Dove Associate Brand Manager Innovation

Background & Purpose of the Job

The Dove Beauty team is seeking an associate brand manager to drive our Hair and Skin business, with a focus on North America hair innovation – one of the top B&W development priorities. The immediate focus of the job will be to support hair innovation creation and deployment for the region, deeply understand the hair market and Dove performance across diverse tools, conduct consumer work on innovation, and work closely with cross-functional teammates and other Dove Beauty project leaders to deliver the innovation funnel for Dove.  

Who You Are & What You’ll Do

This role is a strong opportunity for someone who derives energy from beauty, innovation, taking projects from conceptual idea into physical reality, anticipating market and competitive moves, and interfacing with a highly successful team across marketing, R&D, SC, finance, artwork, and CMI. The ideal candidate is a crafter and project management rockstar who enjoys working within an innovation squad, deeply understanding consumer and beauty trends, and has a passion to deliver brilliant innovation to the market on time. You will join a broader Dove Beauty and Masterbrand community who holds themselves to high standards and lifts each other up. 

Your responsibilities will include: 

• Deeply understanding market category dynamics to unlock and inform the NA innovation plan 
• Support the delivery of key core innovation projects for 2026/2027/2028 to ensure NA readiness for innovation, including the following possibilities: 
  • Core hair new variants and treatments 
  • Scalp premium tier innovations 
  • Limited Edition(s)
  • Club and combo packs
• Day to day contributions would include: 
• Innovation deployment: For globally led projects, this role would input on the craft of the mix (as US is a design market) from Start onward, and lead a cross functional team to create, source, optimize, implement artwork, lead network for OTIF delivery, and meet key NA milestones for the innovation (incl. Investor Board inputs, pricing strategy, sales samples, and so forth). For BU specific projects, this role would lead end to end, reporting into the Associate Director.
• Storytelling: Supporting the creation of trade stories relevant to NA retailers 
• Strategic pricing analysis: analysis to support a NA competitive PPA for innovations at Start phase  
• Business Case: Analysis to support business case assumptions across National and dComm in partnership with Ops, dComm, and demand creation teams. May include investigations on ecommerce first business models and SKU P&L analysis within innovation 
• Executing US consumer studies: eg. Influencer co-creations, Beauty Superiority testing inputs, concept testing, Beauty Studio explores, Toluna, Numerator etc. 
• Supporting quarterly commentary on Dove hair (eg. UBS, OKRs)
• NA Squad Operational lead, including coordination of local events and budget oversight

A strong, resilient self-starter who is passionate about consumers, competitive growth, delivering innovation together, and making real stuff happen – are essential qualities for this role. 

What You’ll Need To Succeed

• Bachelor’s Degree, MBA preferred but not required 
• 3+ years of marketing experience preferred 
• Passion for Beauty – outside-in thinker 
• Highly competitive mindset and spirit to win 
• Consumer love and passion for learning across new categories 
• Experience working with or leading cross-functional teams and agency partners 
• Experience with and understanding of US customers  
• Strong organizational skills with attention to detail 
• A good balance of analytical and creative thinking 
• Ability to lead with ambiguity 
• Agile thinking and resilience to adapt workplans as opportunities arise 
• Curious, courageous 
• Self-starter, comfortable with fast paced environment  
• Ability to work as part of virtual teams across geographies, cultures, and time zones 
• Comfort with Unilever tools and key processes (or ability to learn) including Circana/IRI, Numerator, Power BI, UBS, BLUE, API setting, etc. 

Pay: The pay range for this position is $84,400 to $126,600. Unilever takes into consideration a wide range of factors that are utilized in making compensation decisions including, but not limited to, skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, qualifications and education, and other business and organizational needs.

Bonus: This position is bonus eligible.

Long-Term Incentive (LTI): This position is LTI eligible.

Benefits: Unilever employees are eligible to participate in our benefits plan. Should the employee choose to participate, they can choose from a range of benefits to include, but is not limited to, health insurance (including prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage), retirement savings benefits, life insurance and disability benefits, parental leave, sick leave, paid vacation and holidays, as well as access to numerous voluntary benefits. Any coverages for health insurance and retirement benefits will be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans and associated governing plan documents.

------------------------------------

Unilever is an organization committed to diversity and inclusion to drive our business results and create a better future every day for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal law and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. 

For more information about your Federal rights, please see Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination isIllegal and Pay Transparency Non discrimination Provision.

Employment is subject to verification of pre-screening tests, which may include drug screening, background check, credit check and DMV check.

If you are an individual with a disability in need of assistance at any time during our recruitment process, please contact us at NA.Accommodations@unilever.com. Please note: This email is reserved for individuals with disabilities in need of assistance and is not a means of inquiry about positions or application statuses. The Protected Veterans or Individuals with Disabilities AAP narratives are available for inspection by any employee or applicant for employment Monday through Friday during normal business hours at establishment.