Manager, Innovation & Product Development

We are seeking an experienced Manager, Innovation & Product Development to help drive our global portfolio strategy and accelerate the development of next-generation products. This role will translate market opportunities, customer needs, and strategic priorities into commercially viable product innovations, leading cross-functional teams from concept through commercialization.

The successful candidate will combine strong technical expertise, project leadership, and stakeholder management skills to deliver innovation projects that support business growth, particularly within emerging tobacco and nicotine product categories.

Key Responsibilities

Implement Portfolio Strategy and Priorities

• Translate portfolio priorities into project briefs, product development plans, technical requirements, and delivery milestones.
• Maintain visibility of assigned project progress, resource requirements, risks, and decisions needed, by providing timely updates to key stakeholders.
• Provide technical and commercial input to portfolio discussions.

Identify and Develop Innovation Opportunities

• Monitor customer requests, market and consumer insights, technology developments and regulatory changes to identify potential product and process opportunities.
• Capture and clarify initial innovation concepts and requests from customers and commercial teams, and provide an initial assessment of their technical feasibility, development needs, risks and potential commercial value.
• Present innovation opportunities assessment and recommend project prioritizations.

Lead Innovation and Product Development Projects

• Manage projects from approved concept through product development, validation, scale-up and eventual commercialization, working within agreed scope, priorities and governance.
• Develop project plan covering requirements, deliverables, timelines, resources, costs, trials, dependencies, and key milestone decision points.
• Effectively orchestrate cross-functional teams.
• Effectively track innovation project progress, project risks and issues, coordinate mitigation actions, and escalate changes or decisions to key stakeholders
• Maintain proper and organized innovation project documentation & technical reports.
• Conduct efficient innovation project reviews and proposed relevant next steps.

Provide Technical & Commercial Development Support

• Define and oversee product and process development, trials, testing, validation and scale-up against agreed customer requirements and quality standards with consideration on costs, manufacturability, operational requirements.
• Support commercial teams with technical advise during customer discussions, presentations along with product / process training.
• Support the use of agreed Innovation Decision Gate process to manage project milestones.
• Share technical knowledge, project learnings, and relevant best practices across functions and regions.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Materials Science, Process Engineering, Textile Engineering, or another relevant technical discipline.
• 7-10 years of experience in product development, innovation, technical services, commercialization, or a related field within a manufacturing environment.
• Experience within the tobacco, heated tobacco products (HTP), nicotine, or adjacent regulated industries is highly advantageous.
• Proven track record managing product development projects from concept through commercialization.
• Strong understanding of technical feasibility assessments, scale-up activities, risk management, and project governance.
• Experience working closely with Commercial, R&D, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Finance functions.
• Knowledge of Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, or continuous improvement methodologies is a plus.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills in an international business environment.