Innovation Project Manager

Our client is seeking an experienced Innovation Project Manager to provide temporary coverage for a critical member of their Innovation team during a leave of absence. This is a highly visible contract opportunity where you'll step into an established innovation process, ensuring key product development initiatives continue moving forward without disruption

Rather than building new processes, you'll focus on executing and facilitating the organization's existing stage-gate innovation framework—partnering with cross-functional teams to keep projects on schedule, coordinate stakeholders, manage timelines, and support successful product launches.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in highly collaborative environments, excels at managing multiple priorities, and enjoys bringing structure, organization, and momentum to complex innovation programs.

• Manage a portfolio of new product innovation initiatives, ensuring projects remain on schedule and aligned with business priorities.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams throughout the product development lifecycle, driving accountability and timely execution.
• Maintain project plans, timelines, milestones, and deliverables while proactively identifying potential risks and dependencies.
• Provide regular project updates and status reports to leadership and key stakeholders.

• Facilitate the company's established stage-gate innovation process, ensuring projects successfully progress through key milestones and governance reviews.
• Prepare materials for stage-gate meetings and leadership reviews while tracking decisions and follow-up actions.
• Ensure project documentation remains accurate, complete, and up to date throughout the innovation lifecycle.
• Help teams stay aligned with existing innovation processes and governance standards.

• Partner closely with teams across Marketing, R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Regulatory, Commercial, and Finance to ensure seamless execution.
• Coordinate communication across stakeholders, helping resolve roadblocks and maintain project momentum.
• Act as the central point of contact for project coordination and execution across multiple initiatives.
• Monitor project health, identify potential risks, and
  ** escalate
  * * issues before they impact timelines.
• Coordinate mitigation plans with project teams to ensure successful execution.
• Support leadership with data-driven updates on project status, timelines, and key decisions.

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Healthcare, or a related field.
  5–8+ years of experience in project management, innovation, commercialization, or product development.
• Experience managing cross-functional projects within consumer products, healthcare, medical device, CPG, pharmaceutical, or similarly regulated industries.
• Strong understanding of stage-gate product development and innovation processes.
• Proven ability to coordinate multiple stakeholders while managing competing priorities and aggressive timelines.
• Excellent organizational, communication, and project management skills.
• Experience using project management tools such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, , Jira, or similar platforms is preferred.
• PMP certification is a plus but not required.