Product Development Manager

Avenir Collective; City Of London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Avenir Collective is seeking a Product Development Manager to lead innovation, reformulation and product optimization across our Beauty & Personal Care portfolio. You will manage multiple projects from concept through to launch, translating consumer insight, market trends, and commercial opportunities into scalable products for global markets.

Collaborating with Brand, Compliance, Supply Chain, Creative, and external manufacturers, you will ensure products are commercially viable, compliant, and

Qualifications

• 2–6 years’ experience in beauty, cosmetics, skincare, personal care or wellness product development.
• End-to-end ownership of multiple concurrent NPD projects.
• Hands-on experience in formulation and reformulation.
• Experience with global manufacturers, laboratories and packaging suppliers.
• Strong commercial judgement balancing consumer performance, cost, margin, speed to market and omnichannel requirements.

Responsibilities

• Lead multiple NPD projects across skincare, personal care, cosmetics, wellness and beauty tools from concept through commercial launch.
• Drive innovation pipelines and product roadmaps using consumer insight, market trends, competitor analysis, and commercial data.
• Develop product concepts and briefs that balance consumer needs, brand strategy, commercial viability, and speed to market.
• Optimise the product portfolio through reformulation, product enhancements, premiumisation, range rationalisation, and margin improvement.
• Build business cases, define pricing recommendations, and monitor product performance against commercial and innovation KPIs.
• Manage formulation and reformulation programmes with manufacturing partners, from technical brief through to commercial production.
• Evaluate ingredients, formulations, packaging compatibility, performance, manufacturability, and cost to ensure products meet consumer, technical, and commercial requirements.
• Lead product benchmarking, consumer testing, and validation programmes to inform development and support substantiated product claims in partnership with Brand and Compliance.
• Manage OEM, ODM, laboratory, and packaging partners, leading supplier performance, commercial negotiations, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Partner with Brand, Commercial, Supply Chain, and Creative teams to deliver commercially viable products and packaging across retail, wholesale, DTC, and marketplace channels.
• Define product specifications, quality standards, and production readiness, using post-launch performance and consumer feedback to drive continuous improvement.
• Lead project governance, critical paths, budgets, risks, and development documentation, ensuring projects are delivered on time and to agreed objectives.
• Coordinate internal and external stakeholders to resolve challenges, maintain momentum, and ensure successful product launches.
• Champion continuous improvement across product development processes, fostering a collaborative, consumer-centric, and data-driven innovation culture.

Skills

Commercial mindset

Highly organized

Collaboration

Job description

About Us

Avenir Collective. Building the future of beauty, personal care and lifestyle brands.

We acquire and scale high-potential consumer brands, bringing together the capital, people and operating expertise to turn strong brands into enduring businesses. Our difference is that we are operators, actively managing our brands and providing the capabilities, infrastructure and expertise they need to scale, while preserving the product, purpose and consumer connection that make each brand special.

We’re building a connected house of brands where great people, brands and ideas come together. If you’re excited by building businesses, solving problems and working with a collaborative, entrepreneurial team, we’d love to hear from you

The role

As a Product Development Manager, you will play a key role in leading innovation, reformulation and product optimization across our Beauty & Personal Care portfolio. Your main focus will be managing multiple projects from concept through to launch, transforming consumer insight, market trends, and commercial opportunities into high-quality, scalable products delivered across global omnichannel markets

Partnering closely with Brand, Compliance, Supply Chain, Creative, and Commercial teams, and with external manufacturers, laboratories and packaging partners, you will ensure every product is commercially viable, compliant, profitable and scalable. This role is ideal for someone who is commercially minded and highly organised, with a passion for developing exceptional beauty products. Your work will directly shape our Beauty & Personal Care portfolio, helping to bring exciting new products to customers around the world.

*We’re open to both short-term and long-term cover arrangements for this temporary position

Key Responsibilities

Innovation & Portfolio Development

• Lead multiple NPD projects across skincare, personal care, cosmetics, wellness and beauty tools from concept through commercial launch.




• Drive innovation pipelines and product roadmaps, using consumer insight, market trends, competitor analysis, and commercial data to identify new opportunities.




• Develop product concepts and briefs that balance consumer needs, brand strategy, commercial viability, and speed to market.




• Optimise the product portfolio through reformulation, product enhancements, premiumisation, range rationalisation, and margin improvement.




• Build business cases, define pricing recommendations, and monitor product performance against commercial and innovation KPIs.

Technical Development, Claims & Consumer Validation

• Manage formulation and reformulation programmes with manufacturing partners, from technical brief through to commercial production.




• Evaluate ingredients, formulations, packaging compatibility, performance, manufacturability, and cost to ensure products meet consumer, technical, and commercial requirements.




• Lead product benchmarking, consumer testing, and validation programmes to inform development and support substantiated product claims in partnership with Brand and Compliance.

Supplier Management & Commercialisation

• Manage OEM, ODM, laboratory, and packaging partners, leading supplier performance, commercial negotiations, and continuous improvement initiatives.




• Partner with Brand, Commercial, Supply Chain, and Creative teams to deliver commercially viable products and packaging across retail, wholesale, DTC, and marketplace channels.




• Define product specifications, quality standards, and production readiness, using post-launch performance and consumer feedback to drive continuous improvement.

Programme Management & Leadership

• Lead project governance, critical paths, budgets, risks, and development documentation, ensuring projects are delivered on time and to agreed objectives.




• Coordinate internal and external stakeholders to resolve challenges, maintain momentum, and ensure successful product launches.




• Champion continuous improvement across product development processes, fostering a collaborative, consumer-centric, and data-driven innovation culture.

About You

• 2–6 years’ experience in beauty, cosmetics, skincare, personal care or wellness product development, with proven end-to-end ownership of multiple concurrent NPD projects.




• Strong hands‑on experience in formulation and reformulation, consumer and competitor benchmarking, product evaluation and claims substantiation.




• Experience working with global manufacturers, laboratories and packaging suppliers, with sound knowledge of stability, compatibility, scale‑up and commercial manufacturing processes.




• Strong commercial judgement, including experience balancing consumer performance, cost, margin, speed to market and omnichannel requirements.




• Excellent project, critical path and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence cross‑functional teams and manage competing priorities in a fast‑paced environment.




• Passion for beauty innovation, consumer behaviour and category growth, supported by confident use of insight, trend and performance data.

Avenir Collective is proud to be a disability-committed employer registered in the UK. If you identify as having a disability and meet all of the criteria set out in the job description, we would like to support you through the interview stage. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive work environment where all employees and applicants can flourish.