrics, and learnings to leadership and stakeholders.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or related field; advanced degree (MBA, MSc) preferred.
- 5+ years of project/program management experience in innovation, R&D, product development, or related areas; experience in breakthrough or early-stage innovation is highly desirable.
- Proven ability to lead technically complex projects involving creative and expert engineering teams.
- Strong consumer-centric mindset with experience applying user insights to product/feature definition.
- Experience managing global, commercially-focused stakeholders and communicating technical concepts to business audiences.
- Strong organizational, prioritization, and decision-making skills; pragmatic and outcome-oriented.
- Demonstrated resilience and ability to learn from failure; comfortable with ambiguity and iterative processes.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English; additional languages a plus.
- Certifications such as PMP, Agile (CSM, PSM), or equivalent are an advantage.
Competencies & Behaviors
- Leadership: influence without authority, inspire teams, and drive cross-functional alignment.
- Communication: translate complex technical detail into clear business messages.
- Strategic Thinking: balance long-term vision with short-term execution needs.
- Collaboration & Empathy: work effectively with creative engineers and commercial partners.
- Problem Solving: make data-informed decisions and apply pragmatic trade-offs.
- Resilience & Grit: persist through setbacks and extract learnings from failures. Cultural Awareness: experience working in global, matrixed organizations.
4. Success Metrics
Timely delivery of innovation milestones (prototypes, validations, handovers). Quality and impact of user-validated innovations (consumer feedback, engagement metrics). Stakeholder satisfaction and alignment scores. Number and learnings from experiments (validated hypotheses, pivot/kill decisions). Successful transition of validated innovations to commercialization teams.