Director, New Growth Innovation

SC Johnson•Racine, WI

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, New Growth Innovation is part of SC Johnson’s enterprise-focused venture team, which identifies, builds and de-risks Horizon 4 growth opportunities beyond category-led core and adjacent innovation. The Director serves as a Venture Lead and Opportunity General Manager, leading one to two transformational opportunities from thesis through validation, MVP, pilot and transition to scale. This is not a traditional brand-management role: the Director leads integrated cross-functional venture pods and is accountable for the overall 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 further investment and making fast, reversible decisions within approved guardrails. The Director identifies unmet consumer needs and future disruption, develops venture theses and tests assumptions through rapid experimentation. The position also builds external innovation relationships, evaluates whether capabilities should be built, partnered for, invested in or acquired, and manages disciplined funding and venture metrics. The Director engages category teams as strategic context and potential scale partners, then prepares validated ventures for transition while preserving their consumer insight, business logic, partner rights, economics and operating model. This is a full-time position. Remote work is available once a week for eligible employees, and domestic relocation is available for the role. SC Johnson emphasizes collaboration and working together in person, and is committed to an inclusive and supportive work environment.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree.
10+ years of relevant experience in marketing, innovation, new business development, strategy, venture building, general management, or related roles.
Experience leading cross-functional work and integrating consumer, technical, commercial, financial, and regulatory perspectives into decisions.
Strong business-building and financial acumen, including value-pool sizing, willingness-to-pay, unit economics, scenario analysis, business models, and investment cases.
Excellent executive communication, curiosity, agility, and resilience.

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, with pace, clear trade-offs, calculated risk-taking, ownership of outcomes, and willingness to stop weak ideas early.
Strong outside-in orientation and external networks across startups, emerging technologies, suppliers, and new business models.
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.
Prior CPG, digital/eCommerce, B2B, startup, or venture experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Identify and shape white-space growth opportunities based on unresolved consumer needs and future disruption.
Develop venture theses for potential new businesses, customers, categories, business models, science or technology platforms, and strategic capabilities.
Lead one to two ventures from opportunity framing through pilot; define 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.
Build evidence-based investment cases covering consumer desirability, technical feasibility, economics, strategic right-to-win, and potential scale.
Lead cross-functional venture pods spanning functions such as RD&E, Insights, Design, Finance, Regulatory, Legal/IP, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain, Corporate Development, and commercial teams.
Build and activate an external innovation ecosystem involving suppliers, startups, universities, co-manufacturers, technology providers, investors, and channel or platform partners.
Evaluate and recommend Make, Partner, Invest, or Buy pathways; structure development, pilot, joint development, and strategic partnership models.
Manage capital under a gated funding system, resolving high-risk assumptions first and recommending whether to advance, pivot, or stop 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 potential scale partners while keeping early-stage work out of category approval processes; define transfer criteria and scale requirements before pilot.
Prepare scale-ready ventures for transition and remain involved through the transition to support learning transfer and protect strategic intent.