Manager, Innovation Strategy & Foresights

Kraft Heinz•Chicago, IL

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Reporting to the Director of Innovation Strategy and Foresights for the North America Zone, you will serve as a strategic thought partner helping shape the zone innovation strategy—clarifying where to play, how to win, and what to build. You will support the definition of zone innovation sufficiency targets, track progress against those targets, and ensure innovation priorities and recommendations align to the overall KHC growth plan. You will translate brand-agnostic consumer and market signals into clear strategic options, bringing forward recommendations that help define and advance the Zone’s innovation agenda. Your impact will be felt across our 300+ person marketing organization and partners in Insights, R&D, Supply Chain, Regulatory, Finance, and Sales—energizing collaboration, embedding a modern innovation mindset, and helping us win with consumers across the North America portfolio.

Requirements

5+ years' experience in CPG marketing
Demonstrated experience supporting (not necessarily owning) innovation strategy—translating ambiguity into clear “where to play / how to win / what to build” options and decision points.
Contagious passion for consumer marketing, culture, new product ideas and trends
Advanced storytelling skills with the ability to synthesize data/insights into a powerful story for internal or external audiences
Demonstrated ability to influence leaders and inspire and lead cross-functional teams
Strong IRI skills

Responsibilities

Shape the NA Zone innovation strategy by helping identify where to play, setting innovation sufficiency targets, tracking progress against those targets, and aligning innovation priorities and recommendations to the overall KHC growth plan.
Directly lead and / or partner with BU cross-functionals to execute ‘big bet’ whitespace innovation
Influence how innovation happens across the organization, ensuring teams – regardless of function – operate with a shared innovation for what great innovation looks like.
Act as consultant to BU Marketers and cross-functional teams, providing hands-on strategic guidance and coaching throughout innovation process to ensure rigor in execution and stronger business outcomes.
Operationalize innovation strategy & foresights ways of working by building practical toolkits, templates, and governance that connect trends/foresights to innovation briefs, learning plans, decision points, and pipeline choices.
Enable brand-agnostic trend and foresight integration by translating signals into clear implications and opportunity areas that can be applied across brands, categories, and channels.
Support non-adjacent category expansion exploration by helping structure hypotheses, learning agendas, and early concepting pathways that teams can pressure-test efficiently.
Partner closely across functions (Insights, R&D, Supply Chain, Regulatory, and Finance) to ensure strategies and opportunities are grounded in feasibility and executed with pace, surfacing barriers and opportunities that improve decision quality.