The Innovation & NPD Manager role is a pivotal one in driving the growth of our brands. This new role will be responsible for managing and developing an NPD funnel for our beer/cider portfolios to grow their volume, NSV, and margin by recruiting new consumers to our brands or getting existing consumers to buy more often at a premium price.
You will work alongside your brand management colleagues and support the Brand Director to develop an Innovation & NPD strategy for our existing Core & Premium beer/cider brands. You will also work closely with our Consumer Insight & Category teams to ensure that our strategies and plans are aligned with the latest consumer, category & shopper insights and are consumer-tested to ensure the best chance of success.
A skilled project & stakeholder manager, you will manage a set of projects of various sizes and work in a collaborative cross-functional way to take ideas from concept through development to execution & launch. You will have the ability to deal with concepts and ideas and be comfortable with ideas that stretch our thinking, as well as convert those ideas into compelling commercial business cases. You will also be interacting with teams in Operations & Supply chain and be as comfortable understanding how an idea can come to life running down a line as with a research concept.
Responsibilities:
1. Develop & manage the development of a 3-year NPD pipeline for your specified brand set.
2. Manage the NPD project stack for your brands, working with all relevant parts of the business to move them through our Stage Gate process, recommending stop/go decisions.
3. Work with the relevant internal teams and external agencies to develop compelling & insightful concepts for consumer testing, and propose which should proceed.
4. Develop business cases to gain investment, both capex & DBM, to bring profitable new SKUs to market.
5. Work with Brand, Channel & Sales teams to develop strong launch plans.
6. Working alongside Insight & Commercial finance teams, evaluate post-launch NPD performance, capturing learnings for future launches.
7. Develop a deep understanding of the consumer trends in your category and among key competitors so that you can spot opportunities and act quickly to bring ideas to market either first or as a 'fast follower'.
8. Develop relationships with key packaging design agencies, flavour houses, dispense experts, and strategic innovation & NPD consultancies to ensure we have the best external support for our needs.
Minimum Requirements:
1. Business, Marketing or relevant Degree.
2. Attitude and learning agility - key to success.
3. Significant experience in a previous brand marketing or NPD role.
4. Management of FMCG brands.
5. Food/Drinks industry experience is a bonus.
You are an experienced professional with a proven track record of thriving in fast-paced environments and embracing new ideas and concepts. A strong project manager, you excel at navigating complex, multi-layered business landscapes with ease. Your expertise in stakeholder management enables you to influence at all levels, deliver clear and impactful communications, and showcase exceptional presentation skills. Highly organized and outcome-focused, you manage multiple tasks simultaneously while maintaining an agile and proactive approach under pressure.
Your deep understanding of business dynamics, markets, customers, and competitors is complemented by strong marketing skills, ideally developed in a brand or channel marketing role. With the ability to think both strategically and operationally, you are curious, open to innovation, and skilled at transforming ideas into actionable strategies. Your working knowledge of the Stage and Gate project management process, combined with an acute awareness of the end-to-end impact of initiatives on P&L, sets you apart. You thrive in roles requiring autonomy, adaptability, and responsiveness in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.
About C&C Group plc:
C&C Group plc is a premium drinks company that owns, manufactures, markets, and distributes a unique portfolio of beer and cider brands in its home markets and across the globe. You probably know us best from brands like Bulmers, Magners, and Tennent's. Operating through the Matthew Clark, Bibendum, Tennent's, and Bulmers Ireland brands, the Group has a market-leading range, scale, and reach including an intimate understanding of the markets it serves.
From grass to glass, and everything in between, we grow, brew, manufacture, market, and deliver some of the world's favourite drinks. C&C Group's portfolio of owned/exclusive brands includes: Bulmers, the leading Irish cider brand; Tennent's, the leading Scottish beer brand; Magners, the premium international cider brand; as well as a range of fast-growing, premium and craft ciders and beers, such as Heverlee, Menabrea, Five Lamps, and Orchard Pig. We seek to champion and embed sustainability in everything that we do at C&C. While delivering joy to customers, we always shine a light on people and the planet. We have a clear ESG vision delivering to a better world. We respect, support, and develop all our people to be their best, with a focus on results by creating a culture of winning together.
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