Director of Commercialization
<p><strong><em>Our client in the Food and Beverage industry is hiring a Director of Commercialization!</em></strong></p><p><br></p><p><strong>The Mandate</strong></p><p>Own the path from “we should make this” to a product that is formula-ready, costed, compliant, packaged, operationally feasible, and ready to sell. Partner with the product visionary to create the process, pace, and cross-functional accountability needed to turn that vision into reality.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>What You’ll Own</strong></p><ul><li>Own the innovation and commercialization roadmap across new products, formats, flavors, and line extensions.</li><li>Build and run a stage-gate process from concept through formulation, testing, packaging, costing, production readiness, and launch.</li><li>Manage external food scientists, R&D partners, regulatory experts, suppliers, packaging vendors, and product specialists.</li><li>Maintain a single source of truth for formulas, ingredients, claims, packaging, COGS, margins, MOQs, lead times, testing, approvals, and launch dates.</li><li>Translate founder direction into clear R&D briefs and keep samples, feedback, and decisions moving quickly.</li><li>Own commercialization timelines for the 2026–27 pipeline and future innovation.</li><li>Partner with Ops on manufacturability, sourcing, COGS, copacker readiness, QA, inventory, and first production runs.</li><li>Coordinate with Brand/Creative, Growth, and Sales on naming, packaging, claims, launch assets, DTC readiness, and retailer requirements.</li><li>Identify formula, ingredient, regulatory, packaging, margin, MOQ, production, and timeline risks early and drive decisions before they delay launches.</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Who You Are</strong></p><ul><li>5-8+ years in CPG commercialization, product development, innovation, R&D project management or adjacent roles; food/beverage strongly preferred.</li><li>Has personally taken multiple physical consumer products from concept through commercial production.</li><li>Understands formulation, packaging, regulatory/claims, COGS, MOQs, suppliers and copackers well enough to ask the right questions without needing to be the food scientist.</li><li>Exceptional project operator: obsessive about dependencies, dates, decision logs and closing loops.</li><li>Comfortable in a fast, founder-led environment where the roadmap is ambitious and priorities can evolve.</li><li>Commercial mindset: cares as much about margin, manufacturability and velocity potential as the product idea itself.</li></ul>
