Product Innovation Associate

Join a leading innovator in the consumer goods sector, a prominent retailer dedicated to enriching the lives of customers through high-quality, thoughtfully designed products. This company is at the forefront of product development, constantly seeking new ways to bring exciting and impactful innovations to market. Partnering with Aquent, we are seeking a visionary talent to drive the next generation of product excellence.

Are you a product enthusiast with a passion for bringing groundbreaking ideas to life? We're searching for a dynamic individual to step into a pivotal role where your creativity and strategic thinking will directly shape the future of our product offerings! This is an incredible opportunity to own the end-to-end development of exciting new product lines, transforming concepts into commercial realities that delight consumers. You'll be at the heart of innovation, connecting diverse teams and ensuring every product launch is a resounding success. Your impact will be felt across the entire product lifecycle, from initial spark to market triumph, directly contributing to our mission of delivering exceptional products.

**What You'll Do:**

* **Drive End-to-End Product Creation:** Manage the complete lifecycle for assigned categories and programs, from initial concept alignment and design handoff through costing, sampling, testing, packaging, and production readiness.

* **Ensure Operational Excellence:** Maintain meticulous development trackers, timelines, and milestone calendars, ensuring products progress with speed and discipline. Facilitate quick decisions, proactively escalate roadblocks, and support cross-functional partners in meeting deliverables.

* **Strategic Sourcing Partnership:** Collaborate closely with sourcing teams to support costing rounds, manage vendor communications, facilitate sample reviews, and conduct feasibility assessments.

* **Champion Consumer Insights & Trends:** Bring a forward-thinking, trend-curious lens to product creation by gathering competitive insights, cultural signals, and category trends. Support the development of assortment strategies and line architecture, ensuring a steady pipeline of newness and innovation.

* **Translate Vision into Action:** Transform trend, consumer, and category opportunities into clear, actionable briefs and design/packaging inputs that inspire and guide development.

* **Cultivate Cross-Functional Collaboration:** Act as the vital connective tissue across merchandising, sourcing, product design, packaging, supply chain, and brand marketing. Facilitate alignment meetings, track decisions, and ensure all partners have the resources needed to advance programs.

* **Support Packaging & Supply Chain:** Assist packaging teams with claims, copy, size/variant lists, and packaging inputs for brief creation. Partner with supply chain to ensure timelines, minimum order quantity (MOQ) considerations, and delivery execution are achievable.

* **Amplify Brand Marketing:** Collaborate with brand marketing to effectively bring newness to life across digital, social, and in-store environments.

* **Maintain Data Integrity & Compliance:** Ensure accurate product data, documentation, and item attributes. Support testing and compliance processes by coordinating test submissions and tracking results.

* **Prepare for Key Milestones:** Organize product samples and information for critical meetings, including line reviews, leadership updates, and milestone gates.

* **Lead Process Improvements:** Own and implement smaller process enhancements that contribute to increased speed, quality, and cross-functional clarity.

**What You'll Bring:**

**Must-Have Qualifications:**

* 3-5 years of professional experience in Product Development, Product Design, Trend/Fashion Research, Merchandising, or a related consumer product field.

* Demonstrated interest and passion for product design and consumer trends.

* Comfortable utilizing visual tools such as Adobe, Canva, PowerPoint, or equivalent software.

* Exceptional organizational skills with the ability to effectively manage multiple workstreams simultaneously.

* Clear and effective communication skills, enabling seamless partnership across creative and operational teams.

**Nice-to-Have Qualifications:**

* Prior experience in retail, private label, consumer goods, or a lifestyle-focused industry.

**About Skill:**

Skill connects the best professional, IT, engineering, financial and administrative talent with the world's biggest brands. Our eligible talent get access to benefits such as health benefit contributions, retirement plans with match and flexible spending accounts.

Skill is an equal-opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, and other legally protected characteristics. We're about creating an inclusive environment-one where different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are valued, and everyone can contribute, grow their careers, and thrive.