Innovations Manager Premium Core needed at Diageo

The role will be accountable for the delivery of allocated projects in support of the Diageo innovation agenda in South West Central Africa.

• Lead product Innovation: lead the development of concepts, design & communications for new brand launches & brand extensions on existing brands basis consumer insights. Complete this through the GATE (approval) process, rallying the organization behind your vision. Work in partnership with the Supply Brand Change Managers and Commercialization Managers to develop and commercialize the product innovation.
• Build purposeful winning Brands that are built in culture to win the hearts & minds of consumers. Inject your creative flair and strong judgement to evaluate brand communication and associated content; develop innovative & integrated launch campaigns.
• Use insights to sell more: leverage consumer and customer understanding to generate insights on consumer behaviour that successfully deliver innovations uptake and great commercial execution. Work closely with media and digital to ensure that launch strategies are advised by trends and big shifts that reflect consumer behaviour.
• Deliver integrated execution: write briefs that inspire internal and external partners to create breakthrough and radical ideas and that enable new launches to be established in culture, drive rapid awareness, trial and achieve fame on time and within budget.
• Forge powerful partnerships: develop productive and mutually exciting relationships with agencies, GBT, cross functional teams to enable the business to achieve set goals
• Be entrepreneurial: constantly seek new insights and make connections to identify and turn opportunities into reality.
• Project management: work on multiple projects/launches concurrently; this requires a high level of structure, difficulty, and self-discipline to ensure that launches take place on time
• Demonstrate strong team leadership: effectively influence & inspire the cross-functional project team to deliver the ambition by building strong relationships, holding tough conversations when needed. This requires expertise in inspiring the business to the opportunity that innovations present for future business.
• Performance management: build a strong understanding of the business and the relative commercial levers required to deliver the performance ambitions; measure and intervene to ensure all new launches deliver set critical metrics. Judgment-based timely escalation and course correction will be necessary to secure desired results.