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Director of Innovation & Category Growth
Panera Bread Company
Needham, MA, United States
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Category Support Center Location ID 1 Location Name Needham Support Center Address Three Charles River Place State/Region Massachusetts Postal Code 02494 Country United States
Director of Innovation and Category Growth
Job Responsibilities
Specific responsibilities for this role are as follows:
• Develop category renderings that identify the gaps and opportunities within product categories and what is critical for Panera to win in each
• Create and communicate a multiyear product pipeline for each category, that helps sequence product development activities
• Manage multiple projects with small cross functional innovation teams, to deliver new products that make a material positive impact for our guests, using Paneras innovation process
• Lead and coordinate all aspects of product development, from consumer insights, food development, marketing and promotion, to operations and supply chain, financial analysis and reporting
• Report on project progress and provide recommendations to senior leadership, and on-the-ground project adjustments, to ensure success
• Provide post-launch strategic direction across the organization including, marketing, category management, IT, and operations
Education and Experience
• Bachelors Degree required. MBA is desired
• Director: 7-10 years of experience ideally in progressive grocery retailing, as a merchant or category manager, with responsibility for sales and profit, product development/evolution, buying, pricing, promotions.
• Restaurant or CPG experience also a plus
Critical Capabilities and Skills
• Project management expertise
• Innovation pipeline and process management
• Small team leadership, especially across multiple functions (including culinary development, caf operations, marketing, supply chain, IT, and others)
• Passion for food, and for making a difference in the lives of the 9M people who eat at Panera each week
• Strong influencing and communication skills, as this role wont have any direct reports, but will be expected to accomplish a lot across Panera
• Ability to manage in ambiguity, as well as a penchant for entrepreneurship. Well be asking you to help envision the future, and then put a lot of pieces together to make something out of nothing
• Financial acumen, because of course we need to sell a lot and make money doing it
• Strategic thinking, creativity, and sound decision-making skills
Geography
• This role will work out of either our Needham, MA office, but youll need to travel up to 50% of the time. Its important to live and breathe in the cafes where were innovating and iterating on our new products, so that you can understand what our everyday customers and our operators are seeing and saying
Needham Support Center