POSITION SUMMARY
The New Product Project Management team at Kendo leads the new product launches from concept to delivery. The Manager is responsible for driving communication and problem-solving to help deliver the best products possible while balancing scope, time and cost with agility. They help the teams share their voice and deliver tasks on time to keep projects on track. Strong partnerships with the Product Development, Packaging, Creative, Sourcing, Supply Chain, Brand teams and our external suppliers ensure successful new product launches.
With their New Product Development (NPD) timeline expertise, the NPPM Manager also helps improve the NPD process by collaborating with the cross functional teams to fix inefficiencies and set the teams up for success for their brand.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Day-to-day Project Management
- Responsible for establishing a SmartSheet timeline for each new product launch from development to delivery across multiple channels and brands, complete with dependencies/predecessors, owners, deadlines, and durations.
- Clearly communicate project status, risk and feasibility to teams and leadership to drive project decision-making in a timely manner.
- Lead proactive problem solving while driving completion of all deliverables with the cross functional teams to mitigate issues that may impact project cost, time and quality.
- Lead key tactical (Ops, vendor calls, cross functional team meetings)
- Build strong partnerships with all internal and external stakeholders in order to establish project plans.
- Create and maintain the project tracker, the project source of truth used to drive project visibility and discussion.
- As an NPD timeline subject matter expert, responsible for understanding and evaluating the end-to-end process and making recommendations on how it can be improved.
- Perform project post-mortems to identify key learnings and takeaways.
REQUIREMENTS
- Requires 5-7 years leading new product launches in consumer-packaged goods (CPG) – Cosmetics, Personal Care, or Health & Beauty preferred.
- Project management experience working with global contract manufacturers and internal cross functional teams required.
- Experience with Change Management, Product Development, Packaging Development, or Supply Chain a plus.
- Proficient with Smartsheet for timeline management or other project management software (MS Project, Asana, etc.).
- Demonstrated ability to prioritize and manage dozens of projects while driving accountability with partners.