Innovation Insights Manager- Discovery

About Upfield!

We are the largest plant-based company in the world, and we believe in doing what’s right for our people, our customers and the planet. At Upfield our purpose is clear: we make people healthier and happier with nutritious and delicious, natural, plant-based products that are good for you, our planet; and with packaging that’s free from plastic. We’ve got iconic brands like Country Crock, Violife, and Imperial that people all over the world know and love. We’ve been a trusted category leader since 1871 and yet we feel like we’re only just getting started. Performance, Passion, and Care define who we are as a company, how we work every day, and the responsibility we feel toward our Associates, our consumers, our business partners, and our world.

We are a highly entrepreneurial fast-paced team running a multi-billion business across 60+ countries with the mindset of a start-up! We are agile, creative, fast-to-market, and obsessed with customers and consumers.

Discovery / Innovation Insights Sr. Manager - Violife Brand

Report to the Director of Innovation, working in collaboration with other innovation leaders to effectively develop, manage and deliver ways-in for key strategic growth spaces such as cream cheese and hard cheese.

Core Responsibilities Include

• Conduct analysis and secondary research to identify opportunity areas, unsolved consumer tensions, competitive challenges, and macro-economic shifts that could unleash business growth.
• Bring expertise in identifying emerging cultural trends and translating them into actionable strategies to drive innovation and competitive advantage
• Identify, align, and execute learning agenda to unpack key opportunity areas across the 3 lenses.
• Drive ‘make to learn’ (prototyping) and ‘do over say’ evidence in every research stage to ensure solutions are vetted in a suitable environment.
• Help document and report in a succinct manner all findings, pivots, opportunities, and implications to weekly leadership forums and executive key presentations.
• Act as ambassador for transforming the ways we think about our brand, our business model(s) and our ways of learning, and eventually how Violife / Upfield can innovate differently.
• Champion a future-forward mindset, acting as an Innovation role model within the larger Innovation / Marketing teams and inspiring Violife with the latest information on new trends in plant-based food, cheese & beyond.
  
  

Qualifications/Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or international equivalent
• Minimum of 8 years within CPG or innovation agency/consultancy-type environment
• Experience in foods – dairy (e.g., milk, creamer, cheese, etc.) and plant-based a plus
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Self-starter with a demonstrated comfort with extreme uncertainty – background of identifying new breakthrough opportunities through insights and driving through to execution
• Balance between strategic thinking and executional knowhow – can define a clear strategy based on insights & analytics, and bring it to life via hands-on execution
• Excellent communicator with strong presentation & influencing skills
• Engaging leader who inspires others, always pushing the boundaries on thinking
• Passion for Innovation and the consumer, always looking for ‘what’s next’
  
  

What’s Next

If this position sounds interesting, please hit the apply button now!

We understand your resume might not be up to date and recommend that you apply with what you have or your LinkedIn Profile. Upfield is dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workplace, we understand that you might not meet all the requirements stated in the description, but we encourage you to apply anyway. You might be the right candidate for this role or other roles. 

Upfield is an employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and equal opportunities for all. We recruit based only on values, qualifications, performance, skills, behaviours, experience, and knowledge. We ensure job advertisements are free from unintentional bias.

No personal characteristics should be a barrier to joining Upfield. We prohibit discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or other personal characteristics.