Context:
Wrigley is a recognized world leader in confections with a wide range of product offerings including gum, mints, and candies. Delighting consumers with fun, innovative, high-quality products for over 100 years, Wrigley's world-famous brands include  Extra®, Excel, Juicy Fruit®, Doublemint®, and 5™ chewing gums, as well as confectionery brands Skittles®, Starburst®, Life Savers® and Altoids®. With operations in more than 40 countries and distribution in more than 180 countries, the company employs approximately 17,000 associates globally, and operates as a subsidiary of Mars Incorporated.
The Innovation Manager would be part of Wrigley Canada’s Marketing Team.

Job Summary:
The Innovation Manager will lead the strategy planning and the development of innovation for Wrigley Canada with an emphasis on driving both business growth and confectionary category growth.  This person will work closely with the Marketing team, the Marketing Director and the US Innovation team to develop a robust 3 year innovation plan. In addition, this person will work on customer specific innovation in partnership with the sales team and marketing team, designed to grow our business with key customers.  Finally, this person will work on assessing and qualifying upstream innovation and developing marketing plans to bring these ideas to market.  This person will be a key member of the marketing team and will work with the entire cross-functional team (customer, category, sales, finance and supply chain) and outside agencies towards delivering brand contributions to the business.

• Develop a 3 year pipeline of innovation for Wrigley Canada.
• Participate and contribute to the development of North American innovation
• Work with the marketing team to qualify and develop the marketing plans for the innovation
• Present and align the plan to the Canadian Leadership Team
• Lead the strategic planning and the development of Customer specific innovation.
• Work closely with customers such as Costco and Dollarama to identify products that would drive business growth.
• Develop business cases and commercialize qualified products, including packaging, P&L, co-packing and POS support.
• Identify and qualify upstream innovation that will drive significant growth for Wrigley Canada.
• Explore the opportunities within Foodservice
• Work with the Global Growth Centers and identify opportunities for Canada
• Connect with other Wrigley markets globally to identify opportunities for Canada.
• Perform other projects or activities as needed within the marketing department

Qualifications:

• 5+ years of Consumer Packaged Goods brand marketing experience
• Business undergraduate degree required
• Strong oral/written communication skills
• The ability to multi-task
• Thorough understanding of the steps necessary to bring a new product or package format to market is essential
• Broad Project Management abilities and skills to drive projects through to completion and leverage peer influence
• Analytical skills and sound interpersonal skills