Senior Manager - New Product Development

Purplle.com; Mumbai; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 7,500,000; Full time

Job summary

Purplle.com in Mumbai is seeking a Product Lead to own end-to-end beauty & personal care SKU launches from concept to shelf, driving speed and quality.

You will orchestrate in-house R&D and external partners, manage timelines, reorder planning, and ensure inventory health while upholding regulatory and packaging standards. A data-driven, fast-iteration mindset is essential to succeed.

Qualifications

• Experience in NPD, sourcing, or category management.
• Education from a top-tier B-School (IIM A/B/C/L/K, IIM Mumbai (NITIE), ISB, XLRI, FMS, MDI, SPJIMR) or IIT/BITS.
• Bonus if you have worked at a digital-first brand or run your own D2C product brand.
• You notice launches before brand's email hits inbox.
• Strong instincts on formats, actives, and what is hard in BPC.
• Knowledge of vendor ecosystem or willingness to learn fast.
• Appetite to learn full product stack; we will teach.

Responsibilities

• Run the launch from brief to shelf with speed and accuracy.
• Convert brand briefs into executable launch plans with target shelf dates.
• Lead NPD phases: feasibility, sampling, BOM finalisation, PPS, artwork, KLD, first dispatch.
• Run R&D, packaging dev, procurement, QA in parallel to shorten timelines.
• Manage 25–40 SKUs live across stages per brand and own critical path.

Skills

NPD

Sourcing

Category management

Vendor negotiation

Inventory management

S&OP basics

Excel skills

P&L literacy

Regulatory labeling

Fast iteration

Education

Top-tier B-School / IIT / BITS degree

Tools

Excel

Job description

Job Description:

About The Role

We are hiring a dedicated Product Lead for each of our owned beauty & personal care brands at Purplle. The brand team writes the brief this person runs the network to land the product on shelf as fast as humanly possible.

You are the execution engine behind every launch. Once a brief lands, you decide where to build it (in-house R&D or third party), drive every node of the network in parallel R&D, packaging dev, procurement, QA, supply and compress calendar time wherever it can be compressed. Post-launch you own reorders, inventory health, and quality for the brand's SKU base.

If you live and breathe BPC ,if you know why the cushion foundation category exploded, why K-beauty actives are rewriting the skincare aisle, and why a 30ml serum sells 10x better than a 50ml one this is a role where your obsession translates directly into speed-to-market. Speed is the product.

What You Will Own

• Run the launch - brief to shelf
• Take the brief from the brand team (benefit, format, actives, claims, shade architecture, price point, MRP) and convert it into an executable launch plan with a named target shelf date.
• Run every NPD phase at speed: feasibility - sampling - BOM finalisation - PPS - artwork - KLD - first dispatch. Own the critical path and remove blockers the moment they appear.
• Run the network in parallel, not in series. R&D, packaging dev, procurement, regulatory, QA - all working the brief at the same time wherever the sequence allows it.
• Typically 25-40 SKUs live across stages at any time per brand. You are the single throat to choke on timelines.
• Drive a crisp weekly cross-functional standup with R&D, Packaging Dev, Procurement, Regulatory, Brand, Supply Chain, and Quick Commerce Ops. Publish ETAs, hold owners accountable, elevate early.
• Shop & deploy - in-house R&D or third-party
• Make the build-vs-buy call for every SKU - either deploy a formulation from the Purplle in-house R&D team or shop it from a qualified third-party manufacturer.
• Scout, shortlist, and onboard third-party manufacturers across formulation and filling. Evaluate on tech capability, MOQ, pricing, lead time, and compliance.
• Negotiate commercial terms - per-unit cost, mould ownership / IP, exclusivity clauses, MOQs, payment terms, and capacity lock-ins.
• Manage development timelines with vendors. Zero tolerance for launches slipping because of avoidable back-and-forth on samples, shades, or artworks.
• Reorder & inventory health
• Own reorder planning for the brand's full SKU base - forecast demand at SKU x channel level, place POs, and track inbound against promised ETAs.
• Keep inventory days-on-hand inside agreed bands. Attack stock-outs on hero SKUs and aged / slow-moving stock with equal intensity.
• Partner with Quick Commerce Ops (dark stores), marketplace, and D2C web teams to make sure the right SKUs sit at the right nodes.
• Build the monthly S&OP view for the brand - demand, supply, inventory, launches, promos - and drive the review with leadership.
• Quality - non-negotiable
• Be the brand's quality conscience. Every batch that leaves a vendor warehouse or in-house line for a Purplle customer reflects on you.
• Set and enforce incoming QC, in-process, and finished-goods quality standards with vendors. Drive CAPA on any consumer complaint, return, or shelf-life issue.
• Own packaging quality - carton integrity, leak tests, drop tests, colour match on tubes / bottles / secondary packs.
• Work with Regulatory to keep every SKU compliant on labelling, claims, and ingredient declarations.

What We Are Looking For Experience & Background

• 3-7 years of total experience - in NPD, sourcing, or category management.
• Education from a top-tier B-School (IIM A/B/C/L/K, IIM Mumbai (NITIE), ISB, XLRI, FMS, MDI, SPJIMR) or an IIT / BITS undergraduate programme. We are explicitly looking for pedigree here.
• Bonus if you have worked at a digital-first brand, or run your own D2C product brand. The non-negotiable - you have to be crazy about BPC
• You should be the person who notices the new launches before the brand's own email hits your inbox.
• You should have strong instincts on formats (stick vs liquid, cushion vs compact), actives (niacinamide vs alpha arbutin), and what is genuinely hard vs easy to execute in BPC.
• You should know the vendor ecosystem - or be hungry to learn it fast. Who can do what, where, at what MOQ, and in what lead time.
• Appetite to learn the full product stack is more important than already knowing everything. If you are hungry, we will teach.

Hard Skills

• Comfort with BOM / COGS / MRP maths, margin stacks, and landed-cost calculations.
• Strong vendor negotiation - commercials, timelines, exclusivity.
• Inventory and S&OP basics - reorder points, DoH, forecast accuracy.
• Working fluency in Excel / Sheets; comfortable reading a P&L.
• Ability to read a stability report, a CoA, and a regulatory label without needing a translator. Ways of working
• High ownership. This role has no hiding place - if the brand's product engine misfires, it is on you.
• Operator mindset. You are equally at home in a vendor factory in Baddi, on a call with R&D, or in a review with the founder.
• Fast iteration. We ship, learn, and course-correct - we do not wait for perfect.

Why Purplle

• One of India's largest beauty platforms (online and offline), building a genuine portfolio of owned brands with category-defining intent.
• You own a brand's product engine end-to-end from day one - this is not a role where you wait three years for the real work to start.