Director of Product Strategy

Remote

About Yumi

YUMI is a nutrition brand transforming the way parents approach mealtime with healthier meals and snacks and content tailored to your baby and delivered direct to your door or at your favorite retailer.

A passionate team of parents, nutritionists, engineers and people who are simply committed to a healthier future, we were appalled by the glut of highly processed, nutrient-poor options at the grocery store. We believe families deserve better options especially for the first 1,000 days — a period recognized by the scientific community as the most important period in a human’s life for nutrition and development. Through nutrition and content rooted in science, we want to help parents connect the dots between food and development and raise the standards of the entire market for childhood nutrition. We’re well-funded, rapidly-growing and sparking a national movement that’s transforming a $48 billion industry.

If you’re stoked by our mission and have an entrepreneurial-go-get-em-fire, we’d love to add you to the fam. Let’s raise a healthier generation together!

Since launching in late 2017, Yumi has become a leader in childhood nutrition, with extensive coverage in the New York Times, New Yorker, CNN, Fast Company, goop, Vogue, WSJ, Food & Wine. We’ve also backed by some of the top luminaries in consumer, including the founders of Warby Parker, Sweetgreen, Uber, Allbirds, Casper. You’ll have access to Yumi’s extensive network of company advisors, who represent some of the most notable names in the tech industry.

The Role

We are looking for a Sr. Manager or Director of Product Strategy to play a leading role in driving the strategy and development of disruptive products across multiple categories. As a member of the Business Development team, you will lead new product innovation from concept to launch, working cross-functionally with R&D, Brand, Operations, QA and Finance. This is a high-impact role that will work directly with leadership across all functions to grow the YUMI brand and help reshape the future of nutrition for families.

Responsibilities

• Conduct analysis and secondary research to identify, inform and unlock new business opportunities, new product innovations and future pipeline planning
• Create compelling business cases for new products and develop detailed Product Briefs, establishing positioning, ingredient/nutritional guardrails, flavor/function strategy, price-pack architecture and packaging requirements to drive innovation

· Lead cross-functional NPD projects with multiple stakeholders, complex inputs, and time sensitive deadlines; effectively managing the team’s workload by prioritizing to drive the critical path including building and leveraging project timelines in Smartsheets

• Develop, tests and qualify new concepts and prototypes with consumers through concept testing, surveys, CLTs, shop-a-longs and focus groups
• Lead size-of-prize analysis and forecast development for new products and categories

· Drive P&L development for the new businesses and evaluates alternatives to meet financial launch goals

· Manage packaging process and workstream, from developing creative briefs to working through regulatory-approved claims, working closely with Marketing Ops to coordinate on-time release of approved graphics

· Assist in new product launch planning with the development of product FAQs, sale decks and onboarding of internal stakeholders

· Leverage IRI to monitor brand and product performance across retail to inform new innovations, smart line-extensions, product renovations and overarching brand strategy

Qualifications

· Minimum of 5 years of experience in CPG marketing innovation/product strategy/NPD

· Experience in Food & Beverage required

• Proven track record of leading the development and successful launch of new, innovative products into market including packaging development
• Experience using IRI preferred
• Experience creating surveys, conducting focus groups and developing insights briefs gets you bonus points!
• Experience in a small to mid-size company is a plus

· Consulting background a plus

· Ability to travel up to 10%

Essential Skills and Core Competencies

· Passion for food, functional nutrition and disrupting old ways of thinking

· Strong analytics; translating data into meaningful, actionable insights

· Solutions and action-oriented, creative problem-solving skills and can-do attitude

· Analytical and a decisive thought leader with strong storytelling and influencing skills

· Detail-oriented, ability to hold the big picture while driving tactical execution

· Outstanding project management skills, experience with project management software a plus

Yumi provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) in all our employment practices to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, creed, ancestry, gender, age, sex, sexual orientation or preference, gender identity/gender expression, mental or physical disability, genetic information, marital status, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, military status, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws.

Yumi