Innovations Manager
locations Nairobi, Kenya time type Full time
posted on Posted Yesterday
Job Description :
Job title: Innovations Manager
Reports to: Head of Innovations, EABL
Context/Scope:
Are you hungry for a big opportunity? Do you yearn for a fast-moving, entrepreneurial culture? Do you measure success by what you do as much as what you say?
Are you a cultural disruptor? Are you motivated by brilliant execution of new ideas that delight consumers and are compelling to the retailer? If this is you, then welcome to the Innovation team at EABL.
Are you wondering how important is this role to the whole business?
- The innovation team is charged with shaping the next frontier for the business by addressing unmet consumer needs.
- The innovation team plays a critical role in delivering innovations that respond to consumer and customer needs, setting trends, disrupting and shaping the choices available to our consumers.
We are looking for a self-motivated, entrepreneurial individual who will be a great addition to the team and who shares our beliefs. In this team, we believe in acting like owners while holding others to account for highest standards, all the while enjoying what we do and having a great time.
We have learned that we find a way to make things happen with pace and urgency – we’ve launched products in under 8 weeks from inception- and learning quickly and adjusting our plans as we execute. This calls for constant awareness of the environment, acting on insights that can be boldly and quickly executed in the market.
We are creators, we build brands from scratch such as Chrome, Tusker Cider, Balozi, Rockshore Tropical and create new variants of local brands such as Kenya Cane Pineapple and Smirnoff Ice Guarana.
In the spirit of making marketing simple, we also work collaboratively with global teams to introduce international brands in a way that is compelling and truly transformational such as Captain Morgan Gold, Guinness Smooth, Tanqueray and Gordons flavors.
Finally, we have learned that the simplest things often determine success & failure. Identifying the right consumer insights, building purposeful brands that are rooted in culture, allowing ourselves to remain curious, constantly experimenting & taking bold risks and failing forward are critical to our success.
We think through the end-to-end value creation opportunity: from conception to commercialization in the market.
We are looking for the next disruptors and shapers of the future of celebration- we need an Innovations Manager, accountable for delivering game changing innovation projects.
If you want to be part of this team that is passionate about consumers & customers & if you are excited about the opportunity to deliver game-changing innovation, then contact us.
In this role you are not…
- Adapting but disrupting
- Identifying problems but finding solutions
- Doing business as usual but doing business unusual
- Seeing Impossibilities but unlocking possibilities
- Playing safe but taking bold risks and failing forward
- Living in the past/present but creating the next biggest brand
Purpose of Role
This is an extraordinary opportunity to work and shape the future of KBL; one of the leading organizations in Kenya. You will embrace this challenge & demonstrate a burning passion for consumers, creative judgement, innovative thinking balanced with a black-belt in launch execution.
The Innovation Manager will lead the thought leadership to execution of scalable new launches that deliver against KBL’s growth priorities.
The role will require you to:
- Build Purposeful Winning Brands that are built in culture to win the hearts & minds of consumers. You will need to inject your creative flair alongside to applying creative judgement to evaluate brand communication and associated content & come up with disruptive & holistic launch campaign
- Lead Product Innovation: Based on consumer insights, lead the development of Concepts, Design & Communications for new brand launches & brand extensions on existing brands. Complete this through the GATE (approval) process, influencing & inspiring the organization behind your vision. Work in partnership with the Supply brand change managers and Commercialization Managers to develop and commercialize the product innovation.
- Use Insights to sell More– Leverage consumer and customer understanding to generate insights on consumer behavior that successfully deliver innovations uptake and great commercial execution. Working closely with media and digital you will ensure that the launch strategy is informed by trends and big shifts that reflect consumer behavior.
- Brilliantly Deliver Integrated Execution– Writing briefs that inspire internal and external partners to create breakthrough and disruptive ideas that enable the new launches to be established in culture, drive rapid awareness, trial and achieve fame on time and within budget.
- Forge powerful partnerships– develop productive and mutually rewarding relationships with agencies, GBT, cross functional teams to enable us to achieve set goals and brand vision
- Be Entrepreneurial: You will constantly seek new ideas and make connections to identify and turn opportunities into reality. Be imaginative
- Project Management– You will be working on multiple projects/launches concurrently and this requires a high level of structure, rigor and self-discipline to ensure that launches take place on time
- Demonstrate Strong team leadership It is critical that you can effectively influence & inspire the cross-functional project team to deliver the ambition. This means forging genuine relationships, holding tough conversations when needed & above all to be a Master of inspiring the business to the opportunity the innovation has for the business in the future.
- Performance management: Through a strong understanding of the business and the relative commercial levers required to deliver the performance ambitions you will consistently measure and intervene to make sure all new launches deliver set KPIs. Timely escalations and course correction based on judgement from the performance tracking
Key Relationships: EABL Kenya Executive team, Marketing team, Technical and brand change team, Finance team, Consumer research team, Sales and commercial team, Procurement team, Corporate Affairs team, Supply chain team, Quality and Brand assurance team, 3rd party agencies.
Qualifications & Experience Required:
- You have 4+ years of consumer marketing or innovation experience & have a proven track record of amazing results.
- Demonstrated strong marketing judgement & commercial grounding to ensure delivery of plans.
- Entrepreneurial flair to identify new opportunities & navigate your project challenges through the complex business landscape.
- A great communicator, to build strong interpersonal networks within the business & agency partners
- Comfortable managing complexity and ambiguity with a demonstrated track record of managing an agenda of multiple priorities & stakeholders, juggling multiple projects & complex project timeline.
- You demonstrate drive, delivery & determination. The ideal candidate should be result oriented with demonstrated experience in consistently delivering strong performance.
- Educated to Graduate level in a business-related field.
Celebrating our inclusive and diverse culture is core to Diageo’s purpose of “celebrating life every day everywhere”. This purpose is, in itself, inclusive in nature, as it values everybody irrespective of background, disability, religion, gender or ethnicity.
Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected Consumer Products Company in the world. To achieve these, we need the world’s very best people.
Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you. Apply to join us.
Worker Type :Regular
Primary Location:KBL
Additional Locations :
Job Posting Start Date : 2023-03-10
