Assistant Brand Manager - Innovation

Role Purpose
Drive innovation projects from concept development through product readiness, working under the guidance of the Brand Manager - Innovation. The role takes ownership of specific workstreams within the end-to-end product development process - turning consumer insights and strategic briefs into well-developed concepts, coordinating cross-functional development, and ensuring products are validated, feasible and launch-ready before handover to the Brand Team.
Key Accountabilities
• Translate strategic business briefs into product innovation opportunities and clear concept directions, under the guidance of the Brand Manager.
• Develop innovation concepts, value propositions, benefit hierarchy, reasons-to-believe, variant architecture and consumer experience.
• Contribute to ideation workshops and support the identification of future product platforms, technologies and external innovation opportunities.
• Partner with R&D to develop new formulas, ingredients and technical solutions, providing clear direction on consumer and product requirements.
• Support packaging innovation, including structure, design and user experience.
• Coordinate with Procurement and external suppliers to explore new technologies, ingredients and manufacturing options.
• Lead concept testing, product testing and consumer validation for assigned projects; synthesize learning and incorporate it into product refinement.
• Manage Stage-Gate deliverables, project milestones, timelines and risk mitigation for assigned projects.
• Ensure assigned products are validated, manufacturable and launch-ready before formal handover to the Brand Team.
• Provide innovation and product knowledge to Brand Teams during commercialization where required.
• Support project business cases, including pricing assumptions, cost targets and financial viability inputs.