Job Description :

Job Title: Innovations Manager

 About the Function:

We’re innovators, collaborating with people around the globe to disrupt and push boundaries, redefining the future of our extraordinary brands. Our Innovation team offers a wide range of roles, from helping to grow existing markets to developing exciting breakthrough ideas. Creating industry-shaping innovations and bringing a strategic viewpoint at every stage.

We celebrate and nurture creative potential to break new ground. Our teams around the world, work together to innovate, explore creative possibilities, and develop new strategies. Whatever the role, we’ll challenge, inspire, and support you to become the best innovator you can be.

About the team:

The innovation team plays a crucial role in shaping the business's future by developing consumer-focused innovations, setting trends, and influencing consumer choices. We are seeking individuals who will make a valuable contribution to the team and align with our values. Within our team, we uphold the value of taking ownership and ensuring accountability for maintaining the highest standards, all while embracing our work and enjoying ourselves. Our strength lies in fast action, launching products within 8 weeks, and adapting strategies quickly. This demands continuous attentiveness to the environment, responding to valuable insights that can be courageously and swiftly put into action within the sector.

We are creators, we build brands from scratch such as Chrome, Tusker Cider, Balozi and create new variants of local brands such as Kenya Cane Pineapple and Lemon & Ginger and Smirnoff Ice Guarana & Pineapple Punch. In the spirit of making marketing simple, we also work collaboratively with global teams to introduce international brands in a way that is compelling and truly transformational such as Captain Morgan Gold, Guinness Smooth, Tanqueray and Gordons flavors.

Finally, we have learned that the simplest things often determine success & failure. Understanding consumer insights, crafting culturally connected brands, embracing curiosity, trying innovative approaches, and learning from failures are pivotal for our achievements. We think through the end-to-end value creation opportunity: from conception to commercialization in the market.

We are on the lookout for visionary innovators and future brand builders to shape the future of celebrations. We seek an Innovations Manager who will be pivotal in executing groundbreaking innovation projects.

About the role:

This is an extraordinary opportunity to work and shape the future of KBL; one of the leading organizations in Kenya. You will embrace this challenge & demonstrate a burning passion for consumers, creative judgement, innovative thinking balanced with a black-belt in launch execution. The Innovation Manager will lead the thought leadership to execution of scalable new launches that deliver against KBL’s growth priorities.

In this role you are not…

Adapting but disruptingIdentifying problems but finding solutionsDoing business as usual but doing business unusualSeeing Impossibilities but unlocking possibilitiesPlaying safe but taking bold risks and failing forwardLiving in the past/present but creating the next biggest brand

Role Responsibilities:

The role will require you to:

Build Purposeful Winning Brands that are built in culture to win the hearts & minds of consumers. You will need to inject your creative flair alongside to applying creative judgement to evaluate brand communication and associated content & come up with disruptive & holistic launch campaignLead Product Innovation: Based on consumer insights, lead the development of Concepts, Design & Communications for new brand launches & brand extensions on existing brands. Complete this through the GATE (approval) process, influencing & inspiring the organization behind your vision. Work in partnership with the Supply brand change managers and Commercialization Managers to develop and commercialize the product innovation.Use Insights to sell More- Leverage consumer and customer understanding to generate insights on consumer behavior that successfully deliver innovations uptake and great commercial execution. Working closely with media and digital you will ensure that the launch strategy is informed by trends and big shifts that reflect consumer behavior.Brilliantly Deliver Integrated Execution- Writing briefs that inspire internal and external partners to create breakthrough and disruptive ideas that enable the new launches to be established in culture, drive rapid awareness, trial and achieve fame on time and within budget.Forge powerful partnerships- develop productive and mutually rewarding relationships with agencies, GBT, cross functional teams to enable us to achieve set goals and brand visionBe Entrepreneurial: You will constantly seek new ideas and make connections to identify and turn opportunities into reality. Be imaginativeProject Management- You will be working on multiple projects/launches concurrently and this requires a high level of structure, rigor and self-discipline to ensure that launches take place on timeDemonstrate Strong team leadership It is critical that you can effectively influence & inspire the cross-functional project team to deliver the ambition. This means forging genuine relationships, holding tough conversations when needed & above all to be a Master of inspiring the business to the opportunity the innovation has for the business in the future.Performance management: Through a strong understanding of the business and the relative commercial levers required to deliver the performance ambitions you will consistently measure and intervene to make sure all new launches deliver set KPIs. Timely escalations and course correction based on judgement from the performance tracking

Key Relationships: EABL Kenya Executive team, Marketing team, Technical and brand change team, Finance team, Consumer research team, Sales and commercial team, Procurement team, Corporate Affairs team, Supply chain team, Quality and Brand assurance team, 3rd party agencies.

Experience / skills required:

You have 4+ years of consumer marketing or innovation experience & have a proven track record of amazing results.Demonstrated strong marketing judgement & commercial grounding to ensure delivery of planEntrepreneurial flair to identify new opportunities & navigate your project challenges through the complex business landscape.A great communicator, to build strong interpersonal networks within the business & agency partnersComfortable managing complexity and ambiguity with a demonstrated track record of managing an agenda of multiple priorities & stakeholders, juggling multiple projects & complex project timeline.You demonstrate drive, delivery & determination. The ideal candidate should be result oriented with demonstrated experience in consistently delivering strong performance.Educated to Graduate level in a business-related field.

Flexible Working Statement:

Flexibility is key to our success. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you’re supported to manage your wellbeing and balance your priorities from day one.

Diversity statement:

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you. 

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please ensure that you capture this information when you submit your application.

Worker Type :

Regular

Primary Location:

KBL

Additional Locations :

Job Posting Start Date :

2025-09-23