position title: Product Manager

location: Chicago, Virginia, Northern Minnesota, and California

position id: 5958

Job Summary:

The ideal candidate should be a technically savvy, curious and passionate business leader, that can lead a group of cross-functional team members through the successful completion of assigned projects. The Product Manager’s primary responsibility is to ensure the growth, competitiveness, and profitability of their product line(s). These could include but are not limited to: market/application situational
assessments, product lifecycle management (existing and new product lines), profitability improvement projects as well as socializing processes across the organization.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develops product category strategy to drive revenue and profitability for assigned product lines. Owns and optimizes market share, revenue and margin. Prioritizes execution based on business impact.
• Understands the impact that market dynamics can have over the category. Dynamics can be but are not limited to: customer and end market trends, competition, brand health, marketing spend/support. Can tie that to the vision of the company, proposes strategies and executes initiatives to attend to customer and business needs.
• Gathers and synthesizes category foundational research. Triangulates information from several stakeholders to drive actionable insights used in product and service improvements.
• Acts as the customer advocate for the assigned product category, gathering insights and sharing with leadership and proposing a path to improve.
• Conducts primary research with the customer and effectively observes/probes to identify pain points that we can help solve through new product innovations (serial modernization or breakthrough/disruptive).
• Proposes a medium to long term product pipeline strategy, focused on differentiated new products and margin improvement.
• Drives the NPD process from inception to post-mortem evaluation. Strategically assesses stage reviews and provides “go / no-go” guidance and works with cross functional stakeholders to keep the product launch on track, on budget. Defines commercialization requirements as well as targets for outreach initiatives.
• Effectively translates customer needs into guidance for technical departments (mechanical or electrical engineering) to translate into a technical spec.
• Serves as an “agent of change”, driving a “product first” approach.
• All other duties as assigned.

Essential Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s degree in an engineering or business discipline and/or 8 years related experience.
• An appetite to learn about customer pain points and a passion to work to solve them.
• Ability to step back from detail-oriented project management to formulate a high-level vision for the category and the tactics that will lead us to achieve results.
• Ability to analyze & interpret data (market, sales, engineering, operations)
• Good organization, planning, and scheduling abilities.
• Effective verbal communication skills, both verbal and written
• Ability to work with all departments and levels within the BWIS organization.
• Ability to travel approximately 25-40% of year, as required.

Desirable Qualifications:

• MBA
• Packaging Industry experience

ADA Requirements:

• Office II
• Typically sits, grasps items and performs keyboarding for frequent operation of a computer
• To stand, walk, bend, reach or otherwise move about occasionally. Lift, move or otherwise transfer items up to 30 lbs. occasionally.
• Occasional exposure to typical machine shop physical hazard

The role offers a base salary (commensurate with experience, preferably around 110-130k USD), annual bonus up to 10%, along with excellent corporate benefits and growth opportunities.

Video Presentation:

This role can be based in the Chicago area, Virginia, Northern Minnesota, California (and/or maybe remote / hybrid) and the role reports to a VP of Marketing.

The Product Manager is a strategic commercial role that will be responsible for Innovation, Brand Creation, and Technical Commercial Development with customers. It will collaborate closely with cross functional technical teams, engineering teams, and commercial teams to manage the product portfolio, and will be the voice of the customer along with managing trends in innovation, pricing, and growth.

If you are interested in this opportunity, please send your resume to angelo@centraljobs.com or call directly at (440) 772-1015.

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