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Manager, Innovation

FreemanLeonard

Dallas, TX

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JOB DETAILS
SKILLS
A/B Testing, Adobe Product Family, Algorithms, Analysis Skills, Brand Strategy, Business Operations, Cadence, Campaigns, Cloud Computing, Communication Skills, Consumer Packaged Goods, Continuous Improvement, Cross-Functional, Culinary Operations, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer/Client Research, Customer/Consumer Behavior, Ecosystems, Finance, Financial Strategy, Google Analytics, Market Trend Analysis, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Metrics, Microsoft Office, Microsoft PowerPoint, Online Marketing, Performance Analysis, Performance Management, Pricing, Project/Program Management, Quality System Requirements (QSR), Restaurant, Retail, Risk Management, Sales, Sales Pipeline, Salesforce.com, Scorecarding, Storytelling, Supply Chain, Tableau, Team Player, Test Tools, Time Management, Trade-Off Analysis, Trend Analysis
LOCATION
Dallas, TX
POSTED
30+ days ago

As the Senior Manager, Innovation, you will be responsible for building and operating a high-velocity innovation engine that drives repeatable, profitable growth.

Sitting at the intersection of strategy, creativity, and commercial performance, this role owns the full lifecycle of innovation — from identifying opportunities to testing, scaling, and optimizing — with a clear focus on speed, business impact, and operational feasibility.

This role is accountable for turning ideas into measurable outcomes, ensuring every initiative is grounded in a clear revenue hypothesis, executed with discipline, and evaluated with rigor.

Core Responsibilities

Innovation Pipeline & Cadence Ownership
  • Own the end-to-end innovation pipeline — from ideation through test, scale, and post-analysis
  • Establish and operate a repeatable innovation cadence (monthly tests, quarterly launches)
  • Maintain a live pipeline of concepts 
  • Balance core, seasonal, and disruptive ideas to drive both short-term performance and long-term growth

Commercialization & Revenue Accountability
  • Define a clear revenue hypothesis for every initiative, including expected incremental traffic, mix impact, and margin implications
  • Partner with Finance and Commercial to model scenarios and evaluate tradeoffs
  • Ensure all initiatives align with enterprise financial and strategic guardrails
  • Measure and report performance against defined business outcomes, not just activity

Speed to Market & Test-and-Learn Discipline
  • Own time from concept? test? scale, with clear expectations on speed and iteration
  • Lead a structured test-and-learn agenda tied to key business questions (pricing, bundling, occasions, product innovation)
  • Rapidly iterate based on performance data and real-time feedback
  • Ensure insights are translated into actionable decisions, not just observations

Success Criteria, Cannibalization & Decision Discipline
  • Define clear success metrics and kill criteria for every initiative
  • Assess incremental impact vs. cannibalization and adjust strategy accordingly
  • Make timely decisions to scale, iterate, or discontinue initiatives
  • Avoid accumulation of low-performing or overly complex offerings

Cultural Signal Integration (PAC)
  • Leverage Platforms, Algorithms, and Culture (PAC) signals to identify emerging trends and opportunities
  • Translate cultural insights into testable product and campaign ideas
  • Maintain a forward-looking pipeline informed by real-time consumer behavior and trends
  • Ensure brand stays head of, not behind, cultural moments

Cross-Functional Execution & Scalability
  • Partner with Brand, Digital, Operations, Culinary, Supply Chain, and Analytics to bring innovations to life
  • Ensure all initiatives are operationally executable at scale across restaurants
  • Identify and mitigate execution risks early in the process
  • Align innovation with restaurant realities and franchisee economics

Continuous Improvement & Portfolio Optimization
  • Develop and manage innovation scorecards tied to traffic, mix, margin, and adoption
  • Lead structured postmortems that drive clear decisions and future improvements
  • Apply learnings from past initiatives to improve future performance
  • Manage innovation as a portfolio, optimizing across multiple initiatives simultaneously

 

WHAT YOU'LL NEED
  • Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, Innovation, or a related field required
  • MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred, especially with a focus on strategy, innovation, or consumer insights
  • 8–10+ years of experience in marketing, brand strategy, innovation, or related fields
  • Experience within QSR, restaurant, retail, or consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries strongly preferred
  • Demonstrated track record of leading end-to-end initiatives—from insight generation through execution and scaling
  • Preferred (not required): certifications in Design Thinking, Agile Marketing, or Innovation methodologies (e.g., IDEO, Scrum, Lean Startup) People skills
  • Strong experience with marketing analytics and insights platforms (e.g., Tableau, Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics)
  • Experience with test-and-learn frameworks, A/B testing tools, and experimentation platforms
  • Familiarity with CRM and digital marketing ecosystems (e.g., Braze, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, paid media platforms)
  • Comfort working with consumer research tools and methodologies (qualitative and quantitative)
  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office and presentation tools (PowerPoint) to synthesize and communicate ideas clearly
  • Strong strategic thinking with the ability to connect consumer insights to business outcomes
  • Highly collaborative with proven ability to influence cross-functional teams without direct authority
  • Excellent storytelling and communication skills—able to sell ideas and bring stakeholders along the journey
  • Comfortable operating in ambiguity and leading through change in a fast-paced environment
  • High level of curiosity, creativity, and willingness to challenge the status quo
  • Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple initiatives simultaneously

About the Company

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FreemanLeonard

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