The Director of Create the New will lead the Create the New team embedded into the US Therapeutic Business unit in Royal Canin North America. This North American dedicated team is an internal start-up accelerator supported by local, regional, and global leadership at Royal Canin. This Create the New team will act like an “incubator lab” enabling new capabilities and supporting the discovery, test & learn, acceleration, and deployment of NEW projects, products, and services in Royal Canin North America portfolio.

Key strengths of the Director: function in a mindset of hustle and start-up, create the environment for teams and employees to work in a different way to drive both incremental and disruptive innovation.  Live in the model of an agile transformation while being grounded in the business unit strategic focuses and simultaneously balancing strong execution with proven metrics. This leader must be able to stand alone and make clear decisions, while leading the team to deploy in an ambiguous environment within a team of cross-functional associates.

The Director of Create the New will role model the behaviors, effectively use the tools, and principles of agile transformation and customer centric focus. The team will demonstrate a passion for solving the consumer/customer problem, ultimately driving new growth in unexpected areas. They will be responsible for translating the knowledge and insights gained through the incubator and bring that knowledge back into the core businesses which supports incremental and accelerated demand generation activities.

What are we looking for?

• Bachelor’s degree required (or relevant experience) and advanced degree(s) in business (MBA) preferred
• 15+ years of experience in business management, product/Innovation management, marketing, or category/ Animal health experience a plus
• Proven track record of delivering successful new products, services, platforms, campaigns or online tools

What will be your key responsibilities?

• Create and lead long term vision/strategy of products, services, or digital platforms
• Articulate and achieve the growth goals prior to handing projects back to the market, managing businesses objectives, serving as subject matter expert, with an outstanding understanding of the customer and how the new product/service/platform enhances making a better world for pets
• Requires extensive liaising with key stakeholders at local, regional and global levels, across multiple functions and banners, on an ongoing basis both internally and externally
• Being accountable for project strategy, planning, budget and timelines is critical
• Responsible for developing and achieving new business growth goals
• Take leadership and go beyond strategy and direct the deploy team, through test and learns, sprints, moving to scale personally
• Provides coaching, expectation setting, and accountability for “Create the New” talent champions from different cross-functional teams
• Actively demonstrate to internal leaders and stakeholders behaviors consistent with Agility and User Centricity that enables the rest of the organization to accelerate skills that prepare the broader business to achieve OGSM 2030
• Manage the start-up budget and P&L for the Create the New team
• Partner to develop the cultural, organizational, and operational changes needed to run rapid experiments, tell the truth, learn from failure in real time, while embracing the sprint methodology
• This leader will be accountable for defining and re-defining project requirements for “Create the New” lab
• Build and share a strategy of internal collaboration within Mars Petcare, and manage an agenda of proactive collaboration to accelerate synergies and multipliers
• Provide local units with a legal framework to operate external partnerships
• Develop local capabilities and animate best practice sharing sessions
• Be the guardian of a strategy outside-in approach and make sure Royal Canin’s value proposition and contribution remains mutual and relevant to our stakeholders

What can you expect from Mars?

• Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
• Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
• A strong focus on learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.

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