Director of Innovation Strategy & Execution

Traditional Medicinals is the leading medicinal tea company in the U.S., with a 50‑year legacy of advancing the health of people and the planet through the power of plants. Rooted in herbal wisdom and grounded in modern science, we are committed to ethical sourcing, quality, and sustainability. As consumer interest in herbal medicine continues to grow, we are focused on building a disciplined innovation capability that sustains the core business while creating the future.

The Role
Reporting to the Chief Science Officer, the Director of Innovation Strategy & Execution is a senior leadership role responsible for shaping, leading, and delivering Traditional Medicinals’ innovation agenda across formats and time horizons.

This role ensures innovation at TM is:

• Strategically grounded in clear choices about where to play and how to win
• Consumer-led, rooted in real needs and jobs-to-be-done
• Commercially viable, with credible paths to value creation
• Operationally executable, aligned with TM’s capabilities and constraints

The Director of Innovation Strategy & Execution leads the front end of innovation (Discovery / Gate 0) and owns the innovation pipeline and ways of working from opportunity identification through early commercialization handoff. They partner deeply with Brand, R&D, Sales, Supply Chain, Finance, and external partners to turn ideas into businesses worth investing in and ensures innovation contributes meaningfully to both near-term performance and long-term portfolio evolution.
This role requires both strategic leadership and hands-on execution. The Director must be comfortable defining innovation direction while personally driving Discovery workstreams, developing briefs, and advancing initiatives through ambiguity.

Traditional Medicinals operates with focus and discipline rather than excess. This role is best suited for a leader who enjoys building systems and capabilities in environments where clarity must be created, not inherited. The Director must be comfortable advancing work through influence, experimentation, and thoughtful trade-offs rather than relying on large teams or budgets. 

Key Responsibilities
1. Innovation Strategy Leadership and Portfolio of Innovation Management

• Lead the development and ongoing evolution of TM’s innovation strategy, aligned with business priorities, brand strategy, and purpose.
• Build and actively manage a balanced innovation portfolio across horizons (near‑term, mid‑term, longer‑term), with explicit prioritization and trade‑offs.
• Own a 3‑year innovation roadmap and a longer‑range (5–7 year) opportunity view, focused on where TM can credibly play and win beyond the core.
• Define TM’s innovation risk posture, clarifying what types of bets warrant exploration, piloting, or scale.
• Identify innovation opportunities that drive incremental growth, differentiation, and long‑term relevance, aligned with TM’s purpose and sourcing and quality standards.

2. End‑to‑End Ownership of Discovery (Gate 0)

• Own the Discovery process end‑to‑end, from idea intake through readiness for prioritization and investment.
• Translate consumer needs, market trends, and cultural shifts into clear opportunity spaces and innovation briefs aligned with the strategy.
• Ensure each initiative is supported by a credible business case, including consumer value, financial logic, and operational feasibility.
• Orchestrate Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility (DVF) work across Brand, Consumer Insights, R&D, Supply Chain, Sales, Finance, PMO, and outside partners.
• Surface and resolve trade‑offs across DVF dimensions to support clear decision‑making.
• Champion a test-and-learn mindset, using evidence, not opinion, to guide decisions. Utilize Design Thinking, Lean Start up, and Agile principles to ensure that maximum learning is completed with minimal resources and time by focusing on highest risk hypothesis first rather than a traditional sequence of activities in Discovery.
• Partner with Brand and Commercial teams to shape go-to-market hypotheses, success metrics, and launch learning plans.

3. Continuity Into Commercialization (Advisory Role)

• Ensure a smooth hand off of resourced projects at the end of Discovery to Brand Marketing, who will assume the leadership of the project through commercialization and launch.
• Provide continuity from Discovery into commercialization as an advisor, ensuring original hypotheses and learning goals inform launch decisions.

4. Innovation Process & Governance

• Own and evolve TM’s innovation ways of working, including Discovery and the Stage-Gate process.
• Ensure clarity of roles, decision rights, and expectations across cross-functional teams.
• Facilitate innovation governance forums, enabling high-quality decisions, speed, and accountability.
• Scale rigor appropriately based on project risk and complexity—avoiding over-process while maintaining discipline.

5. Ecosystem & Capability Building

• Partner with R&D, Sourcing, and Co-man to build an external innovation ecosystem, including suppliers, co-manufacturers, research partners, and technology platforms.
• Orchestrate the identification of new ingredients, technologies, and capabilities that can strengthen TM’s innovation advantage in 5-8 years from now, ensuring a pipeline of future opportunities grounded in consumer insights.
• Partner with Leaders in the organization to ensure innovation ambitions are supported by organizational capabilities and resourcing.
• Work with Consumer Insights and Marketing to translate emerging wellness trends, ingredients, and technologies into defined opportunity spaces that inform the innovation portfolio.

6. Customer, Channel & Commercial Partnerships

• Partner with Sales Strategy and Customer Teams to develop strategic innovation partnerships with key retail customers, integrated into Joint Business Planning (JBP).
• Ensure innovation pipelines and Discovery priorities are aligned with customer strategies, growth objectives, and investment spaces.
• Collaborate with DTC and Amazon teams to develop channel-relevant innovation initiatives that resonate with consumer needs, shopping behaviors, and platform dynamics.
• Use customer and channel learning as an input into Discovery and portfolio prioritization, without allowing customer demand to override strategic fit or evidence requirements.

7. Learning & Performance Management

• Lead post-launch learning and retrospectives to ensure insights are captured and applied.
• Establish metrics and learning systems that improve innovation effectiveness over time.
• Contribute to building TM into a learning organization when it comes to innovation.

Qualifications & Experience

• 10+ years of experience in innovation, strategy, brand management, general management, or new business development within CPG, wellness, food, or supplements, with minimum of 6 years leading innovation.
• Demonstrated experience leading early‑stage innovation and Discovery, with accountability for recommendations and investment decisions.
• Proven in-market launches of projects with differing complexities that drove growth and build brand equity.
• Strong business and financial acumen, with the ability to evaluate trade‑offs, risk, and return.
• Experience working within structured innovation or investment governance models (e.g., Stage‑Gate, portfolio management).
• Proven ability to lead cross‑functionally and influence without direct authority.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity while bringing clarity, structure, and momentum.
• Passion for purpose‑driven brands and interest in herbal or plant‑based wellness.

What Success Looks Like

• Clear, well‑supported advance / pilot / stop recommendations
• A focused portfolio of fewer, higher‑confidence innovation bets
• Reduced late‑stage surprises and rework
• Faster, more efficient learning with better use of resources
• Organizational clarity on why TM is investing in specific innovation initiatives

Office Hours/Location: 

• This position is based in Rohnert Park, CA. Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8:30 – 5:00 pm. This is a hybrid role offering the flexibility to occasionally work remotely. Expected in-offices days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Subject to change. 
• Remote candidates will not be considered for this role. 

Physical/Mental Requirements:  

• The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. 
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear. The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; reach with hands and arms; and stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision. 

Compensation range is: $160,800 – $211,000

Compensation is determined based on non-discriminatory, business-related factors, including, but not limited to, training, experience, education, and/or professional certifications, geographic location, and market data.

Traditional Medicinals, Inc. and its subsidiaries are proud equal-opportunity employers.  We wholeheartedly embrace authenticity, diversity, and people's differences. We acknowledge, celebrate, and support individuality to the great advantage of our consumers, stakeholders, products, and the planet.  We are committed to building an inclusive workplace for all our people.

We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.