Senior Specialist, Innovation

Neogen Corporation

About The Position

The Senior Specialist, Innovation plays a critical role in advancing Neogen’s pipeline of high-impact innovations across Food Safety and Animal Health. This individual translates unmet customer needs into validated concepts and scalable solutions, applying disciplined innovation methodologies to reduce risk, accelerate learning, and increase the probability of commercial and technical success. The role operates at the intersection of science, technology, customer insight, and business strategy and partners extensively across R&D, Product Management, Commercial, Regulatory, Quality, Operations, and digital teams.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Science, Engineering, Design, Business, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
8+ years of relevant professional experience in innovation, R&D, product development, product management, strategy, customer discovery, or a related technical or commercial role
Experience leading or supporting customer discovery, voice-of-customer research, stakeholder interviews, observational research, or other needs-finding activities
Experience applying structured innovation methodologies such as Design Thinking, Jobs to Be Done, BioDesign, Lean Startup, Human-Centered Design, or comparable frameworks
Experience translating ambiguous customer problems into defined need statements, use cases, success criteria, value propositions, or early business hypotheses
Experience supporting concept development and de-risking through prototypes, experiments, pilots, technical feasibility assessments, or customer feedback
Experience facilitating workshops, synthesizing complex information, and influencing cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority
Experience developing or contributing to business cases that consider customer value, strategic fit, technical feasibility, adoption risk, market opportunity, or commercial viability
Experience working across scientific, technical, regulatory, quality, commercial, operations, or digital/data functions
Experience working in regulated environments where quality, validation, compliance, or customer workflow requirements influence business or product decisions
Ability to travel up to 30% based on business and customer needs. Travel requirements may vary by month, with some periods requiring less travel depending on project activity, customer engagement, and business priorities.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in Science, Engineering, Business, Design, or a related field
Experience in food safety, animal health, diagnostics, life sciences, contract or central laboratories, agriculture, veterinary health, or another regulated technical market
Experience with product development, commercialization, portfolio management, or stage-gate/governance processes
Experience with digital solutions, data-enabled workflows, software-enabled products, automation, LIMS/connectivity, or digital transformation
Experience developing solutions that integrate hardware, consumables, software, and data
Experience supporting intellectual property activities, including invention disclosures or freedom-to-operate discussions

Responsibilities

Lead structured discovery efforts to uncover unmet needs across food and animal safety laboratories, manufacturing environments, farms, and veterinary settings
Plan, conduct, and synthesize voice-of-customer research, field observations, and stakeholder interviews to identify customer pain points and jobs to be done
Translate qualitative and quantitative insights into clearly articulated need statements with defined users, use contexts, and measurable success criteria
Assess unmet needs against strategic fit, customer value, regulatory constraints, and Neogen’s core capabilities to support portfolio prioritization
Develop early value hypotheses, adoption assumptions, and problem framing to guide downstream innovation activities
Partner with cross-functional teams to generate, evaluate, and refine solution concepts spanning physical products, assays, instruments, digital tools, workflows, and service models
Collaborate with R&D, Engineering, Data Science, Quality, Regulatory, and Commercial teams to explore technical feasibility and differentiation
Build and test early concepts through experiments, prototypes, pilots, and customer feedback loops to reduce technical, usability, and market risk
Define use cases, workflows, and system-level concepts that integrate hardware, consumables, software, and data
Support intellectual property strategy by contributing to invention disclosures and freedom-to-operate discussions
Prepare concepts for progression through Neogen’s innovation governance process by clearly documenting desirability, feasibility, and viability evidence
Partner with Product Management, Operations, Quality, and Regulatory teams to support scale-up, validation, and launch readiness
Identify risks related to adoption, workflow disruption, training burden, or regulatory approval and recommend mitigation strategies
Ensure customer value propositions are clear, evidence-based, and aligned with real-world usage and purchasing drivers
Support the transition from innovation into development or commercialization while preserving the original customer intent
Serve as a connector across Innovation, R&D, Commercial, Regulatory, Quality, Operations, and other functions to promote alignment and shared understanding
Plan and facilitate structured innovation workshops, ideation sessions, and decision reviews
Lead through influence by clearly communicating insights, trade-offs, and recommendations to senior stakeholders
Serve as a trusted thought partner to scientific and technical teams, helping frame problems before solutions are pursued
Contribute to the continuous improvement of Neogen’s innovation processes, tools, and decision criteria
Support portfolio-level thinking by identifying patterns across customer needs, technologies, and market segments
Help ensure innovation investments align with Neogen’s strategic focus on high-impact, scalable Food Safety and Animal Health solutions
Track and analyze innovation learnings and outcomes to inform future opportunity areas and capability development
Champion disciplined, customer-centered innovation practices across the organization
Mentor project teams and junior contributors on needs-driven innovation, experimentation, and evidence-based decision-making
Promote a learning mindset that values early insight, rapid feedback, and thoughtful risk-taking