B&W Prospective Innovation – Head of R&D Skin Care

Reporting directly to the Director of Operations of the B&W Prospective Innovation Department, you will set the direction and pace for product innovation and disruptive business models. You will lead and own your category’s innovation roadmap, collaborating with a cross-functional team to bring your plans to market. This role allows you to curate an innovation strategy that aligns with the purpose of the brands you work on, driving growth within the Skin Care category.

Key responsibilities include:

Delivering Innovation Projects:

• Opportunity spottinge.g. new ingredients, new formats, new packaging solutions, new sensoriesprimarily within our external ecosystem but also within our internal ecosystem.

• Responsible for product delivery for all PISDSkin Care projects including (but not exclusively)Safety, regulatory, Legal (claim), formulation, pack, R&D and Manufacturing partners selection – from idea to launch. This includes understanding of financial profiles (COGS, GM etc) for each product and scaling opportunities of such.

• Scope and introduce desirable and sustainable packaging solutions, such as plastic reduction and refill options.

• Together withyour PISD Marketing, CMI and Design partners (as well as internal & external partners), craft/input into the PISD product roadmap and strategy.

• Be the bridge between PISD and BG R&D / S&T to ensure all innovations developed, including external ones, will meet the highest safety, quality and legal (claim) standards while driving speed to increase competitiveness.

Team leadership and cross-functional teamwork:

• Work in a small but highly efficient cross functional team, across a number of projects.

• Form, develop and maintain key strategicinternal and external relationships with partners, from formulation to manufacturing.

• Align and engage cross-functional partners, both internal and external, to deliver projects on time and in full.

• This global role requires close collaboration with global and local teams in our top business units and markets (e.g., US, UK, India) as you move from strategy to execution.

• Founder’s Mindset: Embracing a growth-oriented approach and seeing challenges as opportunities.

• Consumer-Centric: Strong bias towards understanding and prioritizing consumer needs.

• Entrepreneurial Leadership: Lead with an entrepreneurial mindset, embracing challenges as opportunities and driving a high-performance culture.

• Creative Ideation: Exceptional ability to generate and refine innovative ideas.

• Bias for Action & Mastery:As a self-starter,operate effectively in fast-paced environments, adapting quickly and maintaining a proactive attitude.

• Strong Interpersonal Skills: Build and maintain strong, collaborative relationships.

• Flexibility: Adapt to changing priorities with ease.

• Collaborative Team Player: Thrive in team settings, contributing to collective success without being territorial.

• Learning Orientation: Eager to listen, learn, and incorporate expertise from others.

• Resilience:Maintain effectiveness in managing uncertainty and volatility.

• Analytical Thinking: Objectively observe, research, and solve problems, making data-driven decisions.

• External Orientation:Maintain an outward focus, building strong external partnerships.Comfortable in delivering innovations via strong reliance on 3PM.

• Judgment and Focus: Quickly identify and prioritize the biggest opportunities.Good judgement of premium beauty cues and trends (sensories, pack, fragrance, finish…).

• Organizational Excellence: Push boundaries, stay focused, and know when to move forward without getting bogged down in unnecessary details.

KEY SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES:

• Innovation: Proven innovationdelivery and execution in one or multiple markets from idea to launch.

• R&D expertise: You have relevant years’ experience in R&D particularly in Skin Care with proven understanding of product trends in this category.

• Project Leadership:Demonstrated ability to lead, deliver, execute complex projects with multiple stakeholders.

• Diverse Experience: Experience in both smaller, growth-stage companies and larger, established businesses.

• Effective Communication: Communicate clearly and persuasively, tailoring your approach to different audiences.

• Storytelling & Communication:Ability to articulate and communicate science,innovative ideas compellingly to various audience, to create social post content, to create demos to showcase efficacy / perception of visual efficacy (e.g. before/after).

• Financial Savvy: Strong awareness of financial metrics particularly related to crafting and landing innovations.

MUST / Top 3 Behaviours:

• Collaborative Team Player - thrives in a team setting, avoiding territorial behaviour, and always working towards collective success.

• Growth mindset and founder’s mentality - Demonstrates a growth-oriented, bias for action and hands-on approach, embracing challenges as opportunities for innovation and improvement.Consistently delivers incremental results, even in complex or ambiguous environments, with a clear focus on achieving tangible outcomes.

• Ability to self-motivateand drive change in a highly innovative environment facing at time, uncertainty and volatility - Maintains composure and effectiveness when faced with uncertainty and volatility, demonstrating strong problem-solving abilities.

MUST / Top 3 Skills

• Excellent communication (and listening) and excellent(proven)stakeholder management

• Innovative Curator - brings fresh, innovative thinking to the table, consistently pushing boundaries and exploring new possibilities, including in ways of working.

• Consumer obsession&absolute commitment (and clear evidence)to building strong external partnership

Values

• Commitment to B&W and PISD Stated values (Respect, Trust, Integrity, Commitment to team, Creativity.

• Alignment with your own professional values

Domain Expertise (relevant and recent experience within the business group) forWL2C:

• You have relevant years’ experience in R&D. Strong preference for cross functional experience, expertise in Skin Care, with great understanding of product trends in these categories. 

• A strong mix of a Do-er (rapid execution at high quality) and Thinker (able to actively input into product strategy and design). 

• Ability to make the most of Unilever toolboxes and proprietary solutions and mix these with strong partnerships for both product creation and manufacturing. 

• Comfortable in delivering via strong reliance on 3PM.

• Good judgement of premium beauty cues and trends (sensories, pack, fragrance, finish…).

• Highly driven individual with ambition to deliver outstanding product mixes at great speed. A self-starter who takes the initiative, makes things happen and achieves results through continuous optimisation.

• A scrappy entrepreneurial mindset, comfortable with a high level of uncertainty. 

• Most of all – a love for beauty products, seeing them come to life, and bringing them to market.