Head of Innovation, ASPAC

Head of Innovation, ASPAC

Glanbia Performance Nutrition

 

Join this dynamic team focused on delivering better nutrition for every step of life’s journey

 The Opportunity

There is an ambitious brand building agenda for GPN with Innovation and consumer centricity at the heart of the plan, enabling strong and healthy brands that are “First to mind” and “First to find”.

Reporting directly to the Senior Director – International Innovation, the Head of APAC Innovation will lead Innovation for the GPN META, Asia, Oceania, and South Asia regions combining to a size of $265M in 2023.

The International business is projected to grow to over $850m in 2026 with high growth targets from the emerging APAC region.

The focus of this role will specifically include responsibility of breakthrough innovations pipeline and strategy for key brands like ON, Isopure and SlimFast. The role will need to take into consideration varied consumer preferences, channel shifts, category evolution and competitor movements across a wide portfolio of markets to drive innovation in APAC. Partnership with the local regional teams, R&D, global innovation and the Insight and analytics function will be crucial to using innovation to drive 1) Sustainable business growth 2) Brand equity and 3) Category leadership through fewer, bigger, better ideas. This is a unique opportunity in an exciting category with a multi-market context.

 

• Developing consumer centric regional breakthrough product pipeline through multimarket initiatives for key GPN Brands focus on ON and Isopure (+BSN, Amazing Grass)
•  Collaborate with the Global Innovation Function on agreed strategic digsites and long-term strategic focus areas on an upstream 3–5-year innovation horizon at the top of the innovation funnel.
• Build the 24-month product innovation pipeline with ‘business step change’ ideas for APAC, partnering closely with R&D, I&A and local market teams.
• At the bottom of the funnel (~ 12months before launch), handoff of conceptualised idea, final product, USP’s to central Brand team/in market teams to drive marketing plan
• Link with Glanbia Nutritional to leverage internal synergies of capabilities
• Drive impact of the innovation function and create an innovation driven culture throughout the organisation particularly the in-market teams
• Represent APAC innovation in appropriate marketing forums
• Establishing pipeline sufficiency metric for APAC
• Partnering with finance on Pipeline sufficiency, product design CM%, and analytics to highlight and solve pipeline issues
• Managing post launch analytics with markets and reporting to ensure accountability of regions in execution

The skills you will bring to the team

• 10+ years' experience in product/innovation leadership roles, preferably within FMCG/ consumer goods.
• Experience in Asia is required, ideally in a pan Asian role covering key markets such as Korea, India and China.
• Expert-level experience in innovation strategy development, mapping category opportunities using insights and  competitor analysis to anticipate future opportunities.
• Expert in mining compelling insights and building distinctive, appealing product p