Growth-Focused Portfolio & Innovation Lead

Standlee Hay Co.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Standlee Hay Co. seeks a Portfolio & Innovation Manager to lead the commercial and portfolio side of its innovation efforts, identifying growth opportunities grounded in customer, consumer, market, and business needs.

This role owns portfolio strategy, new opportunity development, SKU optimization, and go-to-market support. You will partner across Sales, Marketing, Finance and Operations to evaluate opportunities, build business cases, and validate concepts, ensuring products meet customer and

Qualifications

• Strong strategic, analytical, and commercial thinking.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate opportunities and develop actionable recommendations.
• Strong project leadership, communication, presentation, and cross-functional influencing skills.
• Ability to work with urgency, navigate ambiguity, and make sound business recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Identify and evaluate new product, category, species, channel, and market opportunities.
• Develop and maintain a prioritized portfolio of innovation opportunities aligned with company growth objectives.
• Lead portfolio optimization and SKU rationalization, including recommendations to invest, improve, consolidate, or discontinue.
• Monitor customer, consumer, competitive, and industry trends to identify emerging opportunities.
• Develop recommendations and business cases based on strategic fit, customer need, revenue potential, margin, and market opportunity.
• Lead the commercial evaluation of new innovation and private label opportunities.
• Partner with Sales to understand customer requirements, volume potential, pricing, timing, and strategic value.
• Develop clear opportunity briefs defining the customer need, product concept, positioning, target price, and commercial opportunity.
• Lead customer and market validation of proposed concepts.
• Partner with Finance, Sales, and Operations to evaluate financial and commercial feasibility.
• Recommend whether opportunities should advance, change, or stop.
• Partner with the Product Innovation & Regulatory Manager throughout development to ensure products meet customer and market need.
• Provide commercial input into the innovation stage-gate process and jointly recommend project advancement at key decision points.
• Provide commercial insights and innovation expertise to support go-to-market strategies and customer sell-in plans in partnership with Marketing and Sales.
• Establish commercial success measures and evaluate post-launch performance.
• Recommend portfolio or commercial adjustments based on launch performance and market feedback.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Analytical thinking

Commercial thinking

Project leadership

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Presentation skills

Urgency & adaptability

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Animal Science, Agriculture, Product Development, or related field

Job description

Standlee Hay Co. seeks a Portfolio & Innovation Manager to lead the commercial and portfolio side of its innovation efforts, identifying growth opportunities grounded in customer, consumer, market, and business needs.

This role owns portfolio strategy, new opportunity development, SKU optimization, and go-to-market support. You will partner across Sales, Marketing, Finance and Operations to evaluate opportunities, build business cases, and validate concepts, ensuring products meet customer and