Sr. Manager, Product Management

Job Description

Position Title: Sr. Manager, Product Management

Reports to: Director, Product Management Location: Huntersville, NC The Commercial Business Unit comprises several well-known brands such as Rubbermaid, Quickie, and Rubbermaid Commercial Products:
• For nearly 100 years, the Rubbermaid® brand has been known for innovative, high-quality products that help simplify and bring order to the lives of consumers. Rubbermaid products can be found both inside and outside the home and include a wide variety of cleaning and organization products.
• Quickie® makes expertly engineered and remarkably simple cleaning tools to help consumers achieve a real clean made easy. Since 1950, Quickie has been a leading innovator in mops, brooms, brushes, dusters, scrubbers and more.
• Rubbermaid Commercial Products is the leading provider of cleaning, refuse, washroom and material handling products specifically designed to withstand the unique and demanding conditions of commercial environments.
The product management function within the Commercial Business Unit serves as a general manager for the product categories in which we operate – driving category strategy, execution, and results through a clear set of activities. Product Management team members have P&L ownership and are ultimately responsible for the health of the business.
Specific Responsibilities
Strategic Planning
• Support the overall Category Strategy and Annual Planning process for the skincare product category
• Develop aggressive plan for growth to reflect company’s vision and investments to rapidly scale skincare business, with specific focus outside the washroom
• Oversee global team efforts to align strategies and plans by region and track/execute accordingly
• Develop a robust resource plan reflecting what is needed to achieve strategic plan including human resources, capital, operational considerations, and A&P
Portfolio and Product Life Cycle Management
• Manage the product portfolio by making assortment decisions such as adding, growing and exiting categories, sub-categories and SKUs.
• Oversee life cycle management, balancing the rhythm of entering and exiting product categories.
• Define the evolution of product portfolio ensuring it ties to clearly defined category strategy
• Collaborate with Supply Chain to develop category inventory targets and fill rate / lead time targets.
• Coordinate globally to understand and drive sanitizer to stand/dispenser ratios and resources needed to ensure current activities will drive future growth ambition
• Oversee supply / demand forecasting to maintain inventory targets and minimize excess and obsoleted inventory.
• Guide cross-functional efforts to discover and execute cost reduction initiatives that do not negatively impact the consumer experience
• Guide team to develop and maintain a Go-to-Market deck outlining the selling story for the product categories in which we play
P&L Ownership & Analysis
• Manage the growth and profitability of assigned category and product segments.
• Collaborate with Finance to create annual financial goals including revenue, gross margin, COGS, market share, price and portfolio mix.
• Work cross-functionally to identify growth and operational efficiency opportunities for the category; collaborate with internal teams to drive change
• Develop and display an understanding of what drives category performance, lead efforts to execute a variety of activities that support category P&L improvement
• Monitor category P&L and drive corrective actions to improve results against business commitments.
• Lead financial discussions for the category, including sales, gross margin, and pricing.
• Partner with sales team to drive partnerships with key retail and distribution partners to achieve desired financial results
New Product Development
• Lead efforts to ideate, filter, scope, and initiate new product ideas.
• Program Manage new product development programs, driving the cross-functional team to on-time, on-cost and on-quality execution
• Translate marketplace trends and chooser insights into actionable recommendations for innovative growth and new product ideas.
• Gain executive leadership alignment via stage-gate process by building a robust business case to support innovation efforts, ensuring alignment to category strategy
Understand and Translating Category Insights
• Translate marketplace insights into winning strategies and tactics for the brand.
• Build and maintain a robust assessment of current marketplace conditions, recommend corrective actions as market dynamics change
• Maintain a constant pulse on consumer trends, chooser/user needs, competitive offerings and brand positioning
• Develop a deep understanding of the consumer - leverage that knowledge to aid in short and long-term decision making
• Participate in interactive consumer visits, scope primary research studies, and leverage secondary/syndicated data to maintain consumer and marketplace knowledge
• Educate others on the consumer and marketplace
Brand Stewardship
• Partner with Brand Marketing and Marketing Communications to develop project commercialization plans that support annual brand plan
• Define content strategy for category in accordance with defined brand standards, collaborate with brand team to maintain accurate marketing content on an ongoing basis
• Serve as brand ambassador at trade shows, distributor meetings, and other external events
• Understand the brand positioning, communicate to others
• Displays deeper level understanding of brand's positioning, proposes actions that will support and/or enhance the brand's position relative to competition
People Development
• Set clear objectives and prioritizes initiatives for team members, manage performance review process and deal with performance issues head on
• Assign clear projects and tasks to direct reports
• Effectively develops team members in a way that supports their career aspirations
Qualifications
• Four-year College/University degree, MBA Preferred
• 8+ years relevant marketing experience
• Up to 20% travel required
Experience
• Demonstrated success in innovation pipeline development and commercialization
• Proven success developing a marketing plan to drive consumer demand and distributor/retailer demand
• Prior experience developing marketing communications focused on changing consumer and/or distributor behavior
• Prior experience in both commercial and retail channels of distributio

Newell Brands (NASDAQ: NWL) is a leading global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands, including Paper Mate, Sharpie, Dymo, EXPO, Parker, Elmers, Coleman, Marmot, Oster, Sunbeam, FoodSaver, Mr. Coffee, Graco, Baby Jogger, NUK, Calphalon, Rubbermaid, Contigo, First Alert and Yankee Candle. For hundreds of millions of consumers, Newell Brands makes life better every day, where they live, learn, work and play. Newell Brands and its subsidiaries are Equal Opportunity Employers and comply with applicable employment laws. EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled are encouraged to apply.