Brand Manager, Innovation, PATTERN

PATTERN is seeking a Brand Manager, Innovation that owns the innovation pipeline for the brand. This is the role that decides what we make next — anchored in consumer insight, category and ingredient trends, channel needs, and the brand's positioning. They are the architect of the funnel and the strategic lead for new product development from concept through pre-launch hand-off, ensuring every initiative is fit for market, fit for consumer, and fit for the business.

This role is a tension point by design. They must have the judgment and the conviction to challenge ideas that don't serve the brand or the consumer, and the leadership presence to bring the cross-functional team to better answers. This role leads without ego: sharp, decisive, collaborative, and relentlessly focused on solving real consumer problems with products people love.

This role will report directly to the VP of Marketing. 

Candidates MUST be based in the Los Angeles area as this role is hybrid and in-person three days a week at the PATTERN office in West Hollywood. 

Job Responsibilities: 

Ideation & Pipeline Development

Own the front end of innovation. The ideation cycle starts here and feeds the rest of the business.

• Pipeline ownership: Build and maintain a thriving, multi-horizon innovation pipeline (core, adjacent, transformational) that reflects where the brand is going — not just where it has been.

• Consumer insight as the starting point: Translate consumer needs, tensions, and unmet jobs-to-be-done into clearly articulated innovation opportunities. Partner with Insights to design and interpret qualitative and quantitative research.

• Trend foresight: Working closely with Product Development, monitor and synthesize macro, category, ingredient, formulation, packaging, and cultural trends. Maintain ongoing visibility into industry shows, supplier innovation, and emerging white space in beauty and personal care.

• Competitive intelligence: Track competitor launches, claims, pricing, and pack innovation. Identify white-space opportunities and points of differentiation grounded in evidence.

• Channel & customer input: Pull in commercial, sales, and customer-team perspective early so ideas are pressure-tested against retail and channel realities as you and the internal team bring proposals to leadership

• Ideation leadership: Lead structured ideation sprints (twice annually) and cross-functional workshops. Convert raw concepts into vetted, prioritized opportunities ready to enter the stage-gate process.

New Product Development Strategy (Concept through Hand-Off)

Lead NPD strategically across the marketing 4 Ps. This role builds the strategic foundation & brand marketing owns go-to-market execution.

Product

• Define the product vision, target consumer, role in portfolio, and the consumer problem being solved.
• Partner with Product Development on formulation direction, ingredient strategy, sensory and efficacy targets, and claims potential.
• Set and defend the product brief; drive trade-offs when feasibility, cost, or timeline pressure the consumer benefit.
• Lead concept testing and product testing (sensory, claims substantiation, etc.) and translate results into refinement decisions.

Price

• Develop pricing strategy grounded in consumer value perception, competitive context, channel norms, and brand architecture.
• Partner with Finance and Sales on price elasticity, tiering, and channel-specific pricing strategies.
• Own the margin equation: protect target GM while delivering on consumer expectation.

Positioning & Claims

• Craft positioning, value proposition, and claim hierarchy before hand-off for GTM. Ensure positioning is differentiated, defensible, and consistent with brand architecture and delivers on breakthrough.
• Partner with Regulatory, Legal, and PD to develop substantiated, compelling claims.
• Lead pack art direction / write design briefs for creative partners; ensure pack delivers on positioning and on-shelf disruption.

Place

• Work with Retail, DTC, Amazon to define SKU mix and channel-specific strategies - recognizing each channel has distinct innovation needs.
• Partner with Sales and Category Management on assortment recommendations, retailer-specific innovation, and exclusive strategies.

Cross-Cutting

• Lead all stage-gate reviews from concept through pre-launch. Build and present business cases that include volume forecasts, P&L modeling, incrementality, and ROI.
• Make and defend kill decisions when an initiative no longer earns its place in the pipeline.
• Embed sustainability and clean formulation considerations into formulation, packaging, and sourcing decisions.
• Hand-off, not throw-over:Partner with Brand Marketing on a clean transition into go-to-market planning. Brand Marketing owns GTM execution; this role remains accountable for the launch's strategic positioning and integrity and supports through pre-launch.
• Develop product fact sheets for a Innovation, Renovation and Expansion projects to ensure teams have approved and up to date claims and RTBs for all products

Portfolio Oversight & Health

Innovation only matters if the broader portfolio is healthy. This role partners across the business to keep it that way.

• SKU rationalization: Lead ongoing portfolio review and SKU rationalization in partnership with Supply Chain and Sales, Finance. Prune ruthlessly when SKUs no longer earn shelf space, margin, or strategic relevance.
• Design-to-value & cost-out: Partner with Operations, Procurement, and R&D on design-to-value initiatives, value engineering, and margin recovery efforts — without compromising consumer experience or brand equity.
• Reformulation & evolution: Lead reformulation, pack evolution, and ingredient updates required by consumer expectation, regulatory shifts, or sustainability commitments.
• Portfolio health: Monitor portfolio gross margin, mix, and contribution. Surface risks and recommend interventions when the portfolio drifts off strategy or off margin.
• Post-launch accountability: Track Year 1 and Year 2 performance of innovation launches. Run structured post-mortems and feed learnings back into the front end of the pipeline.

Stage-Gate & Business Case Leadership

As we stand up our stage-gate process and business case framework, this role is the operational owner of both.

• Lead stage-gate discussions – Develop the strategy, brand and consumer alignment along with business cases for every initiative entering the funnel: volume, revenue, GM, incrementality, cannibalization, capex/opex, payback.
• Maintain pipeline visibility and reporting for leadership: what's in the funnel, what's on track, what's at risk, what should be killed.

Success Metrics for Innovation

• Innovation hit rate: % of launches meeting or exceeding Year 1 revenue and GM targets.
• Pipeline health: Funnel coverage against multi-year revenue ambition; balance across innovation horizons.
• On-time launch rate: % of initiatives delivered on the committed timeline.
• Forecast accuracy: Variance between business case projection and actual Year 1 performance.
• Portfolio GM contribution: Margin health of the active portfolio and trend over time.
• Stage-gate discipline: Quality of business cases, rigor of kill decisions, on-time gate cadence.

Qualifications

Required:

• 5–7 years of brand management, innovation, or NPD experience in CPG - beauty or personal care strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated ownership of an innovation pipeline or NPD initiative from concept through launch. Excellent leadership skills
• Strong financial acumen: comfortable building and defending business cases, P&L modeling, and margin analysis.
• Fluency with consumer research methodologies (qual, quant, IHUT, concept and claims testing).
• Ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives on aggressive timelines.
• Strong written and verbal communication; able to develop and present clear strategy and recommendation to leadership.
• Bachelor's degree required; MBA or equivalent experience a plus.

Nice to Have

• Background in beauty/personal care formulation for curly, coily tight textured hair & ingredient trends.
• Experience with channel-specific innovation strategy (prestige, Curly, Coily, textured hair).
• Agency, creative, or design brief management experience.

Leadership Behaviors We're Looking For

This is a high-judgment, high-influence role.

• Leads without ego: Brings the team to better answers without making it about themselves. Disagrees and commits.
• Constructive tension: Comfortable being the tension point. Pushes back with data, conviction, and respect when ideas don't serve the brand or the consumer.
• Decisive: Makes clear recommendations, owns the trade-offs, and is comfortable saying no; including saying no to their own ideas.
• Influence without authority: Earns the right to lead through credibility, preparation, and consistency rather than positional power.
• Storyteller: Sells the vision internally. Brings the consumer into the room and makes the strategy memorable.
• Comfort with ambiguity: Operates effectively when the path isn't obvious and the data is incomplete.
• Consumer obsession: Holds the consumer at the center of every decision and uses that lens to break ties.

Cross-Functional Partnerships

This role lives at the center of the business and is only as effective as its relationships.

• Product Development: Formulation, ingredient strategy, feasibility, claims substantiation, Ingredient and packaging sourcing, value engineering.
• Insights & Consumer Research: Research design, concept and product testing, post-launch learning, budget.
• Finance: Business case development, P&L modeling, margin analysis, incrementality.
• Sales & Commercial: Channel insight, retailer feedback, assortment strategy.
• Operations: Feasibility, COGS, lead times, capacity, scale-up.
• Regulatory & Legal: Claims substantiation, compliance, IP.
• Creative: Pack art, design briefs, structural packaging.
• Brand Marketing: Strategic continuity from concept into go-to-market.

This position's annual base salary range is $120,000–$130,000, depending on experience and qualifications.

Beach House Group reserves the right to change or modify the employee's job description orally or in writing during the employment relationship. Beach House Group may require an employee to perform duties outside their standard description.

ABOUT PATTERN

PATTERN's mission is to fulfill the beauty needs of the curly, coily, and tight-textured community. Created by award-winning actress and producer Tracee Ellis Ross, PATTERN is a Black-owned haircare brand centered around the celebration of Black beauty and caters to the uniquely beautiful curls in the diverse hair community of 3b to 4c hair types. We are an active space for uplifting and loving our authentic beauty. Since launching in September 2019, PATTERN has taken the industry by storm and is the recipient of numerous editorial awards.  We cultivate a community approach at PATTERN where all voices are heard & where people can bring their whole selves to work. PATTERN Is now available at Ulta Beauty, Ulta Beauty at Target, Sephora, Macy's & Boots, among others.