Senior Innovation Manager

LEEP is looking for an entrepreneurial generalist to take ownership of a discrete, high-impact project: removing a key technical obstacle that currently stands between us and eliminating one of the most concentrated sources of childhood lead exposure in the world. No prior expertise in the field is required. You will manage your own technical team.

Position Summary

• Application Deadline: Rolling, until a suitable candidate is found
• Start date: As soon as possible
• Hours: Full time, 37.5 hours per week
• Duration: An initial 12 month fixed-term contract. If you do well in the role it is possible there will be further projects of a similar kind in future, and we would be open to considering transitioning it to a permanent role
• Location: Remote (or from the London office). Regular travel to program countries is required.
• Time zone: Candidates must be located between UTC-5 to UTC+5 time zones
• Salary: Given the unusual nature of this role, we are asking candidates to propose their fee expectations in the application form, rather than advertising a rate.

LEEP is an impact-driven, evidence-based nonprofit that aims to eliminate childhood lead poisoning, which affects an estimated one in three children worldwide. We currently focus on three sources of lead exposure: paint, spices, and traditional eyeliners. Our work involves generating data, supporting governments with the introduction and enforcement of regulation, and assisting industry in eliminating lead from their products.

LEEP is seeking someone with the drive, judgement, and technical confidence to own and execute the project of developing a lead-free alternative to lead-adulterated surma, thereby preventing millions of future children from being poisoned by lead. Prior subject-matter expertise is not required, but you must have demonstrated technical confidence and experience managing complex specialist work outside your own core expertise.

Surma, also known as kohl or kajal, is a traditional eye cosmetic used across South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and diaspora communities worldwide. It is routinely applied to babies and young children, is often made predominantly of lead sulphide, and is therefore a critical source of lead exposure.

A key constraint LEEP faces in eliminating this source of lead exposure is often the absence of a credible, lead-free alternative. Your job is to build that alternative, which can then be used by manufacturers across Pakistan, India, Egypt, Morocco and elsewhere. This role will entail working with cosmetic chemists, analytical laboratories, sourcing specialists, process engineers, and advisers on traditional medicine and religious acceptability. In this work, you will need to be able to adroitly balance technical requirements, religious and cultural requirements, as well as marketing and affordability requirements.

A successful candidate will be able to operate quickly and effectively with high autonomy and self-direction. They will be adept at understanding a new and complex topic at a nuanced level in great detail. They must be highly strategic, tenacious, and able to collaborate with and understand stakeholders from a variety of perspectives.

This role will require you to spend time in low- and middle-income countries where the problem exists; prior experience working in LMICs is critical. You will be part of LEEP’s Pilots Team, reporting to LEEP’s Policy Director and working alongside our Pilots country teams. You do not need to have prior experience or understanding about lead poisoning or this kind of reformulation work. We are more interested in talent than credentials; if this sounds like an exciting and impactful challenge that you would excel at working on, we’d love to hear from you.

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?

In the first six months, we would expect you to develop and independently validate at least two promising lead-free formulations for one priority country, including establishing their indicative cost and manufacturing requirements and conducting initial consumer and cultural-acceptability testing. In the second six months we would expect you to replicate these formulations for three more priority countries.

What We’re Looking For

The following qualities are essential:

• 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

In addition, the following are kinds of backgrounds and/or experiences that might make a good fit for this role. This list is not exhaustive, or indicative of essential requirements:

• 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
• Supportive, collaborative team environment
• 33 days of paid leave
• Generous sick leave and parental leave policies
• 4% pension contribution or equivalent
• Health Insurance in places where government healthcare is limited
• Annual team retreat

LEEP is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance. We will never discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, national origin, ethnicity, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other protected characteristic.