Brand Manager - Light Duty Lubricants Strategy & Innovation

Valvoline Global•Lexington, KY

22d•Hybrid

About The Position

Valvoline Global Operations is seeking a Brand Manager for Light Duty Lubricants Strategy & Innovation, based in Lexington, Kentucky. This role is responsible for Valvoline Global Operations' light duty portfolio in the Americas, with a specific focus on the LATAM business. The Brand Manager will act as a liaison between regional business units and the supply chain to drive organizational growth and will contribute to and drive global and Americas strategy at a regional level. The role will utilize global processes such as Innovation Master Plan creation, New Solutions Development, and target margins to foster cross-functional collaboration. The position facilitates LATAM's success through three key pillars: Product Discovery, Product Planning, and Product Development. The company culture emphasizes originality, innovation, and excellence, with corporate values including Care, Integrity, Passion, Unity, and Excellence. Starting in the first half of 2027, the global standard will be four days per week in the office.

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Business, or related field
Minimum 5-7 years of experience in brand management, product marketing, product management, or commercial strategy.
Ability to demonstrate intellectual curiosity, asking thoughtful questions and exploring emerging customer needs, market trends, technologies, and possibilities to uncover opportunities that may not yet be obvious.
Analytical thinking to identify unmet needs, evaluate opportunities, and make informed product and innovation recommendations.
Understands the financial drivers behind product and portfolio decisions, including target margins, pricing, business cases, investment requirements, and commercial viability.
Manages multiple innovation initiatives across different stages of development, balancing priorities, timelines, resources, and dependencies while maintaining focus on the regional innovation roadmap.
Demonstrates ownership and a strong bias for action, driving innovation initiatives through the New Solutions Development process and overcoming obstacles to bring new solutions to market.
Builds strong cross-functional partnerships across the organization, regional business teams, Supply Chain, Product, Sales, Finance, and global stakeholders to move innovation initiatives from customer need through commercialization.

Nice To Haves

MBA preferred or other relevant degrees
Bilingual in Spanish

Responsibilities

Utilize market, enterprise, and business unit data to build a vision for the global future of the VGO commercial and industrial product portfolio.
Drive consumer research to identify unmet needs and answer critical business questions to unlock innovation pathways.
Ideate against strategic business questions and evaluate the competitive landscape to identify portfolio gaps and claims opportunities.
Develop claims that enhance product superiority and Valvoline's competitive advantage.
Create a long-term product portfolio vision for LATAM, including a 5-year innovation roadmap for product, package, and portfolio, aligned with corporate and business unit strategies.
Maintain the innovation roadmap based on market and business unit trends and help prioritize product-related projects.
Serve as the center of excellence for VGO innovation.
Follow the New Solutions Development stage gate process for all new initiatives and create gate documents for products on the innovation master plan.
Lead key initiatives globally to drive international harmonization of the Valvoline product portfolio.
Cross-connect between all Valvoline segments to deliver single solution branding and product promises for customers and consumers.
Conduct Strategic Portfolio Reviews to determine long-term strategic fit against competition and identify market opportunities for innovation refinement.
Become integrated into the daily operations of the LATAM business to ensure customer and consumer needs are understood and fed back into the planning process.
Ensure business partners in LATAM view this role as a key connected partner to help deliver results, grow Valvoline, and support local business acceleration.