Senior Innovation Manager
Key Skills for This Role
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Key Responsibilities
- Interrogating the technical work : Understanding what your specialists are doing well enough to challenge it, spotting when advice is wrong or incomplete, and making judgement calls between competing recommendations
- Testing the claims, and building the counter-case : Working out which of the scientific, traditional-medicine and religious claims a replacement genuinely needs to satisfy, and where the underlying evidence is weak. Working with scholars of Unani, Tibb, Ayurveda and Islamic jurisprudence to explain to manufacturers, religious authorities and consumers why a reformulated product is compatible with their traditions
- Running the testing pathway : Commissioning and interpreting analytical characterisation, safety and stability testing, and consumer testing
- Getting inside the factory : Establishing what reformulation requires in production, including scale-up from bench to volume, equipment segregation and decontamination, and the capital costs involved, and commissioning the engineering and industrial hygiene expertise to answer it
- Making the work transferable : Designing outputs that work beyond a single manufacturer or country, and producing guidance that other manufacturers and other LEEP programs can pick up and use directly
- Working with country teams : You will own the technical reformulation workstream while working in close partnership with LEEP country teams, which retain ownership of local manufacturer, government and stakeholder relationships.
What does Success in this Role Look Like?
A track record managing technical specialists outside your own expertise: Demonstrated experience hiring, directing and holding to account consultants, laboratories or technical staff working in areas where you were not the expert
Fast technical learning: The ability to get to grips with unfamiliar technical material quickly, and to a depth that lets you interrogate it rather than take it on trust
Entrepreneurial and action-oriented: Comfortable with ambiguity, able to move quickly, and willing to make decisions without complete information
Intellectual range: A willingness to engage seriously with traditional and religious knowledge systems on their own terms, and to learn enough about them to work productively with their scholars.
Experience working in low- and middle-income countries:
Skilled use of AI tools: We expect you to use AI tools well, since they are powerful for getting on top of an unfamiliar technical field quickly, and to have good judgement about where they are unreliable and where they are no substitute for a specialist or for your own thinking
Willingness to travel at least 8-12 weeks per year
Outcomes focus: A strong, sustained commitment to producing something that actually reaches the market, quickly and cost-effectively
A background in chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, medicine, pharmacy or a related discipline
Experience in cosmetics, personal care, pharmaceutical or FMCG product development
Experience reformulating a product to remove or replace a specific ingredient
Experience commissioning and interpreting laboratory analysis
Experience with unit-cost modelling, supplier qualification, or manufacturing scale-up
Experience working with traditional, heritage or faith-based product categories, where technical performance is not the only criterion
Experience working with remote, geographically distributed teams
Benefits of Working with LEEP
- A chance to have a large positive impact on the world, and improve hundreds of thousands of lives
- Experience working with an early-stage, fast growing, high-impact and evidence-based nonprofit
- Flexible work arrangements
- Supportive, collaborative team environment
- 33 days of paid leave
- Generous sick leave and parental leave policies
- 4% pension contribution or equivalent
- Professional development opportunities
- Health Insurance in places where government healthcare is limited
- Annual team retreat
About Lead Exposure Elimination Project
A nonprofit NGO helping governments and paint manufacturers eliminate lead paint and childhood lead poisoning worldwide.
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