Overview

Overview of the Innovation & Commercialization Function:

The Commercialization function is part of the broader Consumer Groups organization (incl Marketing, Insights, Design, R&D) and plays a key role in PEP’s accelerated growth agenda across International Foods & Beverages categories.

Purpose:

Powering Positive Growth by delivering smart E2E solutions that are positive for the portfolio, people & planet, one smile at a time.

Mission:

We are 3 Lens innovation experts (consumer desirability, product viability and feasibility).
We creatively orchestrate teams to build & intentionally scale human centric solutions.
We drive bold choices, agility & winning execution.

Key deliverables:

This will be one of the senior role in the International Beverages Commercialization team, the individual will be a member of the commercialization beverages commercialization council along with being responsible for the innovation & change agenda for European FOBO.
Commercialization’s mission is to deliver program & project management excellence, agile commercial processes and effective leverage of total PepsiCo resources.
The scope of the International Beverages Europe FOBO team is primarily focused on rapidly developing & deploying PepsiCo’s Big Bet innovation programs across all global categories for Europe enabling our Triple 15 vision.

Responsibilities

Lead the commercialization function for the Whitespace Innovation for IB.
Build a team environment that supports high levels of breakthrough thinking, leading the cross functional teams through phases of both divergent and convergent thinking to create actionable solutions.
Integrate inputs from the cross functional team & franchise bottlers to develop cross functional make-to-learn plans that identify & solve for critical issues across the three lenses of consumer desirability, technical feasibility & business viability.
Partner with critical supplier & customer supply chains to develop innovative E2E business models.
Manage scope, risks & contingencies, costs & resources at program & project level.
Effectively manage senior stakeholders, ensuring clear & compelling communications.
Develop & manage integrated, cross-functional timelines to accelerate delivery of in-market pilots.
Employ design-thinking, Waterfall & Agile project management techniques as appropriate to enable fast, iterative learning via the in-market pilots.
Lead cross-functional team meetings to drive progress against all key milestones, deadlines, and deliverables, and engage with senior leadership to enable fast decision making on mission-critical issues.
Managing the innovation hopper and pipeline; understanding the value, gaps, risks, resources and trade-offs required to deliver our targets and ensure we make the right innovation portfolio choices.
Proactively engaging with the BU and Global teams to build and enable flawless commercialization of Horizon 2 & 3 initiatives.
Developing and embedding world-class people, processes, systems and scorecard capability into the BU.
Driving continuous improvement across all innovation governance and Commercialization KPIs.
Leading the Stage Gate process and innovation governance forums for FOBO Europe.

Qualifications

Key leadership competencies for the role include:

Ability to identify key priorities, drive intentional trade-offs & drive out low value add initiatives. Balance a sense of urgency with the need to deliver quality results in the right way (Results).
Exceptional critical thinking & storytelling skills to simplify complexity, identify smart solutions & communicate in an elevated way that inspires confidence and drives action (Clarity).
Leverages a deep understanding of PEP’s business, consumers, customers & external environment to collaboratively build strategies & plans that resonate across geographies & categories (External Perspectives).
Develops a compelling vision, purpose & direction for the European FOBO innovation agenda (Inspirational Leadership).
Identifies trends, anticipates issues/risks and develops multi-year plans that are both intentional and agile/flexible (Forward Thinking).
Demonstrates emotional intelligence & understanding of others, and seeks out different perspectives, to build shared objectives that deliver the best outcomes (Inclusive & Respectful).
Collaborates beyond boundaries to engage the right individuals in key decisions and keeps them apprised of significant change, whilst keeping momentum behind agreed commitments (Networks).
High level of business acumen: must be commercially savvy with outstanding analytical & solutions focused problem-solving skills.

Qualifications & Experience:

8- 10 years of project or program management experience.
Be Comfortable with ambiguous thinking & iterative development.
Proven results delivering significant business change within a fast-paced, cross-functional, matrix environment.
Strong ability to influence others at all levels and effectively empower and delegate across multiple cross-functional project teams.
High level of organizational savvy and the ability to lead within ambiguity.
Strong process & project management skills – ideally in both Waterfall & Agile project management.
Educated to undergraduate degree level (MBA preferred).
Experienced practitioner in highly complex innovation delivery.

Commercialization Director, Whitespace Innovation, Int'l Bev

Job Description