Leading the Project Management pillar of Imperial's central Innovation function. Reporting to the Head of Innovation Processes, Project Management & Capabilities, this role has a global remit and is responsible for leading the high priority projects (50+), with end-to-end technical project management within the Imperial product development pipeline. Working closely with Category Project Leads, this role will lead the team of technical project managers to ensure the successful delivery of strategically important innovation initiatives. The team of technical project managers (>6) are working in a matrix setup, leading on a cross functional basis, 20+ project teams, with on average 8 SME's, representing their workstreams. This means that across the company, the Innovation PMO team is driving over 100 SME's in all different functions and departments, to ensure successful technical project delivery. Total estimated annualised NR value of the top 12 projects (Big Bet Projects) managed is estimated at 95,7 Mio GBP incremental. The Imperial Brands business is going through a major transformation, with a new CEO setting an ambitious and exciting vision for the future. One major change is the creation of a new Global Consumer Office (GCO) - a central function which covers Innovation, Insight, Marketing and Portfolio Management and Imperial's next-generation propositions (NGP). The Innovation function forms a critical part of this GCO structure. The department will be organised around key innovation capabilities, with one Innovation team delivering across all categories (Combustibles, EVP, HTP and OND). The role of Innovation will be to enable Imperial to deliver consumer-centric, commercially viable innovations that are aligned with the business strategy. Innovation will achieve this through:

• Delivering R&D activities: End-to-end technical design and delivery of innovation products and packs, leveraging both in-house capabilities and external parties to facilitate the launch of category-led, consumer-centric innovations into market.
• Developing partnerships: The Innovation function will collaborate closely with Procurement to build strong relationships with partners and third parties to underpin a lean and agile delivery model that enables speed to market.
• Facilitating development of the innovation funnel: Guide Imperial to make the right business decisions about innovation projects through identifying future technical solutions and supporting cross-category generation, qualification and prioritisation of solution opportunity areas based on consumer, competitor and market insights.
• Stewardship of the innovation pipeline and process: The Innovation function oversees Imperial's innovation process, from Ideation to Launch. The Process and Governance pillar of the Innovation function owns this enterprise-wide process and drives continuous improvement to ensure more efficient and effective delivery of innovation. The team will also manage the portfolio of projects through the stage gates, ensure adherence to the relevant branches of the process and run the governance forums to ensure timely, insight-led decision making and OTIF delivery.
Principal Accountabilities
• Lead the technical end-to-end project delivery of the complex, strategic Innovation projects/programmes, including managing timelines (according to GCO objectives), reporting and key stakeholders
• Lead a team of project managers (>6), who are responsible for the technical end-to-end project management of the innovation project portfolio
• Provide overall leadership and ensure continuous capability development for the pool of project management resource, including dissemination of best practice project management tools, assets and methodologies like Agile, Design Thinking and Lean Start Up.
• Organize Community of Practice meetings, to embed new ways of thinking and methodologies like Agile, early consumer screening and de-risking of Innovation across the IMB SME community of 100+ people
• Work closely with the Category Project Leads to input into key stage gate documents, including Project Charters & business cases
• Work closely with the Category Project Leads to input into the development of key project documentation and development plans for innovation initiatives
• Supports the category to develop the scale-up plan and post-launch review of innovation initiatives
• Oversee the innovation project reporting, including KPIs and key financial metrics to support the realisation of Imperial's business strategy and commercial and consumer imperatives
• Liaise closely with Category Project Leads and Innovation Project Managers to ensure all project planning and reporting is accurate and understood, and any risks and/or issues are highlighted
• Liaise closely with the Innovation Project Manager pool to ensure the effective coordination and facilitation of key innovation project meetings, including workshops, stand ups and stage gate forums
• Actively identify, mitigate, and escalate (as appropriate) any key risks associated with Innovation pipeline projects
• Collaborate closely with the Head of Innovation Operations and Process to ensure the effective process management of the Innovation pipeline
• Identify recommendations resulting from analysis and reporting of the of the innovation portfolio vs. business objectives
• Work closely with Category Project Leads to ensure project lessons learnt are captured and fed into the appropriate feedback loop following project closure
KPIs:
• Delivery of projects against GCO objectives
• Adherence to the relevant branches of innovation and risk processes
• Adherence to the relevant innovation pipeline project plan
• Innovation return on investment
• Meeting success criteria captured in project business cases
• Innovation process performance (process efficiency and effectiveness)
  
  Delivering innovation and product development Projects in an FMCG environment
• Working with project management tools, techniques & methodologies
• Effectively planning, managing and reporting on complex innovation projects
• Leading teams of Project Managers, with leadership experience in a variety of situations associated with project and product delivery
• Driving growth through innovation
• Building strong collaborative and influential relationships with a range of stakeholders
• Monitoring and managing a portfolio of innovation projects
• Effectively managing and escalating risks in innovation projects
  
  The year Imperial was founded through the
coming together of 13 UK family-run businesses25,000 Imperial employees worldwide120 Number of markets worldwide in which our products are sold