VP, Innovation - Lead Brands, Diageo Beer and Pre-Mix

Job Description :

Purpose:

This role will play a major part in driving the innovation agenda for Diageo in North America and globally, with particular focus across the critical Premix and Lead Brand Spirits agendas, in addition to realizing Diageo’s overall, bold 2030 Innovation Ambition.  The agenda is challenging and will be achieved by the creation of highly differentiated brands, products and delivery systems, which satisfy our customers and consumers current and future needs across Luxury, Convenience, Indulgence, Digital and Sustainability/Wellness platforms. A key part of this role is to ensure creative excellence; disciplined project leadership, brilliant creative flair, and management are balanced in crafting new opportunities and brands from outstanding consumer insight. The VP Innovation will lead a team of Project Directors and Managers who will manage projects crafted to deliver against North America’s category strategies, white space opportunities, platforms, and priorities.  This role will also be critical in coaching and developing talent and future Innovation leaders.

Decision Making:

• Obtain Gatekeeper and Senior Executive stakeholder agreement on proposed critical initiative.

• Identify processes and tools to create a World Class innovation lead organization.

• Lead and influence cross-functional teams.

• Display brilliant creative flair, strategic and consumer insight and sharp creative judgement

Management Responsibility:

The VP of Innovation will report directly to the SVP of Innovation, and will have responsibility for leading multiple priority categories and oversee resultant innovation projects through direct supervision of a team of Project Directors/Managers engaged in leading all aspects of complex new product programs from concept generation and development through to commercialization in market. The VP will have ownership for coaching and developing the team and guiding the management of their careers.

The VP will be responsible for making decisions around resource allocation and budgets for key projects in their categories, platforms and strategic areas. They will also need to support the Innovation Project Directors in deciding the appropriate direction for projects, employing sharp creative judgment and category/business understanding to assess validity, market size and ultimately go/no-go decisions to progress certain initiatives.  This will be vital to the successful delivery of a strong pipeline with the potential for lasting success in market.

Complexity of Role:

Delivery of the innovation agenda is critical to Diageo’s organic growth. The North America team will be required to deliver the major part of the innovation objective. This role will be key to delivering Diageo Executive’s strategic agenda. This role operates within the North American market but operates globally scalable projects.

Key to this challenge will be:

• The ability to influence a team and key partners.

• Deep functional experience and expertise in the craft of innovation, and specifically the ability to generate new platform/product ideas.

• Excellence in the Marketing Standard – notably Creating Strategies That Win and Drives Pace and Agility Through Making the Right Marketing Judgment Decisions.

• Strong commercial understanding, intuition for business and financial rigo.

• Robust understanding of Diageo Supply chain.

• Key relationships are with the local market and global technical teams, Global Brand Teams and External Affairs.  

Key Outputs/Deliverables:

• Development and implementation of a strategy for the team within the framework of the North American Portfolio and Innovation strategy.

• Champion innovation within Diageo NA and among senior NA management, promote innovation as a key step on the Diageo Marketing career pat.

• Management of a wide network of contacts within the local organization and the wider market to ensure innovation is well connected to key distributors and the trade.

• Delivery of the NA pipeline through allocation and management of resource and budget.

• Projects, approvals and resource allocation are overseen and managed using the A360 Gate process and cross functional teamwork and the VP acts as a champion and guide for the process.

• Management of quality control of concepts and projects through to launch—ensuring work is of the highest standard.

• Ensure opportunities are grounded in analysis and commercial insight, enhancing the use of multiple start point and where appropriate grounded in superior consumer insight and learning.

• Creation and leadership of Innovation Best Practice Models—ensuring that they are implemented within the team.

• Recognition and celebration of great innovation behaviors—encouraging these in the teams and with key partners.

• Ensure learning from projects is communicated globally to other teams and links are made to other teams working on similar opportunities

Experience:

• Proven senior-level experience in driving consumer marketing strategies and leading new product development initiatives; proven track record of innovation success across key TBA categories, including both major brand extensions and new-to-world brand creation is highly desirable.

• Success as a project or team leader managing cross-functional teams both internally across Demand/Supply and with external agency partners.

• Strong leadership capabilities: ability to lead and grow team of highly-motivated, versatile, entrepreneurial professionals.

• Strong functional capabilities:  ability to shape, develop and manage diverse and complex product development pipeline

Worker Type :

Regular

Primary Location:

3WTC

Additional Locations :

Job Posting Start Date :

2025-11-04

Salary Range:

Minimum Salary:

$209250

Maximum Salary:

$348750

At Diageo certain roles are eligible for additional rewards, including annual incentive payment and stock awards. US-based employees are eligible for healthcare benefits, retirement benefits , short-term and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance, wellness benefits and industry leading parental leave, among others.  (Benefits/perks listed may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Diageo and the country where you work.)  The salary range displayed is the salary range for the role’s primary location.