R&D Program Lead

Suave Brands Company LLC (SBC) is located in Hackensack NJ. It currently encompasses two consumer brands, Suave and Chapstick, and is owned by private equity firm Yellow Wood Partners.

Suave is a well‑known consumer brand, with 80% aided brand awareness, putting it in the top 3 best‑known hair care brands in the market today. The brand has a longstanding history and was founded 75+ years ago. One out of every four households use Suave shampoo and one out of every five households uses Suave body wash.

Chapstick is the most well‑known lip care brand in the country, with 95% aided brand awareness. The brand sells 122M units in the United States per year and boasts a 20% share of the lip care market by dollar sales.

Yellow Wood Partners is a Boston‑based private investment firm that invests exclusively in the consumer industry. The firm seeks to acquire branded consumer products that sell into a variety of consumer channels, including mass, drug, food, specialty, value, club and e‑commerce. Yellow Wood's investment and operating strategy is based on utilizing the firm's functional operating resources to help maximize brand performance by driving organic growth and increasing operating efficiencies while acquiring additional brands into a limited number of platform companies in its concentrated investment portfolio.

Yellow Wood believes in a philosophy of working closely and collaboratively with management teams, resulting in greater alignment and co‑ownership of outcomes.

• In the 12 months ending December 2022, Suave generated ~$660M in retail sales in tracked channels. Suave holds the #1 market share position in hair care by volume in the mass, food, and drug channels and #2 volume market share position in body wash.
• Chapstick sold just under $200M in retail sales in the 12 months ending August 2023 and holds the #1 market share position in lip care by volume in the United States.

As the R&D Program Lead for North America, you will be an on‑the‑ground R&D business partner to the North America Marketing, Sales and Supply Chain teams across our portfolio of brands. You will need to lead and coordinate delivery of the renovation, innovation and savings projects, in partnership with the broader business, to bring sustained and exceptional growth to the North American business.

Reporting directly to the Senior Director R&D Program you will be key to driving the growth direction, whilst ensuring continued business improvement through a product lens – whether improved consumer experience to drive growth, reduced costs to improve margin or faster, risk‑based, execution to respond to new customer and consumer needs.

You will be working closely with the small, tight‑knit, entrepreneurial cross‑functional team – and as such your opportunity to influence project direction will be both large and critical to success. You will be given the opportunity to rapidly develop new skills and knowledge that will go far beyond that of any typical R&D functional expert.

This will be your opportunity to drive the program for brands that are recognizable household names and with your contribution will return to growth and prominence.

• Lead and land projects for brands as Technical Project Leader.
• Ensure that all the mandated product development protocols and requirements are addressed. Ensure that the products meet all the consumer safety & regulatory requirements.
• Manage the project plan along with the project team. Ensure proper risk assessment & mitigation plan is in place for assigned projects.
• Develop compelling consumer and customer insights and stories through connection with consumers. Support business through direct customer interactions and presentations where required.
• Identify and bring to the organization new business opportunities through novel thinking and understanding of consumer trends and needs.
• Work closely with other R&D functions to deliver assigned projects as well as broader product development capabilities, such as Savings, Technical Capability building, Consumer / Customer test sample making, etc.
• Ensure the product will function as expected and has been…