Senior Design Project Manager - NPD

Be part of the team behind the next generation of global FMCG brands
Explore our Global FMCG Brand Portfolio: ZURU Edge

ZURU is on a mission to disrupt industries and challenge the status quo through innovation and automation. Our brands reflect this vision: ZURU Toys re-imagines play, ZURU Tech leads the next building revolution, and ZURU Edge creates modern FMCG brands for today’s consumers.

Founded in 2003 by EY Entrepreneur of the Year brothers Nick and Mat Mowbray, ZURU has grown to over 5,000 team members across 30+ international locations.

As one of the world’s largest toy companies, our award-winning brands include Bunch O Balloons, Mini Brands, XSHOT, Rainbocorns, and Smashers. Our FMCG portfolio features MONDAY Haircare, Rascals, NOOD, BONKERS, Gumi Yum Surprise, and more.

For more information, visit www.zuru.com.

Short-Term Impact

You will become the operational backbone of the ZURU Edge NPD Design team, bringing structure, pace and clarity to how brand and packaging design work is briefed, resourced and delivered. By tightening brief quality, protecting team focus and creating clear visibility across active workstreams, you will lift on-time delivery, reduce rework, and ensure every project that lands with the design team is set up to succeed from day one.

Long-Term Impact

You will establish ZURU Edge's NPD Design function as a best-in-class creative engine, building the systems, rhythms and partnerships that allow the team to scale with the business. By championing world-class briefing standards, deepening collaboration between our global hubs and our China production team, and giving leadership a clear view of pipeline and capacity, you will help shape how design powers ZURU Edge's growth — enabling faster speed-to-shelf, sharper execution, and an enduring culture of creative excellence.

Business Partnership & Communication

• Act as the first point of contact between the NPD Design team and the wider ZURU business, building strong relationships across all verticals.

• Manage and communicate project timings and status updates to stakeholders, ensuring visibility across all active workstreams.

• Organize and lead regular vertical team meetings to maintain alignment and surface issues early.

• Attend and contribute to master plan meetings with senior leadership, representing the design team's capacity and priorities.

Production Co-ordination

• Serve as the key liaison with project managers based in China, sharing briefs, updates, and decisions in a timely and structured manner.

• Champion best-practice processes with China-based team members, ensuring consistent standards are followed for work briefing, handover, and delivery across all projects.

• Ensure project timelines are consistently updated and accurately reflect current progress across production stages.

• Run regular work-in-progress meetings with the China production team to resolve blockers and maintain momentum.

Resource Planning & Progress Monitoring

• Own the weekly WIP process within the NPD Design team, facilitating structured check-ins to track progress across all active projects.

• Plan and manage team resource allocation, balancing workloads against project demands and deadlines.

• Maintain up-to-date project tracking tools and dashboards to give leadership clear visibility of team output and pipeline.

Brief Management & Quality Control

• Receive incoming briefs from the business and evaluate them for completeness before passing them to the design team.

• Police brief quality rigorously — ensuring all necessary creative inputs are present before work commences, including market positioning, product specifications, target audience, key stakeholders, and confirmed timelines.

• Work with brief owners to gather missing information, asking the right questions to protect the team's time and output quality.

• Establish and champion a clear briefing process that sets a consistent standard across the business.

Day-to-Day Requests & Stakeholder Management

• Act as the first point of triage for incoming queries, requests for updates, small tasks, and revision requests from the wider business.

• Prioritize and route day-to-day requests efficiently, ensuring the design team's focus is protected while stakeholders feel heard and informed.

• Maintain a responsive and professional communication style with all stakeholders, managing expectations clearly and proactively.

• Track and close out ad hoc requests systematically, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

• 7+ years' industry experience in a similar project management role, ideally within FMCG, brand, or packaging design.

• Proven track record of project managing brand and packaging design workstreams from brief through to delivery.

• Excellent time management and prioritization skills, with the ability to juggle multiple projects across global teams and time zones.

• A pragmatic, solutions-focused approach to problem-solving and confident decision-making under pressure.

• Exceptional communication and organizational skills, capable of engaging creative teams, cross-functional partners, and senior stakeholders alike.

• Strong multi-tasking and collaboration skills, with a calm, structured style that brings order to complex pipelines.

• Proficient with the MS Office suite; experience with HIVE a bonus.

LIFE@ZURU

At ZURU, we have cultivated a high-performing culture that encourages excellence. Our team works towards ambitious goals, learning, performing, and improving together, all while having fun. We empower talented individuals to do their best work every day.

At ZURU, you get out what you put in. You are responsible for driving your own career and we provide the platform to achieve it. As ZURU is on such a fast growth trajectory, there are opportunities here that you won't find anywhere else.

We recognize that ZURU's success stems from our people and you can only be at your best when you are looking after yourself. ZURU encourages all our team members to invest in their wellbeing by providing an array of benefits and tools.

ZURU – Tomorrow Reimagined

🚀 ZURU.com