Director, New Growth Innovation

SC Johnson•Racine, WI

About The Position

The Director, New Growth Innovation is part of SC Johnson’s enterprise-focused New Growth Innovation Team, which identifies, builds and de-risks Horizon 4 growth opportunities beyond category-led core and adjacent innovation. The team pursues material white spaces where consumer needs, business models, technology, channels or ownership models may differ fundamentally from SC Johnson’s current business. Serving as a Venture Lead and Opportunity GM, the Director takes one to two transformational opportunities from thesis through validation, MVP, pilot and transition to scale. Although the role is in the Marketing job family, it is not a traditional brand-management position. The Director leads integrated, cross-functional venture pods and is accountable for the total opportunity, including the consumer, product or service, technical pathway, economics, partnerships and route to scale. The role uses a gated funding model, relying on evidence to earn subsequent investment and making fast, reversible decisions within approved guardrails. Success requires an outside-in, entrepreneurial leader with deep curiosity, strong external networks and a willingness to access the best capabilities wherever they reside. The Director works with Category teams as strategic context and eventual scale partners, while preparing ventures for transition and preserving their consumer insight, business logic, partner rights, economics and operating model.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree.
10+ years of relevant experience in marketing, innovation, new business development, strategy, venture building, general management or related roles.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree; MBA preferred.
Track record leading ambiguous, high-uncertainty growth from insight to market through rapid test-and-learn.
Entrepreneurial operating approach, including pace, clear trade-offs, calculated risk-taking, ownership of outcomes and stopping weak ideas early.
Strong outside-in orientation and external network across startups, emerging technologies, suppliers and new business models, with the ability to convert external signals into opportunity theses.
Exceptional cross-functional leadership without relying on hierarchy, integrating consumer, technical, commercial, financial and regulatory perspectives.
Strong business-building and financial acumen, including value-pool sizing, willingness-to-pay analysis, unit economics, scenario planning, business models and investment cases.
Experience with open innovation and partnerships; supplier innovation, co-development, licensing, venture investing or M&A exposure is a plus.
Ability to challenge category definitions and envision how technology, platforms or new ownership models could solve needs differently and disrupt existing businesses.
Excellent executive communication, curiosity, agility and resilience.
Prior CPG, digital/eCommerce, B2B, startup or venture experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Identify and shape white-space growth opportunities, starting with unresolved consumer needs and future disruption rather than existing category boundaries.
Develop venture theses for potential new businesses, customers, categories, business models, science and technology platforms, and strategic capabilities.
Lead one to two ventures as Opportunity GM from framing through pilot; define key assumptions, learning agendas, investment needs, and explicit kill or pivot criteria.
Translate ambiguity into testable hypotheses and run rapid consumer, business-model, pricing and channel experiments before committing to scale investment.
Build evidence-based investment cases integrating consumer desirability, technical feasibility, economics, strategic right-to-win and potential for material scale.
Lead cross-functional venture pods spanning RD&E, Insights, Design, Finance, Regulatory, Legal/IP, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain, Corporate Development and commercial partners.
Build and activate an external innovation ecosystem of suppliers, startups, universities, co-manufacturers, technology providers, investors and channel or platform partners.
Evaluate and recommend Make, Partner, Invest or Buy pathways; structure paid development, pilots, joint development and strategic partnerships while preserving optionality.
Steward capital through a gated funding system, directing stage funding toward the highest-risk assumptions and recommending advance, pivot or stop decisions based on evidence.
Define and track venture metrics, including speed to evidence, willingness to pay, unit economics, repeat or reorder, partner performance, proof of scale and capital efficiency.
Engage Category teams as strategic context and future scale partners without moving early-stage work into Category approval processes; define transfer criteria, resources and scale requirements before pilot.
Prepare scale-ready ventures for transition and remain involved through transition to accelerate learning transfer and protect strategic intent.