Director, Innovation Strategy

Kinder's • Walnut Creek, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Innovation Strategy will support the development and continuous evolution of Kinder’s innovation strategy, connecting organizational and brand priorities with market landscapes, consumer needs, customer priorities, brand permission, opportunity size, and organizational capabilities to shape the innovation pipeline, prioritization, and growth. The role is a key partner to the broader leadership team in communicating innovation priorities, facilitating decision making, and framing implications across the organization. It requires strong communication, project management, analytical, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Reporting to the VP of Innovation, the Director will evaluate and execute strategic projects and initiatives. The role leads long-range innovation planning, develops strategic opportunity platforms and category explorations, maintains market and category maps, and works with cross-functional partners to assess capabilities, constraints, business cases, and investments. It also establishes consistent portfolio assessment and decision processes, maintains an integrated view of innovation initiatives and portfolio health, anticipates capacity constraints, and builds practical tools, standards, and planning cadences that support informed decisions while preserving Kinder’s entrepreneurial pace.

The position is based at Kinder’s office in Walnut Creek, California. The work structure involves four days in the office each week; Fridays are flexible, with employees choosing whether to work in the office or from home. The expected starting base salary is $215,000–$240,000 per year. Kinder is a privately held, founder-led food company expanding globally, with more than 100 products sold nationwide.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in innovation strategy, portfolio strategy, corporate or brand strategy, management consulting, or a related role.
• Demonstrated experience translating market, consumer, competitive, and business inputs into long-range growth choices and prioritized innovation opportunities.
• Strong strategic problem-solving and analytical capabilities, including market landscaping, opportunity assessment, scenario development, and early sizing.
• Strong project and portfolio management discipline, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams and maintain an integrated portfolio view without becoming the day-to-day project manager for each project.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence cross-functional stakeholders, communicate complex issues clearly, and build alignment around decisions.
• Proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint.
• Bachelor’s degree.
• Growth mindset and passion for learning and teaching.
• Objective, low-ego facilitation style, with the ability to challenge thinking, surface tradeoffs, and keep the organization moving without forcing consensus.
• Strong problem-solving orientation and focus on delivering quality results.
• Builder mindset and willingness to develop systems that help drive change.
• Comfort working through ambiguity and helping others make good decisions with imperfect information.
• Motivation to create lasting impact and value, build strong relationships with teammates, and contribute to a fast-moving team as either a leader or follower as needed.

Nice To Haves

• CPG or food industry experience.
• Experience with project management tools; Kinder currently uses Wrike.
• MBA or another relevant advanced degree.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and ongoing evolution of Kinder’s long-term innovation plan, translating enterprise and brand growth priorities into strategic opportunities, platforms, and categories to explore.
• Build and maintain market and category maps covering consumer needs, emerging behaviors, competitive activity, and potential white space.
• Partner with Culinary, R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Commercialization, and other functions to understand capabilities and constraints and identify capabilities or investments needed for future growth.
• Collaborate with Finance, Sales, and other partners to develop business cases for growth initiatives, including sizing, volume scenarios, and appropriately mature economic perspectives.
• Serve as a thought partner to the Innovation team and enterprise leaders, challenging assumptions and distinguishing attractive ideas from opportunities likely to create consumer value and meaningful growth.
• Synthesize market, consumer, financial, and operational information into clear narratives and recommendations for executive and cross-functional audiences.
• Refine and apply a consistent approach to assess opportunities across strategic fit, consumer value, differentiation, brand permission, operational feasibility, financial viability, capabilities requirements, timing, and risk.
• Translate prioritized opportunities into structured exploration with clear hypotheses, questions, and evidence requirements.
• Plan and lead portfolio reviews, providing leaders with a concise fact base, explicit tradeoffs, and actionable recommendations.
• Capture decisions, rationale, and follow-up actions, and ensure approved decisions are reflected in portfolio plans and communicated to execution teams.
• Maintain an integrated view of active, emerging, and upcoming innovation initiatives, including status, timing, milestones, dependencies, risks, investment or resource needs, and required decisions.
• Monitor portfolio balance and health across time horizons, categories, growth platforms, and innovation types, identifying gaps, overconcentration, and misalignment with strategic priorities.
• Anticipate portfolio-level capacity constraints and competing demands, bringing partners together to resolve sequencing, resourcing, or scope tradeoffs.
• Build and improve practical tools to strengthen innovation decisions and help evaluate and advance opportunities, such as market maps, opportunity screens, project charters, volume models, dashboards, and consumer-learning templates.
• Establish standards for inputs at each stage, balancing discipline with entrepreneurial pace and tailoring analysis to the size and uncertainty of decisions.
• Establish a practical cadence for long-range planning, portfolio reviews, and prioritization that provides forward visibility without unnecessary process.

Benefits

• Paid time off.
• 401(k).
• Bonus or incentive eligibility.
• Equity grants.
• Competitive health benefits.
• Family-friendly benefits, including parental leave.
• Flexible work arrangements, including the option to work from home on Fridays and flexibility to work outside the office when needed for work-life balance and personal commitments. Benefits vary based on eligibility.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director