Director, Product Innovation & Strategy

Overview

About the Role: The Director, Product Innovation and Strategy provides visionary leadership and strategic direction to define, build, and scale Knauf’s product and innovation agenda across North America. This leader is responsible for shaping the long-term product innovation strategy that drives profitable growth, market differentiation, and customer-centric solutions across channels and segments. The position connects global strategy to local execution, influences commercialization priorities, identifies breakthrough growth opportunities, and creates business cases that align customer insights, technology trends, and manufacturing capabilities into sustainable, margin-accretive solutions aligned to company strategies and priorities.

Note: This description reflects the core responsibilities and is focused on role expectations and requirements.

Responsibilities

• Product Innovation – Creates a high-performance innovation engine that links market and customer needs to product roadmaps, leveraging building science, sustainability, and advanced materials expertise.
• Fosters an innovative mindset with new methods while keeping safety as the top priority.
• Develops new products across multiple product categories and throughout all phases of product development, including ideation, scoping, manufacturing, validation, and launch, considering technical and sustainability issues.
• Partners cross-functionally with Building Science, Global Product Management, and Centers of Excellence to deliver innovations that advance sustainability and circularity goals.
• Identifies, develops, tests, and commercializes products in new or existing market segments. Owns the product strategy for light commercial, residential, commercial, and industrial markets.
• Integrates voice-of-customer insights and competitive intelligence to prioritize innovation pipelines with measurable ROI, margin expansion, and strategic fit.

• Product Management – Translates go-to-market opportunities and business requirements into processes that ensure cost-effective, dependable solutions.
• Establishes a world-class product management framework aligned with strategic priorities, emphasizing portfolio discipline, pricing excellence, and lifecycle optimization.
• Brings new products to market by analyzing requirements, preparing ROI analysis, and developing business cases and comprehensive plans.
• Drives stage-gate governance, SKU rationalization, and lifecycle management to fund high-value opportunities.
• Optimizes product line offerings by redesigning processes from manufacture to field applications.
• Manages profitable SKU mix by reviewing specifications and requirements, appraising new ideas, developing roadmaps, and performing competitive reviews.
• Partners with commercial, manufacturing, and supply chain teams to connect innovation to operational efficiency, digital enablement, and channel growth.
• Ensures regular product comparison audits are completed.

• Strategic Product Planning – Drives sustained revenue, market share, and margin growth through annual and multi-year strategies; links global and regional priorities into actionable investment roadmaps.
• Establishes portfolio strategies balancing core stewardship with breakthrough innovation and diversification into adjacent categories.
• Develops improved positioning of the company’s products through sound business cases, value proposition, and marketing strategy.
• Translates business strategies into product strategies, roadmaps, and specifications that meet revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction goals.
• Manages cross-functionally to deliver programs on-time and at-cost.
• Shapes and communicates the product vision enterprise-wide, ensuring innovation is measurable, repeatable, and customer-led.
• Gather local market intelligence for major product and customer segments and anticipate market moves that could create an advantage.
• Responsible for product line performance with targets on orders, revenue, costs, and margin.
• Leads product portfolio reviews to balance growth, margin, and customer objectives.

• Analytics, Insights and Opportunity Prioritization – Oversees market research and studies; generates design concepts for new ideas and enhancements.
• Leverages data analytics, AI-enabled market sensing, and dashboards to guide strategic decisions and prioritization.
• Engages internal and external resources for product solutions and ideas; determines feasibility and ROI.
• Anticipates market shifts and emerging technologies to build adaptive product strategies for long-term growth.
• Translates data and trends into actionable insights for portfolio and investment decisions; balances long-term objectives with near-term results.
• Establishes KPI frameworks to measure innovation throughput, time-to-market, adoption, and profitability.

• Financial and Technical Application – Collects and analyzes data from financial systems to create business cases for new markets, products, or programs.
• Builds scope, costs, and financial models for new product development; applies pricing strategies to improve outcomes.
• Ensures budgetary compliance and profit volume; collaborates on pricing strategies; governs investments to meet ROI thresholds while supporting growth and sustainability goals.
• Translates complex product data into clear financial outcomes.

• Business Insight – Understands the existing business, navigates complex environments, and develops strategies to reach company goals. Guides teams, communicates clearly, and builds relationships to align with business objectives. Brings leadership experience from industrial technology and building materials sectors and oversees P&L for product management and innovation.

• People, Culture, and Collaboration – Builds a culture of trust, inclusion, accountability, psychological safety, and collaboration across functions and geographies. Represents Knauf externally as a champion of innovation and sustainability; drives talent development and cross-functional teamwork; promotes a One Knauf culture and high employee retention.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Materials Science, or a related technical discipline required.
• Advanced degree (MBA or equivalent) preferred.
• Executive education or certification in Product Strategy, Innovation, or Business Leadership desirable.

Experience

• Minimum 10 years of progressive experience in product management, marketing within manufacturing, building materials, or related sectors.
• Experience in the building and construction industry and/or insulation industry preferred.
• Proven success leading product strategy, innovation, and transformation across complex, cross-functional organizations.
• Demonstrated achievement in portfolio management, SKU rationalization, new product development (NPD), and market segmentation, with measurable results.
• Experience partnering across CoEs, global teams, and customers to drive business alignment.
• Skilled in financial governance, including ROI analysis, capital allocation, and investment prioritization.
• Proven track record of linking digital enablement, sustainability, and innovation into a cohesive commercial strategy.
• Familiar with application engineering or technical sales principles.
• Effective negotiation, presentation, and communication skills with executive and cross-functional audiences.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and digital tools including CRM, PLM, ERP, and analytics platforms (e.g., Salesforce).

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Leadership and Emotional Intelligence – Demonstrates self-awareness, empathy, and active listening; builds trust and collaboration.
• Strategic and Analytical Skills – Strong strategic and financial acumen; data-driven prioritization and decision-making.
• Industry and Technical Knowledge – Understanding of building and construction practices, insulation manufacturing, industry codes, standards, and design principles.
• Communication and Collaboration – Communicates across levels and geographies; builds consensus and cross-functional collaboration.
• Digital and Operational Competence – High digital literacy; results-driven with ownership and continuous improvement.

It is the policy of Knauf Insulation to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified persons without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, protected veteran status or any other protected characteristic prohibited by applicable law.

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