Our client, a leader in the retail industry, requires the service of a Technical Project Manager, who will be responsible for increasing the company’s market share & profitability. The Technical Project Manager will also be accountable for the active facilitation of agile cross-functional team deliverables flawless execution of innovations through project management and partnering excellence.

Key performance areas:

? Lead, build and manage the new product development capabilities by building end-to-end project management methodologies and solutions to optimise the process and cross-functional team activities across the Brand’s portfolio, its partners and other stakeholders.
? Drive the Brands innovation pipeline strategy through leveraging a deep understanding of customer needs and lifestyle, category and retail trends and engaging with various subject matter experts to develop and continuously update the strategic product pipeline.
? Identify, together with multiple stakeholders including the Buying and Marketing teams, new product opportunities across categories to ensure the right innovation portfolio choices are made in line with Brands strategy to deliver cutting edge innovation and profitable sales growth.
? Accountable for providing information to enable effective decision-making and prioritisation of the new product development innovation roadmap.
? Co-create and Implement the Brands Buying new product innovation process through stakeholder management with effective communication to ensure all products are delivered in line with agreed product direction whilst adhering to brand values, within a set critical path
? In close collaboration with the Buying team, ensure that all new product innovation projects have robust business cases and data driven analytics / insights.
? Ensure that new product innovations are formulated in line with brand principles to support category strategy and retail banner values thereby creating a competitive advantage.
? Assist with sourcing from local and international suppliers by completing detailed NPD briefs and ensure a fair tender process is followed.
? Manage the innovation project plans from project kick off, through to implementation. This includes s coping of project timelines, risks, contingencies and acting as the ‘single voice of truth’ in projects in managing stakeholders via providing an impartial view of project status to drive decision making to ensure that new innovations can be launched on time.
? Participate in co-creating and refining the stage gate process - ensure ongoing best practice processes and methodologies to remove barriers to delivery.
? Prepare all gate documents and decision papers as inputs into the Innovation Project Management process for all assigned innovation projects.
? Initiate and handover packaging design brief for packaging artwork ensuring communication of customer facing messages and quality tier of product.
? Maintain the overall project networks for new variants and operational projects, as required to ensure “on time in full” delivery; by working closely with Buying, R&D, Quality Assurance, Regulatory & Compliance and Marketing Departments
? Review brand performance and use lessons learnt to analyse category and identify delists, reformulations and new opportunities to maximise the category.
? Assist buyers with communication to divisions for new launches with merchandising alerts, store portal updates etc.
? Build effective, sustainable and trusting relationships with all team members, business partners and other stakeholders.
? Integrate with a cross-functional team in Marketing, Buying, Packaging Technology, Legal, Regulatory & Compliance and Quality Assurance Departments with regard to launching competitive, consumer led profitable products.
? Run regular sessions with various subject matter experts to generate ideas, drive innovation and find the right solutions for our customers

The successful candidate must have:

? Matric with a BSc Food Science/Consumer Science and/or other relevant Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics related or equivalent degree
? A Project Management Certificate/Diploma will be advantageous
? Must have at least 5 years’ experience in a similar NPD Project Management role in a New Product Development or related FMCG environment
? Must have 2 - 3 years’ experience within Innovation, Research and Development or related field
? Must have 2 - 3 years’ experience in a Project Management role and/or following a roadmap orientated approach to ensure times and costed delivery - track record of successfully managing multiple New Product Development or similar projects at the same time
? Must have 1 - 2 years exposure to project planning methodologies (JIRA and AGILE), tools, stage-gate and critical path management
? Must have 1 - 2 years demonstrable commercial exposure in a diverse, multi-stakeholder environment
? Product Management experience with a CRM application e.g. Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Google suite will be advantageous

Please note that only short listed candidates will be contacted.