Innovation Manager in Watford

PheroSyn is a venture backed AgriTech startup developing cutting‑edge insect pheromone technologies as sustainable alternatives to traditional pesticides. With multiple ongoing R&D and product development collaborations, we are expanding our managerial capacity to support the next stage of growth.

We are now seeking an Innovation Manager, a senior cross functional role designed to combine strong scientific understanding with organisational leadership. You will provide strategic oversight of technical programmes, ensure the smooth execution of multidisciplinary projects, and drive the progression of the company’s innovation pipeline from concept through to product readiness.

Role Summary

We are seeking an experienced and dynamic Innovation Manager to provide hands‑on programme leadership, ensuring that lab teams, scientific partners, commercial collaborators, and senior leadership are effectively coordinated and working to clear timelines and priorities. You will provide programme-level technical oversight, supporting scientific prioritisation, evaluating technical trade-offs, and advising leadership on risks, feasibility, and next-stage decisions across chemistry, formulation, entomology, scale-up and biological systems. This is not a laboratory‑based role. You will work closely with the technical team to coordinate, oversee, and guide scientific programmes, rather than conduct experimental work yourself. You will be responsible for driving project delivery by tracking milestones and dependencies, coordinating technical documentation, maintaining scientific and regulatory compliance, and resolving operational issues to keep multidisciplinary projects on schedule. As Innovation Manager, you will also act as line manager for PheroSyn’s technical staff, providing day‑to‑day management, performance support, and development oversight in close coordination with the Director of Operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Programme Management & Project Delivery
  • Progress innovation across Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), planning, coordinating, and overseeing laboratory, greenhouse, field, and commercial scale product testing to support technical validation and market readiness.
  • Lead end‑to‑end planning, execution, and governance of internal and externally funded R&D and commercial feasibility programmes.
  • Develop and maintain integrated project plans, budgets, timelines, OKRs, KPIs, and risk registers, ensuring delivery against agreed milestones.
  • Act as the primary point of accountability for delivery across all technical programmes, including grant funded initiatives.
  • Coordinate closely with scientific, technical, and commercial teams to translate technical challenges, dependencies, and outputs into actionable programme steps, including identification and protection of intellectual property.
  • Ensure cross-functional alignment across chemistry, formulation and bioproduction, entomology, regulatory workstreams, trials partners, and commercial stakeholders.
  • Manage project governance and administration, including meeting cadence, decision and action tracking, issue resolution, and reporting.
  • Coordinate inputs from scientific, technical, and finance teams to support progress reporting, risk management, and financial tracking, ensuring compliance with funder terms and conditions (e.g. Innovate UK).
• Scientific Oversight & Technical Communication
  • Review and consolidate experimental summaries, technical results, and project data to support decision making and identify potential intellectual property.
  • Support scientific decision-making by reviewing technical evidence, surfacing uncertainties and risks, resolving day-to-day technical challenges and presenting clear, well-reasoned options for next steps.
  • Translate complex technical information into clear documentation for senior leadership, partners, and investors.
  • Ensure all technical documentation meets regulatory, safety, and quality standards, drawing on lab teams for implementation.
• Cross Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Alignment
  • Serve as the central coordination point between internal teams, external partners, academic collaborators, CROs, and funding bodies.
  • Facilitate regular technical review meetings, progress updates, and milestone assessments.
  • Provide line management to technical staff, including workload planning, objective setting, regular check‑ins, and performance feedback.
  • Identify operational bottlenecks and implement process improvements to ensure predictable and efficient delivery across the R&D and product pipeline.
• Process, Compliance & Reporting
  • Maintain structured project documentation, version control, and reporting frameworks across all programmes.
  • Ensure adherence to project management standards, grant/funder compliance requirements, and internal governance processes.
  • Support preparation of executive and board level reporting materials including: presentations, Gantt charts, budget alignment, risk logs, milestone tracking, dashboards, technical summaries, and board level outputs.

About You: Skills & Experience

Essential

• Scientific background (ideally a PhD or MSc in chemistry, biology, or environmental/agri‑sciences), or equivalent experience supporting technical teams.
• Proven experience in scientific project or programme management within AgriTech, biotechnology, chemistry, or a related technical field.
• Strong ability to understand scientific concepts and translate them into structured project plans, documentation, and clear stakeholder communications.
• Experience coordinating and supporting externally funded or collaborative R&D projects, including reporting, compliance, and delivery against agreed milestones.
• Excellent organisational skills, with a demonstrated ability to manage multiple concurrent technical projects and competing priorities.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across scientific, commercial, and leadership teams.
• Comfortable working independently in a fast-paced startup environment, with a proactive, delivery-oriented mindset.
• Experience working in a commercial or applied R&D environment, with an understanding of delivery constraints, timelines, budgets, and regulatory or customer-driven objectives.

Desirable

• Background and knowledge of synthetic and formulation chemistry.
• Experience interacting with laboratory teams and understanding experimental design, with the ability to recognise and support the protection of intellectual property.
• Exposure to formulation development, scale-up, or transition from lab to production.
• Familiarity with green chemistry, sustainable agriculture, or biological pest management.
• Experience coordinating external partnerships, CROs, or academic collaborations.
• Experience with grant writing and development (e.g. Innovate UK).

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:

PheroSyn is committed to fostering a culture of diversity, equality and inclusivity and we strive to maintain this culture in our hiring practices and in everyday work-life.

Application Process:

To apply please send your CV and a covering letter to .

Application Deadline: 1st May 2026

Interviews are expected to be held w/c 4th May

Expected Start Date: July 1st, 2026