Brand Manager - Innovation (Multiple Positions)

About the role

Kraft Heinz is hiring several Brand Managers for its Innovation function in Chicago. The role manages the creation and validation of a multi-year innovation strategy and a Now, Near, Next pipeline rooted in consumer pain points and category white space. It works across R&D, consumer insights, quality, operations, sales and finance to turn ideas into products.

Key responsibilities

• Manage the creation and validation of a multi-year innovation strategy and a Now, Near, Next pipeline.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to validate or invalidate desirability, feasibility and viability assumptions and move ideas from concept to reality.
• Manage agency relationships for packaging design of new products and lead consumer validation with the consumer insights team.
• Own innovation through the stage-gate process, reporting risks and opportunities to senior leadership and aligning next steps and trade-offs.
• Use syndicated data sources to benchmark own and competitor category performance and drive business impact.
• Keep a consumer-first mindset in daily decisions, protecting brand integrity while balancing financial and operational considerations.
• Promote an innovation culture across the Marketing team, challenging the status quo and driving continuous improvement.

Required profile

• Experience managing the full lifecycle of CPG product commercialization through stage-gate, from idea generation to launch and retail distribution.
• Innovative, consumer-first mindset, collaborative and resourceful, with a natural ability to understand consumer pain and pleasure points and iterate quickly.
• Strong project management skills, able to handle multiple projects at once and meet deadlines; cross-functional team management experience preferred.

Required skills

• Experience with syndicated sources such as Nielsen or Circana/IRI.
• Stage-gate process knowledge.