Innovation Manager, Category & Strategy - Restroom

Innovation Manager, Category & Strategy - Restroom

Job Description

You’re not the person who will settle for just any role. Neither are we. Because we’re out to create Better Care for a Better World, and that takes a certain kind of person and teams who care about making a difference. Here, you’ll bring your professional expertise, talent, and drive to building and managing our portfolio of iconic, ground-breaking brands. In this role, you’ll help us deliver better care for billions of people around the world. It starts with YOU. 

As Innovation Manager, Category & Strategy for Kimberly-Clark Professional’s Restroom Business, you’ll play a major role in achieving key growth and strategic initiatives goals. The Restroom Business is the largest business in the Kimberly-Clark Professional portfolio and includes four product categories—Towel, Bath, Facial, and Skincare—and plays a key role in the organization meeting its ambition of profitable volume growth. To maximize the potential of the category, we’re looking for an experienced business professional with advanced business & organizational acumen, product & portfolio management skills, and financial/data analytics skills. This role is responsible for creating transformational strategic initiatives within the Strategic Business Plan (SBP) and partnering with category management teams bring them to life. Given the high complexity & importance of the restroom business, a professional with strong skills in strategic planning, problem solving, project management, & change management is needed for this role. This role reports to the Director of North America Restroom Innovation, and is hybrid based at Kimberly-Clark’s Roswell, GA location.

In this role you will:

• Lead and participate in several restroom innovation projects at the same time progressing them through the IMF stage gate process.

• Lead the creation of the strategic long-term plan (SBP) for category growth in close partnership with the category leaders.

• Incorporate strategic initiatives roadmap into category innovation pathway and category strategies.

• Run and analyze annual market diagnostics to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks.

• Work closely with NA Restroom category teams to assure ABP consistency with SBP.

• Identify opportunities to improve financial performance of restroom categories and work with restroom category teams to implement recommendations.

• Partner with the restroom category teams to analyze data or insights to determine industry and customer trends regarding restroom products and category.

• Partner with peer (Restroom Brand and Customer Strategy Insights Manager) to identify and implement standard work to drive competitive intelligence, portfolio management, annual restroom business diagnostics, and other category foundations work.

• Work effectively with various cross-functional groups (i.e. sustainability, regulatory/legal, R&E, sales) to align category strategy with broader organizational goals, and regulatory/legal compliance of product innovation.

About Us

Huggies®. Kleenex®. Cottonelle®. Scott®. Kotex®. Poise®. Depend®. Kimberly-Clark Professional®. You already know our legendary brands—and so does the rest of the world. In fact, millions of people use Kimberly-Clark products every day. We know these amazing Kimberly-Clark products wouldn’t exist without talented professionals, like you.

At Kimberly-Clark, you’ll be part of the best team committed to driving innovation, growth and impact. We’re founded on more than 150 years of market leadership, and we’re always looking for new and better ways to perform – so there’s your open door of opportunity. It’s all here for you at Kimberly-Clark.

Led by Purpose. Driven by You.

About You

You perform at the highest level possible, and you appreciate a performance culture fueled by authentic caring. You want to be part of a company actively dedicated to sustainability, inclusion, wellbeing, and career development.

You love what you do, especially when the work you do makes a difference. At Kimberly-Clark, we’re constantly exploring new ideas on how, when, and where we can best achieve results. When you join our team, you’ll experience Flex That Works: flexible (hybrid) work arrangements that empower you to have purposeful time in the office and partner with your leader to make flexibility work for both you and the business.

In one of our professional roles, you’ll focus on winning with consumers and the market, while putting safety, mutual respect, and human dignity at the center. To succeed in this role, you will need the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree and 10+ years of experience in marketing / brand management / category roles with a demonstrated track record of achievement and growth in leadership behavior.

• Experience in Innovation Project Management or Development (experience with moving a project through stage gate process)

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both verbal and written)

• Ability to translate complex ideas in a simple way through written and verbal communication.

• Deep Financial Acumen: Awareness and understanding of P&L and actions affecting it.

• Strong analytical and quantitative skills: Must be detail-oriented, but also able to see the big picture and have ability to generate strategic insights from data.

• Ability to craft vision and strategy and make it come to life with actionable long-term strategic plans and build compelling business cases for product innovation projects.

• Strong skills and experience with diagnosing and resolving complex problems and opportunities.

• Strong Project Management: Ability to scope projects, deliver results against set expectations, timelines, budgets, etc.

• Demonstrated capability to make tough, informed decisions fast to keep performance on track.

• Structured Problem Solving: Brings structure to ambiguous problems and possesses the ability to frame key questions and develop a workplan to answer them.

• Cross Functional Collaboration: Proven track record of driving positive change across multiple functions, including R&D, Finance and Product Supply, with proven influencing skills.

• Entrepreneur, can-do attitude to find ways to break down growth barriers.

• Managing & successfully influencing complex stakeholder relationships.

• Able to navigate and perform in ambiguous circumstances.

Preferred:

• Masters/MBA with concentration in marketing or engineering

• Experience in a B2B environment.

• Experience working in agile work environment, inclusive of leading and being a team member on scrum team.

• Prior experience or strong understanding of Innovation Pathways Development and Front-End Innovation

Total Benefits

Here are just a few of the benefits you’d enjoy working in this role for Kimberly-Clark. For a complete overview, see www.mykcbenefits.com.
 

Great support for good health with medical, dental, and vision coverage options with no waiting periods or pre-existing condition restrictions. Access to an on-site fitness center, occupational health nurse, and allowances for high-quality safety equipment.

Flexible Savings and spending accounts to maximize health care options and stretch dollars when caring for yourself or dependents.

Diverse income protection insurance options to protect yourself and your family in case of illness, injury, or other unexpected events.

Additional programs and support to continue your education, adopt a child, relocate, or even find temporary childcare.

To Be Considered
Click the Apply button and complete the online application process. A member of our recruiting team will review your application and follow up if you seem like a great fit for this role.

In the meantime, please check out the careers website.

And finally, the fine print….

For Kimberly-Clark to grow and prosper, we must be an inclusive organization that applies the diverse experiences and passions of its team members to brands that make life better for people all around the world. We actively seek to build a workforce that reflects the experiences of our consumers. When you bring your original thinking to Kimberly-Clark, you fuel the continued success of our enterprise. We are a committed equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, pregnancy, genetic information, citizenship status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The statements above are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by employees assigned to this classification. Statements are not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities and skills required for this position.

Employment is subject to verification of pre-screening tests, which may include drug screening, background check, and DMV check.

Additional information about the compensation and benefits for this role are available upon request. You may contact 866-444-4516 – when prompted for employee ID, say “OTHER CALLER” - or [email protected] for assistance. You must include the six-digit Job # with your request.

Veterans and members of the Reserve and Guard are highly encouraged to apply.

This role is available for local candidates already authorized to work in the role’s country only. Kimberly-Clark will not provide relocation support for this role.

#LI-Hybrid

Grade 8

Primary LocationUSA-GA-Atlanta-Roswell

Additional Locations

Worker TypeEmployee

Worker Sub-TypeRegular

Time TypeFull time