About the Position: We're seeking a highly collaborative and proactive Agile Innovation Manager to join our cross-functional agile pod focused on driving innovation and growth in the Disruptive Innovation team. In this role, you'll be responsible for enabling fit-for-purpose agile ways of working, removing barriers to progress, building timelines, and ensuring continuous delivery of high-impact solutions that are right-sized for our global innovation team.
This role will be embedded within a tight-knit team of R&D, Packaging, Supply Chain, Marketing, Finance, and Strategy leads, all working together to bring the next big thing on innovation to the market-faster and smarter.
This role is ideal for a project leader with experience in physical product innovation, commercialization, manufacturing readiness, packaging changes, and cross-functional program management within the
Food & Beverage industry.
Key Responsibilities: - Lead sprint planning, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, sprint reviews, and other agile rituals to keep the team focused, aligned, and on track.
- Partner with Project Owner and Marketing Lead to manage end-to-end innovation & commercialization process, from initial concept to successful market launch.
- Build and manage timeline of the project and product development; Align POD members on their commitments with the timelines to ensure on time delivery
- Coach the pod on agile principles, flex when needed and helping the team balance speed and structure while adapting quickly to feedback and new insights.
- Identify and resolve impediments that hinder progress-whether operational, organizational, or resource-related-to keep the initiatives moving forward.
- Tracking key agile metrics such as CSat, Maturity, Capacity of the team, reporting progress, and making adjustments as needed to ensure project success.
- Maintain clear documentation of sprint goals, backlog items, decisions, and velocity. Ensure the team and stakeholders have visibility into progress, risks, and timelines.
- Guide the team in retrospectives to continuously improve delivery and collaboration.
- Ensure alignment across all pod members, including R&D, Supply Chain, Finance, and Marketing, while fostering an environment of shared ownership and rapid iteration.
- Tailor agile workflows to reflect the unique physical product innovation characteristics -helping the team move quickly from insight to execution while navigating pack simplification, retail constraints, and test-and-learn launches.
- Help the team align on the highest-impact initiatives by working closely with the Pod Lead and cross-functional partners to manage and refine the product backlog.
Requirements: - Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, or related.
- MUST HAVE: 5+ years of project management, agile leadership, or scrum master experience within the Food & Beverage industry.
- MUST HAVE: experience with physical product innovation in Food & Beverage with packaging projects, aligned with operations & manufacturing side: engineering, changing of machines, alignment with supply chain, etc.
- Strong knowledge of Agile/Scrum methodologies or proven experience in product development and commercialization
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.
- Strong experience in building timelines for projects with uncertainty, that demands a lot of changes multiple times throughout the project.
- Excellent communication, facilitation, and conflict-resolution skills.
- Experience supporting test-and-learn innovation cycles or commercialization processes.
- Passion for team empowerment, iterative learning, and removing barriers to execution.
- Open to work flexible hours since part of the team is located in AMS - start 7am Chicago time when needed.
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