Range Innovation Manager - 12 Month FTC in Richmond

Who are we? Hi, we’re Tails.com – we turn good days into great years for dogs and their humans. We're working towards longer lives for millions of healthy, happy dogs by providing tailored nutrition that adapts to each dog’s unique needs. It all starts with a few simple questions about their age, breed, zoomie level and tastebuds. From there, owners can create a personalised meal plan that's delivered to their door every month. No guesswork, no overwhelm. Just exactly the right care for every dog, every day. It's pretty clever stuff.

As a certified B Corp, being a responsible business is built into how we work – upholding high social and environmental standards to create better walkies for generations to come. Now, we’re cooking up big plans. Having created an entirely new category in dog food, we have the backing of Purina – one of the world’s largest pet food companies. You’ll join a bunch of smart people working towards these same goals (and a bunch of very smart office dogs, all working on their own thing).

The role: We are seeking a product and innovation leader who owns the development, optimisation and commercial performance of the Tails.com range. You will shape, drive and deliver NPD and EPD projects from first insight to post-launch review, ensuring our products meet customer needs, strengthen our brand and contribute to growth. This role requires clear judgement, pace and accountability. You will lead cross functional teams, steer supplier partners, and make the calls needed to land products that meet quality, cost and customer expectations. There are no direct reports, but you are expected to provide strong leadership across teams and with suppliers. You set the standard for how we develop, refine and launch products at Tails.com.

You will be responsible for:

• Product development and ownership: Own the end to end delivery of NPD and EPD projects, ensuring clarity of scope, timelines and commercial outcomes. Lead the cross functional project team, setting direction and driving progress through each stage gate. Build strong briefs grounded in customer insight, behavioural data and commercial sizing. Make informed trade offs to balance customer value, cost, claims and operational feasibility. Track performance post launch and use learnings to refine the pipeline.
• Supplier leadership: Lead development with suppliers, setting clear expectations and holding them to agreed timelines, costs and quality standards. Identify the right partners for each project and build productive, high trust relationships. Drive accountability with suppliers through clear communication, structured feedback and proactive issue management.
• Claims, customer benefit and messaging: Build a strong understanding of the claims landscape and category language. Shape the claims and customer benefit strategy for products in development, ensuring they are meaningful, differentiated and legally sound. Work closely with the Regulatory and Compliance Manager to test, challenge and refine claims in line with the IRAQ process.
• Food philosophy and range values: Ensure all development aligns with the Tails.com Food Philosophy and product range values. Work with the Animal Nutritionist to identify emerging ingredients, technologies or processes that can advance product quality or differentiation. Maintain and evolve the range values with the Head of Range Innovation and Brand Director.
• Issue resolution and rapid response: Lead fast, practical solutions when product issues arise, including shortages and quality concerns. Make clear recommendations on remediation, balancing customer needs, cost and operational complexity. Capture lessons and ensure they feed into future briefs.

The skills you’ll bring:

• Strong ownership mindset with a bias for action
• Clear judgement in ambiguous situations, able to simplify and decide
• Commercial awareness and experience building business cases
• Confident communicator able to influence senior, technical and non-technical colleagues
• Able to challenge constructively and push for better solutions
• Builds trusted relationships with suppliers and internal teams
• Comfortable leading work at pace and managing competing priorities

Measures of Success:

• On time delivery of NPD and EPD projects
• Commercial impact of new and improved products
• Customer benefit demonstrated through claims, quality and experience
• Strength and clarity of the product pipeline
• Supplier performance and reliability
• Positive cross functional feedback on leadership and ownership

A few of our core benefits include:

• Private Healthcare through Aviva
• A 9 day fortnight - our office is closed every other Friday!
• 25 days of Annual Leave and 8 additional remote working days

What’s next? If this sounds like it matches your experience and what you’d love to do, we can’t wait to hear from you! If you’re unsure whether you fit our criteria exactly, please get in touch anyway. And because we believe that diverse teams perform better, we’d especially love to hear from you if you’re from an under-represented demographic.

Our Commitment: We’re proud to be an active equal opportunity employer. We want to give everyone a fair chance to join us in changing the world of pet food for good. We do this by conducting a structured recruitment process for all candidates, as well as actively promoting our roles to communities that are under-represented at Tails.com. During your interview process you’ll meet some of our team with varying levels of responsibility and experience. We want to give every candidate a fair interview process and if you need any reasonable adjustments made, please let us know.