Sr. Manager, Innovation– KIND

Job Description

Accelerator, a global Division of Mars Snacking, is on the front line of unlocking growth across high-potential categories and brands to fuel what’s next for Snacking. It’s home to both emerging and enduring brands, including KIND, TRÜ FRÜ, NATURE’S BAKERY, RXBAR, EGGO, POP-TARTS and RICE KRISPIE TREATS. Combining the scale of Mars with the agility of a start-up, our Division has the ambition to accelerate the future of snacking by delivering products consumers love today, discovering category-shaping innovations for tomorrow and developing entrepreneurial teams whose impact will last for generations.

We’re looking for passionate talent who dare to dream big, agile collaborators who talk straight and decide fast, and driven performers with a growth mindset. We’re proudly part of Mars, while also building something boldly different. If this inspires and energizes you, you’ve found the right place where you can do cool things with fun people for one of the biggest snacking companies in the world!

What You’ll Do

Reporting to the Senior Marketing Director, KIND, the Sr. Brand Manager, Innovation owns what KIND launches next. The role is accountable for the brand’s 18-month to 3-year innovation pipeline end to end: the consumer needs the brand should solve for, where it plays next, the propositions that get it there, the products that make them real, and the stage gates that decide what moves forward and what stops.

Every launch starts with a real consumer problem, and this role is the brand’s deepest expert on who the KIND consumer is, what they want from snacking, and where the unmet needs are. This role leads a team of a Brand Manager and a Senior Associate Brand Manager, each owning a platform, and holds the earliest-stage bets personally until they earn an owner.

The role works shoulder to shoulder with Consumer Research and R&D from the first consumer question to the final formulation, and hands the Core team launches that are ready to win.

What will be your key responsibilities? Innovation Strategy & Portfolio Direction

• Own the KIND innovation strategy: where the brand plays next across formats, occasions and adjacencies, grounded in a deep understanding of the consumer, their snacking needs and occasions, category dynamics and the brand platform.
• Build and maintain the brand’s innovation insight foundation: who the KIND consumer is and could be, the jobs they hire snacks to do, the tensions and unmet needs in the category, and where KIND has the right to play.
• Represent KIND innovation to Better For You leadership and global markets, building platforms that can travel and bringing market and consumer learning back into the pipeline.
• Bring the Accelerator way of working into the brand: founder‑style ownership, fast and cheap experiments, clear kill criteria, and the willingness to scale hard when something proves out.

Pipeline Management & Business Case Development

• Build and own the 18‑month to 3‑year pipeline, sequencing launches against capacity, investment and the commercial calendar so the brand always has news coming.
• Own the stage‑gate and Integrated Business Planning (IBP) steps and make the portfolio calls on what enters, accelerates, parks or stops. Decide early, decide with consumer evidence, defend the decision.
• Build the business case for every launch, volume, margin, investment, incrementality and return, and partner with Finance to secure funding.
• Own the early‑stage bets personally from consumer insight through concept and validation until each passes a gate and earns an owner or stops.

Product Design & Development

• Write propositions that start with the consumer: the problem, the person, the reason KIND wins, and the evidence that it will.
• Lead product design…