As Uqora’s Director of Product Marketing & Innovation, you will lead Uqora’s innovation product strategy from discovery through commercialization. You’ll define and deliver new products that exceed DTC and retail shoppers’ expectations and further our brand connection with consumers. You’ll partner across the organization with Uqora marketing leadership, operations, nutrition science, design and other cross-functional leaders. You will be responsible for developing & synthesizing category and consumer insights and translating these insights to a product innovation strategy (products and services) across dietary supplements, medical devices, cosmetics and OTC drugs to deliver on the brand proposition.

Applicants:  

• Please follow the application instructions in the “How to Apply” section below.  
• Candidates local to San Diego preferred - Hybrid Workplace

A sampling of what you’ll be doing: 

• Oversee product development efforts for Uqora including creating breakthrough new products using a human-centered approach to product innovation. Lead a high performance agile, cross functional innovation development team (Product Development, Nutrition Science, Finance, Operations, Marketing, and more). 
• Be a champion for the consumer. Put the consumer at the center, empathizing with their needs, to define, ideate, prototype, test, develop and launch new products using the design thinking framework. Leverage quantitative and qualitative consumer insights to test hypotheses and develop ideas against desirability, feasibility, and viability measures to which Uqora can innovate.
• Serve as a category expert for urinary and vaginal health. Partner with Sr. Retail Marketing Manager to understand the retail shopper journey and purchasing behaviors. Leverage retailer data to gain category and consumer insights as an input to new product development and price/pack architecture efforts.  
• Partner with the Brand & Retention team to understand DTC consumer needs, behaviors, and validate jobs to be done. Leverage Uqora’s owned DTC data alongside consumer insights to deeply understand the consumer’s journey through an omnichannel experience. Use this to inform innovation and track progress.  
• Develop a 24-36 month new product development roadmap for DTC and retail consumers that fit against consumer needs and maintain high levels of retention, repeat, and stickiness. Develop, communicate, and organize product innovation initiatives from concept to execution with ease while focusing on positive consumer outcomes and achieving business growth objectives. 
• Lead the creation of a long term product vision for the brand, which includes scientific development and clinical research, partnering with Nutrition Science and Health & Science Educator in addition to the brand team to identify opportunities for disruptive technologies.
• As an expert in innovation & design tools and techniques including Design Thinking, champion the thinking across the organization and use these methodologies to solve complex problems for consumers within our go-to-market strategy. Organize information, communicate, and collaborate cross-functionally in order to act on trends & insights. 
• Develop research plans and field qualitative and quantitative consumer research methodologies to uncover insights through validation of concepts using DIY agile research tools or partner with consumer research consultants and agencies to field larger studies.
• Work with the DTC team to run in-market experiments to discover demand and predict product-market fit of solutions.
• Work with Finance and Operations to develop P&L for innovation, ensuring viability and feasibility early on to guide commercialization targets.
• Develop product development briefs and work with R&D and Operations counterparts to ensure that the product is meeting desired claims, consumer needs and expectations.
• Forecast, track, and communicate new product launch financial metrics including on-shelf velocities, DTC attach rates, and DTC and retail shopper repeat rates. Leverage this information to inform future opportunities.
• Partner with marketing, sales, and education teams to develop presentation materials for retailer sell-in and DTC launch.
• Develop marketing briefs. Partner with Brand & Creative to develop packaging materials and support hand-off for product launch.
• Share results, progress, and opportunities internally and externally to support Uqora’s growth.

Who you are: 

Strategic; you’re a big-picture person, and naturally understand how to zoom in-and-out to understand how qualitative and quantitative consumer insights fit into broader business goals. You are insights driven, forward thinking, analytical minded product marketing leader with deep expertise in innovation that serves both DTC and retail consumer needs 

Consumer-centric; as the internal champion for the consumer, you believe that good business is human-centric—you seek out the opportunity to connect directly with customers, pull out key insights, and build new products to drive consumer delight and solve for chronic, underserved needs 

Goal-oriented; you are a resilient self-starter with an entrepreneurial spirit who views challenges as exciting puzzles to be solved. You set plans and drive to achieve them through your day-to-day execution. You are comfortable at managing the ambiguity inherent in innovation & design processes and love to bring new ideas to life

Innovation Thinker and Doer: You engage both sides of the brain to question, observe, ideate, network, and experiment. You love to be in-the-know on what is happening across industries to identify trends and make associations with our category to create breakthrough ideas. You are able to translate big ideas into tangible solutions that enhance the strength of the brand while delivering on consumer needs.

Collaborative and communicative; you find it easy to work with many types of people and communicate with ease. You’re comfortable leading and following, and believe collaboration is key to success. You are a great listener and are able to build relationships of trust. You have strong systems thinking abilities, being able to understand how the different parts of the business relate to one another to meet the common goal. 

Creative; you know the power of design thinking to generate new product ideas. You enjoy being in the creative zone and utilizing design thinking methodologies, you pull out key consumer insights with ease and build break-thru products that meet unmet needs, inspire consumer affinity and generate loyalty

Analytical; you’re comfortable in a spreadsheet,consumer insights, and IRI data. You enjoy diving deep to uncover a new insight, but you don’t get lost in the sauce—you’re skilled at translating analytics into actionable & approachable insights. You have strong finance acumen to manage budgets and build profitable, sizeable innovation.

A life-long learner; you keep up-to-date on consumer shopping and marketplace dynamics to improve your product innovation marketing craft. You're a deft connector of people, concepts, ideas. 

Required experience:

• 7+ years leading Product Marketing / Product Innovation for consumer brands, with a minimum of 4 years in roles that range from innovation discovery through commercialization, from line extensions through breakthrough innovation
• Practical experience using design thinking methodologies on solving complex innovation business challenges
• Proven experience with various consumer research tools both qualitative and quantitative, including DIY research (i.e. consumer interviews, concept testing) with experience translating consumers insights into action
• Proven experience with rapid, interactive innovation with build-test-learn cycles of learning
• Analytical marketer comfortable with using consumer, category, DTC, and retailer insights to inform strategy
• Experience working in consumer brands that built categories or disrupted categories
• Experience in health, wellness, supplements, beauty, CPG is required
• Experience in working with stage-gate processes - either agile or traditional processes

Nice-to-have: 

• Experience in product innovation for brands with go-to-market in DTC and retail channels
• Experience in small and large organizations 
• Experience in consumer digital products industries preferred but not required.   

Compensation & Benefits

• This position is a full time, exempt (salary) role
• Salary Range: $130,700 - $180,000 base salary
• Generous annual performance bonus
• Generous flexible PTO policy
• 11 paid holidays per year
• Medical, Dental, Vision benefits with generous employer contribution
• Health and Dependent Care HSA/FSA
• 401K with employer match
• Pet Insurance
• Wellness discounts, programs, and free vitamins and supplements from Uqora, Nature Made and MegaFoods
• Parental Leave Policy for employees with 1 year+ of service
• New Hire office stipend
• Training and Development opportunities 

Additional Details

• Based in San Diego, CA
• Hybrid Work Environment - We work in office 2 days/week (required), so candidates must be within reasonable commuting distance from the office in San diego, California
• Preference to local candidates, relocation stipend may be considered
• You must be fully vaccinated to work at Uqora

Inclusivity at Uqora:

Diversity and inclusion are a priority for us. At Uqora, we’re committed to making our employees and community members feel seen, heard, and valued - while honoring what makes us different. We promise to remain focused on this journey of growth so we can become better advocates for our community, and we’d love for you to join us on that mission! 

HOW TO APPLY:

To apply, please submit your resume at careers@uqora.com. We know you’re more than a resume and would love to hear from you as part of your application. In the webform on the website, answer the following questions:

• Imagine Uqora is 4 months into launching several new products in retail. What are 3-5 areas you would investigate when trying to determine whether the launch has been successful? 
• Picture yourself in this scenario—Uqora’s has expanded its DTC product assortment, and the initial launch is showing early indicators of success. Internal stakeholders are not yet aligned on next steps. How would you go about creating alignment among cross-functional leaders? How do you gauge and define what “success” looks like for your launch?
• Describe a time you took a consumer insight through to implementation. What were the results? 

About us:

Uqora makes innovative UTI relief products and proactive care supplements. 

UTIs are the second most common infection in the U.S., second only to the common cold. Despite the magnitude, there’s been little progress and innovation for years. Uqora is proud to be changing that. 

Since launching in 2017, Uqora’s been able to help over 400,000 people stay healthy. Uqora is very focused on creating exceptional products and a vibrant, collaborative community of customers. Recently, Uqora was acquired by Pharmavite, the owner of Nature Made, which will enable Uqora to go deeper on research and expand its reach. 

Uqora is growing quickly! In this position, you’ll have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on expanding Uqora’s reach by educating and engaging our audience and customers. 

You’ll also have the opportunity to make an impact on Uqora’s sister brand, Equelle, a quickly growing brand helping women tackle menopause symptoms in a new way. 

Equelle’s novel, innovative approach to menopause symptom management has been validated in three clinical trials, and its active ingredient, S-equol, has been scientifically studied for over 20 years. 

Aside from providing breakthrough relief with science-backed products, this emergent brand is on a mission to change the conversation around menopause. Every single woman goes through menopause, yet we still talk about menopause as if it’s a taboo medical condition. Women deserve frank conversation, high-quality education, and effective products to tackle the symptoms that come with peri- and post-menopause. Equelle aims to shift the conversation through an engaging community, high-quality educational resources, and, of course, science-backed products. 

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