Director, Product Management - Industrial Brands

Job Title:           Director, Product Management – Industrial Brands

Location:                     Vernon Hills, IL

Department:                Rust-Oleum Product Management

Reports To:                 Senior Director, Product Management – Professional Platform

Date:                            March, 2025

JOB PURPOSE:

The Director Product Management is responsible for the platform strategy and end-to-end profitability and has P&L ownership of the Industrial Brands platform. This position identifies profitable growth opportunities, complexity and cost reduction levers and sets the platform’s long-term strategy and roadmap to create sustainable competitive advantage and profitable growth at 10%+ CAGR or 3X market growth (whichever is greater). In order to do this, this individual will work cross functionally across multiple organizations such as Sales, Marketing, R&D, Manufacturing & Supply Chain in order to gain a deep understanding of user & market insights, STEEP factors, operational capability, innovation & technology pipelines, channel dynamics, and competitive dynamics. 

The Director of Product Management is supported by a team of Product Managers dedicated to the platform as well as by a team of Strategic Project Managers and Product Operations Managers that are dedicated or shared across platforms. She/he reports into the Senior Director of Product Management for the Professional Solutions Platform.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Platform P&L ownership
  • P&L ownership of the platform, balancing cost and growth opportunities to achieve profitability and growth targets
  • Identification of profitable growth opportunities, complexity and cost reduction levers from an end-to-end perspective involving all relevant functions across the company to drive impact and success for the platform (incl. Operations, Supply Chain, Sales and Marketing)
  • Utilization of a data-driven approach towards decision making, leveraging datasets spanning consumer insights, market data, service levels, sales data, and more
• Platform and portfolio strategy, innovation, and new product introductions
  • Develop a competitive platform strategy following strategic frameworks and processes as part of the company’s Strategic Portfolio Review and Planning process
  • Develop deep understanding of the target audiences to ensure that new products and services solve real consumer problems
  • Design, execute, and track success of the strategic initiatives of the platform, including platform’s go-to-market strategy, brand and value proposition, demand generation strategy, operational and supply chain strategy, and pricing and promotional strategy
  • Innovation pipeline management to meet user needs, optimize portfolio mix, better serve our customers, and grow the platform
  • Responsibility over managing new product launches, including working closely with R&D to ensure end user needs are met, executing a launch marketing and sales strategy, and quantifying success of initiatives 
  • Share best practices, identifying opportunities to drive synergy and scale across the business together with the wider Product Management team
• People Management
  • Manage direct reports on day-to-day activities including planning & allocating tasks as required in collaboration with senior leaders
  • Coach and mentor staff, ensure employee development & retention, maintain a positive employee relations environment

QUALIFICATIONS

• 8+ years of relevant Product Management or Brand Management experience.
  Industrial paint and coatings experience required.
• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Business, Marketing, or Engineering, with an MBA being an advantage
• Profitability and growth orientation; does not hesitate in challenging sales force when required; willingness and mindset to get into details
• Strong financial skills to utilize the decision support systems to interface with the sales and marketing organizations to drive specific action plans and programs
• Entrepreneurial mindset to quickly capitalize on market opportunities with an innate desire to build businesses and keep happy users & customers
• Analytic and strategic thinking skills, with ability to digest complex information and make data-driven decisions
• Passionate problem solver and creative thinker, with ability to pitch new ideas and be open to feedback 
• Dynamic and agile: Ability to think in a creative and strategic way, but are adept at delivering operationally to ensure tasks are followed through to completion. Ability to work efficiently and flexibly to deliver results
• Experience managing large teams in product development organizations with strong technical leadership c