Director, Product Innovation & Strategy

Overview

About the Role:

The Director, Product Innovation and Strategy provides visionary leadership and strategic direction to define, build, and scale Knauf’s product and innovation agenda across North America. This leader is responsible for shaping the long-term product innovation strategy that drives profitable growth, market differentiation, and customer-centric solutions across channels and segments.  The position will connect global strategy to local execution, influence overall commercialization priorities, identify breakthrough growth opportunities, and create business cases that align customer insights, technology trends, and manufacturing capabilities into sustainable, margin-accretive solutions aligned to company strategies and priorities.

Responsibilities

Product Innovation

• Creates a high-performance innovation engine that links market and customer needs to product roadmaps, leveraging building science, sustainability, and advanced materials expertise.
• Fosters an innovative mindset that allows for new methods, while keeping safety as the number one priority.
• Develops new products across multiple product categories and throughout all phases of product development, including ideation and scoping, manufacturing, validation, and launch, while considering important technical and sustainability issues.
• Partners cross-functionally with Building Science, Global Product Management, and Centers of Excellence to deliver innovations that advance Knauf’s sustainability and circularity goals.
• Helps identify, develop, test, and commercialize products in new or existing market segments. Owns the product strategy for our light commercial, residential, commercial, and industrial markets.
• Integrates voice-of-customer insights and competitive intelligence to prioritize innovation pipelines with measurable ROI, margin expansion, and strategic fit.

Product Management

• Through a deep understanding of the go-to market opportunities and business requirements, translates these needs and through processes, ensures the most cost effective, dependable solution is provided.
• Establishes a world-class product management framework aligned with strategic priorities, emphasizing portfolio discipline, pricing excellence, and lifecycle optimization.
• Brings new products to market by analyzing proposed product requirements and product development programs, preparing ROI analysis, creating business case and comprehensive plan.
• Drives stage-gate governance, SKU rationalization, and lifecycle management to ensure resources are invested in the highest-value opportunities.
• Optimizes product line offerings by redesigning processes from manufacture to field applications.
• Manages profitable SKU mix to include: recommending the mix and scope of present and future product lines by reviewing product specifications and technical requirements, appraising new product ideas, developing product roadmaps, and competitive offering reviews.
• Partners with commercial, manufacturing, and supply chain teams to connect innovation to operational efficiency, digital enablement, and channel growth.
• Ensures regular product comparison audits are completed.

Strategic Product Planning

• In partnership with internal stakeholders, drives sustained revenue, market share and margin growth through development and implementation of effective annual and multi-year strategies.
• Leads the annual long-range product and innovation strategy, linking global and regional priorities into actionable investment roadmaps.
• Establishes portfolio strategies that balance core product stewardship with breakthrough innovation and diversification into adjacent categories.
• Develops improved positioning of the company’s products through sound business case, value proposition and marketing strategy.
• Effectively translates business strategies into product strategies, winning roadmaps and product specifications that meet revenue, profitability and customer satisfaction goals.
• Manages cross-functionally to deliver programs on-time and at-cost.
• Shapes and communicates the product vision enterprise-wide, ensuring that innovation is measurable, repeatable, and customer-led.
• Drives gathering of local market intelligence for major product and customer segments; understand winning models and anticipate market moves that could create an advantage.
• Responsible for product line performance of current and new products, with targets on orders, revenue, costs and margin.
• Leads product portfolio reviews to drive data-backed decisions, balancing growth, margin, and customer objectives.

Analytics, Insights and Opportunity Prioritization

• Oversees conceptual studies and market research; generates design concepts for new product ideas and enhancements to existing products.
• Leverages data analytics, AI-enabled market sensing, and digital dashboards to guide strategic decision-making and innovation prioritization.
• Proactively engages internal and external organizations and resources for product solutions, suggestions, and ideas.
• Provides a focal point where new ideas may be directed to determine feasibility.
• Interfaces with engineering and technical teams to determine feasibility, cost, and development estimates for generating ROI analysis.
• Anticipates market shifts and emerging technologies, building adaptive product strategies that support long-term growth.
• Translates complex data and trends into actionable business insights that inform portfolio and investment decisions.
• Solves complex problems using structured analysis, collaboration, and sound judgment.
• Balances long-term innovation objectives with near-term business results, applying analytical rigor to decision-making.
• Utilizes primary and secondary research to validate hypothesis and business case assumptions.
• Measures Portfolio Performance and identify fast and slow movers by sector and customer.
• Establishes KPI frameworks to measure innovation throughput, time-to-market, customer adoption, and profitability.

Financial and Technical Application

• Ability to collect, analyze and interpret data from financial systems, as well as the ability to create a business case for new markets, products or programs.
• Builds comprehensive project scope, costs and financial model for new product development.
• Analyzes and applies pricing leverage strategies to enhance financial outcomes and competitive positioning.
• Responsible for budgetary compliance and profit volume.
• Works closely with Director of Pricing and Sales Leadership to create effective and competitive pricing strategies.
• Champions disciplined investment governance ensuring capital allocation to innovation projects meets ROI and payback thresholds while supporting Knauf’s growth and sustainability goals.
• Leverages deep technical and commercial fluency to translate complex product data into clear financial outcomes.

Business Insight

• Understands our existing business and makes decisions to navigate it successfully.
• Navigates complex business environments and creates strategies to reach company goals. Envisions future scenarios, evaluates competitive advantages, and makes decisions that align with the company’s overall objectives. Prioritizes and adapts to meet goals and execute strategic action plans.
• Gathers, collects, analyzes data, forms connections, and makes decisions. Sees problems or scenarios from different perspectives to better devise strategies to deal with these situations or issues.
• Guides team, making pivotal decisions, and fosters a productive work environment. Inspires and motivates employees and ensures team members achieve their goals.
• Articulates ideas, collaborates with stakeholders, and facilitates clear and concise exchanges of information. Builds relationships, manages conflicts, and ensures that all team members are aligned with the business’s goals.
• Brings proven leadership experience from industrial technology and building materials sectors driving innovation cultures. Oversees P&L requirements for product management and innovation.

People, Culture, and Collaboration

• Builds a culture of trust, inclusion, and accountability that supports collaboration and high performance.
• Creates psychological safety, encouraging open dialogue, diverse thinking, and responsible risk-taking.
• Drives engagement by linking individual and team goals to organizational purpose and recognizing contributions.
• Manages team dynamics, provides feedback, and supports professional development and succession planning.
• Acts as a change leader, fostering collaboration across functions and geographies to achieve transformation goals.
• Represents Knauf externally as a champion of innovation, partnership, and sustainability in industry forums and events.
• Identify, lead and develop talent to maximize individual, team and organizational effectiveness in meeting company goals.
• Builds and mentors a diverse, high-performing product and innovation team capable of scaling world-class product management capabilities.
• Promotes cross-functional collaboration, agility, and accountability creating a “One Knauf” culture that unites innovation, commercial, and operational excellence.
• Drives the highest levels of employee retention and engagement to ensure a sustainable workforce.
• Fosters a culture of innovation, collaboration, and accountability within the organization.
• Instills an environment of inclusion, where all employees feel that they can contribute and impact the company in a positive manner.

Qualifications

Education: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Materials Science, or a related technical discipline required.
• Advanced degree (MBA or equivalent) preferred.
• Executive education or certification in Product Strategy, Innovation, or Business Leadership desirable.

Experience: 

• Minimum 10 years of progressive experience in product management, marketing within manufacturing, building materials, or related sectors.
• Experience in the building and construction industry and/or insulation industry preferred.
• Proven success leading product strategy, innovation, and transformation across complex, cross-functional organizations.
• Demonstrated achievement in portfolio management, SKU rationalization, new product development (NPD), and market segmentation, with measurable results.
• Experience partnering across CoEs, global teams, and customers to drive business alignment.
• Skilled in financial governance, including ROI analysis, capital allocation, and investment prioritization.
• Proven track record of linking digital enablement, sustainability, and innovation into a cohesive commercial strategy
• Familiar with application engineering or technical sales principles.
• Effective negotiation, presentation, and communication skills with executive and cross-functional audiences.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and digital tools including CRM, PLM, ERP, and analytics platforms (e.g., Salesforce).

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Leadership and Emotional Intelligence 

• Demonstrates self-awareness, empathy, and active listening to foster collaboration and trust.
• Practices self-regulation and clear communication, maintaining professionalism under pressure.
• Skilled in team building, conflict resolution, and feedback delivery, promoting accountability and growth.
• Encourages creativity and learning within a culture of respect and inclusion.

Strategic and Analytical Skills

• Strong strategic and financial acumen, linking innovation and market performance to business outcomes.
• Advanced problem-solving and analytical reasoning, using data to drive prioritization and decision-making.
• Proactive in identifying opportunities for improvement, efficiency, and scalability.

Industry and Technical Knowledge

• Understanding of building and construction practices, insulation manufacturing processes, and technical design principles.
• Knowledge of industry codes, standards, and adoption cycles shaping market opportunities.
• Familiarity with design techniques, tools, and principles used for technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.

Communication and Collaboration

• Communicates effectively across all organizational levels and geographies.
• Builds consensus and negotiates effectively among diverse stakeholders.
• Skilled in cross-functional collaboration.
• Operates comfortably in both industrial and corporate settings, bridging strategy and execution.

Digital and Operational Competence

• High digital literacy, leveraging analytics, AI, and visualization tools to enhance innovation outcomes.
• Results-driven and proactive, demonstrating ownership and execution discipline.
• Embodies Knauf leadership principles through collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.

It is the policy of Knauf Insulation to provide equal employment opportunities to all qualified persons without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, protected veteran status or any other protected characteristic prohibited by applicable law.