Innovation Foresight, Design and Beauty Academy Director

Job Title: Innovation Foresight, Design & Beauty Academy Director

Location: London

Overview:

Reporting to the Beauty & Wellbeing Prospective Innovation & Sustainable Design SVP (PISD), and working with the leadership team, you will define and implement the department's vision and strategy. You will use an ongoing innovation marketing plan to provide maximum value to key brands and Beauty & Wellbeing. This is a strategic role, and you will be responsible for driving profitable, sustainable, affordable, and desirable beauty at scale. In this role, your expertise will span the end-to-end innovation process – from spotting opportunities, to crafting ideas, facilitating workshops, writing product briefs, and collaborating with R&D and operational teams. You will manage the Foresight, Design & Beauty Academy Team. For the skin and hair design team, you will ensure agile co-creation practices and consumer understanding methods are fully adopted to craft superior mixes and act as a strategic partner to the global hair and skin brand teams including the Prestige business unit.

This role will also lead the Beauty Academy, our global capability programme to transform B&W capabilities and expertise in Beauty to become a true industry challenger. This role will require a substantial investment in the key stakeholder relationships of both marketing and R&D leadership teams to ensure not just “bottom up” success of all our projects and relationships but also “top down” ability to impactfully influence and stakeholder.

You will play a key role to shape our annual “InnoProf,” an exclusive event that showcases breakthrough ideas and innovations sourced from our key strategic partners. This event is closely linked to B&W macro spaces, High Growth Spaces, and Big Bold Move platforms, translating science into curated, holistic solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the Foresight, Design and Beauty Academy team, building an inclusive, diverse culture and a high-performing team.
• In collaboration with the B&W Prospective Innovation and Sustainability Marketing Director, act as the strategic partner to the global hair and skin brand leads across trends, innovation and design. You will be responsible for developing the innovation strategy across our hair and skin brands and then executing that strategy as a series of workshops in partnership with the brand team to tangibly land this in the business.
• Develop detailed strategic packaging briefs in partnership with the brand leads and oversee the refinement of packaging prototypes while maintaining design standards throughout the development process.
• Foster strategic partnerships internally and externally to create a design ecosystem driving growth and agility at scale. You will be the bridge between global marketing and R&D collaborating with S&T and Packaging.
• Lead the creation of Beauty & Wellbeing innovation and design trends (e.g. Macro Spaces, Pitch Beauty Futures and any other new strategic trends workstreams) delivering long and short-term foresight helping brands to translate them into leading edge and tangible consumer-focused strategies, innovation, and experiences.
• Utilise macro space trends to identify market development opportunities across the B&W portfolio. Work with the B&W Prospective Innovation and Sustainability Marketing Director to prioritise initiatives based on alignment with business strategy and the value generated for current and future users.
• Partner with the B&W Prestige brands to cascade Macro Space trends and lead innovation workshops to translate these trends into tangible ideas in the innovation pipeline
• Drive consumer-centric innovation, understanding the consumer problem to solve, the desired consumer experience, and ideal product/pack to create a superior mix.
• Lead the development and global deployment of the Beauty Academy capability programme to transform, at scale, B&W capabilities and expertise in Beauty to become a true industry challenger.
• Work with HR team to measure the uptake and impact of all training against priority metrics.
• Develop a partner network to find industry experts and best practise agencies to develop leading-edge capability content and participate as experts in co-creation workshops.
• Oversee budget compliance and allocation for direct reports with the PISD team.
• Act as site leader for Pitch London and/or future B&W collaboration spaces and manage the day-to-day operations of the building.

Relevant Experience:

• Strong expertise in identifying market opportunities and developing innovation strategy and crafting disruptive concepts that can transform the market.
• Experience leading strategic trends and foresight projects.
• Experienced in agile practices and willingness to foster a non-hierarchical structure.
• Proven track-record in leading multidisciplinary teams with experience aligning different stakeholders across functions, global and local and acting as a strategic partner to brand teams.
• Working knowledge of end-to-end product development.
• Experience in working in both global and local roles.
• Understanding of the beauty market and/or lifestyle brands is a plus.
• Experience in the premium or luxury segment of the beauty market with strong experience working on Prestige brands.
• Experience in developing and deploying marketing capability programmes.
• Experience in planning, organising and executing successful large events e.g. conferences, trade shows, corporate meetings or large social gatherings.

Key Skills:

• A Beauty Crafter who is comfortable in both the R&D world, science & technology savvy, and at empathetic to the consumer. Able to think expansively and holistically about the functional and the emotional and translate this into a compelling story.
• Ability to readily translate an aesthetic vison, breaking it down into clear beauty codes, who speaks the language of beauty and design and can articulate that forward in mix development.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to articulate creative concepts and rationale to internal stakeholders.
• Strategic thinker, analytical with a future-oriented mindset who cannot just identify and codify trends but can apply them for the benefit of innovation and our brands.
• Go-getting entrepreneur with an obsession for growth and finding new opportunities.
• Meticulous attention to detail in execution and design aesthetics.
• Collaborative approach able to bring disparate groups of people together to create a unique team to innovate successfully.
• Strong people leadership and talent development, able to inspire a team and coach individuals to reach their potential.
• Curiosity and a passion for learning and building capability in others.
• Resilient with the ability to manage uncertainty and volatility
• Excellent financials and organisational skills

NOTES

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Dove, Tresemme, Lynx, Lifebuoy, Shea Moisture, Persil, Domestos, Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum, Marmite, The Vegetarian Butcher, Graze and Pot Noodle.

Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’ 

Location

In 2020, Unilever announced the intention to build a new sustainable campus site in Kingston, London to house the employees who currently work in 100 Victoria Embankment in Blackfriars ("100VE"), Lever House in Kingston and Graze in Richmond, the build is due to be complete in early 2025. Most recently, in August 2024, we announced our intention to retain our premises in 100VE until our lease expires in 2027.

We are due to consult with our existing workforce on the new proposal to retain 100VE for the duration of our lease. Therefore, until such a time consultation has concluded as to the retention of our 100VE office, this role will be based in 100 Victoria Embankment until early 2025 and then will move to the Kingston Campus.

What We Offer

Not only do we offer a competitive salary and pension scheme, we also offer an annual bonus, subsidised gym membership, a discounted staff shop and shares. You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and hybrid working environment.

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We are a key advocate of wellbeing and offer a variety of support for our people including hubs, programmes and development opportunities. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all.

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. We are also more than happy to provide reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process to enable you to be present your best self. To find out more, including about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Unilever | Unilever.

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