Product Development Manager

Avenir Collective; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Avenir Collective is seeking a Product Development Manager to lead innovation, reformulation and optimization across our Beauty & Personal Care brands. You will manage multiple projects from concept to launch, translating consumer insights into scalable products for global markets.

Collaborate with Brand, Compliance, Supply Chain and Creative teams, plus external manufacturers and labs to ensure products are commercially viable, compliant and high quality.

Qualifications

• 2–6 years’ experience in beauty product development with end-to-end NPD ownership.
• Hands-on formulation and reformulation expertise.
• Experience with global manufacturers, labs and packaging suppliers.
• Strong commercial judgement balancing performance, cost and speed to market.

Responsibilities

• Lead multiple NPD projects across skincare, personal care, cosmetics, wellness and tools from concept to launch.
• Drive innovation pipelines using consumer insight, market trends and data to identify opportunities.
• Develop briefs balancing consumer needs, brand strategy and commercial viability.
• Manage supplier partners and coordinate packaging across channels.
• Lead project governance, budgets, risks and documentation.

Skills

Formulation & Reformulation

Benchmarking

Project management

Commercial judgement

Stakeholder management

Data-driven innovation

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.