Innovation Manager

Innovation is a must win battle for Pernod Ricard. Innovation is at the heart of value creation for the Group and is critical in the transform and accelerate journey. Innovation accounts for 1/3 of the expected growth from the Group. The Group has established a clear direction of making the strategic brands bigger, with an expectation of more Billion brands in the near future.
A new Global Innovation Direction has been created in order to have a holistic view of the brand and market challenges and develop innovations to address these opportunities. A Global innovation will ensure a maximize allocation of resources and avoid duplication. The expertise of the Global Innovation direction will allow more impact and faster development.
The new Global Innovation Direction should enable a more Simplified, Empowered and Disciplined way to do Innovation.
The new Global Innovation Direction has identified 6 groups of brands / categories: Premium and Super Premium Scotch brands (UK based), Malt and GTR exclusive Prestige Scotch (UK based), Martell (China based), Jameson/Absolut/American Whiskies (US based), Malibu/Kalhua/HoT (US based), Gin/Rum (UK based). These groups of brands / categories will be led by Head of Innovation, will a global international scope of work.
The Innovation Manager needs to be an experienced innovator, who thrives with complex projects, has strong project management and influencing skills, who knows how to truly collaborate for superior results and who is truly passionate about innovation. The person should also have strong leadership skills as they will be collaborating with a multi-functional team to create and deliver innovations. The person is accountable for end-to-end creation and delivery of Global innovation.
Vision: Drive powerful and scalable NPD innovations on our strategic international brands, fueled with strong consumer-centricity and proximity to markets
Job aim:
Deliver the Vision by:
• Creating a consumer-centric pipeline of innovations in partnership with the Head of Innovation.
• Leading the development of specific innovations and project management through stage gate from Stage 1 through to Post Launch analysis
• Collaborating and interacting with Brand Companies, Market companies, GBD Innovation Team and Insights COEs to deliver a pipeline that meets the needs of the key defined markets
• Contributing to the global Pernod Ricard Innovation community to build and share learnings.
Qualifications:
Work experience:
Educated to Degree level.
Min 3 years relevant experience in a marketing role creating physical product innovations (not just service/business model innovation). Strong project management skills. Experience managing international/multi-market projects to successful delivery an advantage. Languages: English (strong business proficiency in written and verbal communication). Other languages an advantage.
Strong project management skills.
Experience managing international/multi-market projects to successful delivery an advantage.
Languages: English (strong business proficiency in written and verbal communication). Other languages an advantage.