Senior Director, Innovation

Who You Are: 

The Senior Director of Innovation will lead the development and execution of the company’s end-to-end innovation strategy, driving sustainable, long-term growth through a robust and balanced pipeline of new products, platforms, and renovation initiatives. This role is accountable for shaping the future of the business through identifying and unlocking new growth opportunities across products, formats, and business models that expand the brand’s reach and relevance.

The Task At Hand:

As a key member of the Marketing team, this individual will operate at the intersection of brand, R&D, insights, and commercial functions, serving as the connective tissue that translates consumer needs and market opportunities into commercially successful innovations. They will own the innovation agenda from early-stage concept through commercialization and in-market performance, ensuring ideas are not only compelling but executable, scalable, and financially impactful.

This leader will define where to play and how to win, building a disciplined yet agile innovation engine that balances core business growth with bold, forward-looking bets. They will bring a strong external lens grounded in consumer trends, competitive dynamics, and category evolution while also driving internal alignment, prioritization, and resource allocation to maximize impact.

In This Role, You Will: 

Innovation Strategy & Pipeline Leadership

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Define and own the rolling 3-year innovation strategy and pipeline, aligned to enterprise growth goals, category whitespace, and consumer needs

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Owns innovation as a primary driver of enterprise growth and long-term value creation while partnering with executive leadership to shape company-wide growth strategy beyond innovation function

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Establish clear “where to play” and “how to win” frameworks, grounded in jobs-to-be-done, consumer insights, and competitive dynamics

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Build and manage a balanced pipeline across core renovation, adjacent expansion, and breakthrough innovation.

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Lead stage-gate processes, ensuring concepts are rigorously evaluated based on size of prize, financial viability (P&L), feasibility, and strategic fit

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Continuously assess and optimize pipeline health, prioritization, and resource allocation

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Allocates resources strategically across core and breakthrough innovation

Concept Development & Commercialization

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Translate insights into winning product concepts, value propositions, and positioning strategies

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Partner closely with R&D and operations to bring products from ideation through development, testing, and launch

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Oversee end-to-end commercialization, including packaging, pricing strategy, claims, and partner with brand team for go-to-market plans

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Ensure all innovation is grounded in strong consumer desirability, technical feasibility, and business viability

Consumer, Category & Trend Leadership

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Lead identification of emerging consumer trends, whitespace opportunities, and category disruptions within baby and kids foods and adjacent spaces

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Defines clear business opportunity spaces from the trends and sleepy category insights

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Champion a consumer-first mindset, leveraging qualitative and quantitative insights to shape innovation strategy

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Synthesize data from multiple sources (market trends, velocity, competitive landscape, retailer feedback) into clear strategic recommendations

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Represents the company externally as a thought leader in innovation and category evolution

Cross-Functional Leadership

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Serve as the central connector across Marketing, R&D, Sales, Supply Chain, and Finance to drive alignment and execution of innovation initiatives

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Partner with Sales to ensure innovation aligns with channel strategy, retailer needs, and commercialization priorities

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Collaborate with Operations and Supply Chain to ensure scalability, cost efficiency, and speed to market

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Serves as a key strategic advisor to SLT, influencing enterprise priorities, investment decisions, and growth strategy

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Drives decision-making at the executive level on innovation bets, trade-offs, and resource allocation

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Be a trusted voice and partner with key retailers at Top-to-Top meetings to shape existing pipeline and plan adjustments to take advantage of presented opportunities

Brand & Portfolio Integration

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Ensure innovation strengthens and evolves the overall brand strategy and portfolio architecture

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Partner with brand/marketing teams to develop compelling storytelling and launch plans for new products

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Maintain consistency across innovation initiatives while enabling brand stretch and expansion into new territories

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Owns prioritization decisions, including trade-offs and de-prioritization of initiatives to maximize impact

Performance Management & Growth Delivery

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Own innovation-driven revenue targets and post-launch performance tracking

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Monitor KPIs including incrementality, velocity, household penetration, and margin delivery

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Identify risks and opportunities early and implement optimization plans to improve in-market performance

Team Leadership & Capability Building

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Build and lead a high-performing innovation team, fostering a culture of curiosity, agility, and accountability

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Develop best-in-class innovation processes, tools, and ways of working

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Mentor and elevate talent, strengthening innovation capabilities across the organization

Budget & Investment Management

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Oversee innovation-related investments, ensuring disciplined allocation of resources to highest-impact opportunities

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Partner with Finance to build robust business cases and track ROI across initiatives

In This Role, You Will Bring:

• 12+ years of work experience, including significant experience in CPG/food and in a brand management role

• BA/BS required, MBA preferred

• Entrepreneurial, with experience scaling a rapidly growing business or product line - analogous role at a successful CPG startup or a fast-growing line within a larger CPG is ideal

• Successful track record of innovation launches within the baby, toddler, kids snacking or beverage space and building innovation pipelines

• Deep experience working cross-functionally across R&D, marketing, insights, sales, and operations

• Strong strategic thinking combined with hands-on execution and commercialization experience

• Experience in high-growth or entrepreneurial environments preferred

• Consumer-obsessed with strong intuition for trends and unmet needs

• Strategic and analytical, able to translate insights into action

• Influential leader who can align teams and drive decisions across functions

• Results-driven, with a strong bias for action and accountability

• Solid knowledge of Microsoft Suite, Outlook, Slack, and other professional platforms

• Genuinely passionate about improving childhood nutrition for a healthier and happier planet

• Demonstrated ability to thrive in ambiguity, deeply understand business needs, develop a cohesive strategy, and make decisions requiring a high level of judgment

• Previous exposure to cross-functional work between Sustainability and Marketing preferred

• Up to 25% travel required: Although this role is a remote work-from-home position, we “Farmers” do meet as a company and/or as a department a few times a year. Anticipate possible travel up to a few times each quarter

• Must reside in the United States to be considered for this position

• Please note that visa sponsorship is not available for this position

Compensation:

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Exempt, salaried, Full-Time

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The anticipated salary range for this position is $185,000.00 to $220,000.00. The actual salary offer will carefully consider a few factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience, and location. Certain positions are eligible for additional forms of compensation such as bonuses, stipends, equity, and role-specific perks.

Who We Are

Our Purpose: Drive systemic improvement in childhood nutrition for a healthier, happier, and more equitable world.

Our Business: At Once Upon a Farm, farm-fresh taste grows here. We're on a greater mission in providing organic, crave-worthy snacks and meals for children of all ages. Our recipes are crafted with only the best organic ingredients – whole fruits and veggies, cold-pressed (our pouches), or freshly frozen (our meals) to perfection– to support your growing kids at every stage. Each of our organic, non-GMO, non-dairy recipes contains no added sugar and are free from artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives – just simple, real, nutritious snacks your entire family will love.

We support and champion farmers who supply the highest-quality organic ingredients for our foods. We help parents keep their promise to provide the best nourishment for their children’s bodies and souls. We treat our consumers, customers, suppliers, investors, and all our valued employees with the same high level of dignity and respect that we expect from others. We will always fight for and support efforts to drive positive social change and food justice for the benefit of parents, kids, and families. Lastly, we foster an entrepreneurial and collaborative culture that values humility, honesty, passion, positive social impact, and fun.

Our Team: We’re all fully remote, which makes us a highly collaborative, dynamic, and supportive bunch. We share a singular mission to make the world a better place through the highest quality, most delicious, nourishing, and nutritious products made accessible to every home, from our farms to your fridge. And while we’re invested in our product, we’re equally invested in one another's success.

Once Upon a Farm is a purpose-driven brand made up of an inclusive group of individuals with diverse backgrounds, passions, and beliefs. We hire self-motivated, independent thinkers and those who are genuinely passionate about improving childhood nutrition for a healthier and happier planet. Bring your whole self to your work at Once Upon a Farm, a proud equal-opportunity employer. In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use.

In an effort to help us remove unconscious bias from our resume review process, we ask that you please remove all identifying information from your resume (like profile photos) before you upload it. Once Upon a Farm is committed to cultivating an inclusive environment where a diverse group of people can and want to do their best work, and that starts with our hiring practices.

Once Upon a Farm, PBC, provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants in all company facilities without regard to race, color, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, cast, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth, physical disability, mental and/or intellectual disability, age, military status or status as a Vietnam-era or special disabled veteran, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer-related or HIV/AIDS-related), genetic information, or sexual orientation in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

This job description is a summary of duties; it is by no means an all-inclusive list but is merely a broad guide of expected duties.

You must reside in the United States to be considered for this position.