R&d Manager, Product Innovation

**Location**:Hybrid - in office 3-4 days/week **About Us** '¯ Enhanced Medical Nutrition ("EMN”) is a transformational, food-as-medicine start-up that commercializes evidence-based medical nutrition products to improve patient outcomes and experience in surgery. Surgical patients are unprepared for the stress of their surgery, which can significantly increase the risk of delayed recovery, complications and even mortality. EMN has developed ENROUTE®, a surgeon recommended nutrition program to help patients prepare better and recover faster. EMN is a venture-backed, food-as-medicine company led by a team of experienced entrepreneurs, medical professionals, and brand builders. EMN is committed to promoting and supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the workplace. Workplace diversity, equity, and inclusivity result in a more robust team culture, improve organizational effectiveness, and enable the company to better serve customers and the community. **The Role**: EMN is seeking a detail-oriented and driven **R&D Manager - Product** Innovation**to join our team. Reporting to the Chief Science Officer, you will contribute to the end-to-end development of new, innovative, evidence-based nutrition products and establishing EMN as a centre of excellence in surgical nutrition. You will also lead improvements of existing products through the ownership of EMN’s customer insights. The position foremost requires an entrepreneurial drive with curiosity, vision, an obsession with our customers and the ability to wear multiple hats including voice of customer, strategic marketing, and product development. **About You**: You are enthusiastic about innovation in nutrition and food technology and enjoy the challenge of participating in the creation and execution of new and improved products. You possess effective organizational, interpersonal, collaboration, and critical thinking skills. You are thorough and get stuff done. You are a pragmatic problem solver who excels at interacting with and understanding the needs of others. You are curious and ask good questions, particularly as it pertains to understanding our customers and how to solve their respective pain points. You are action-oriented and thrilled to take on new challenges. You excel at thinking outside the box and problem solving to complete tasks. **Key Responsibilities** and Duties**: - Lead the voice of customer research program to gain insights, understand pain points, and determine user requirements and barriers to entry - Critically evaluate consumer concepts, business opportunities and solutions to identify growth opportunities leveraging syndicated research, trend data, primary market research, and competitive intelligence - Consult technical resources (literature, technical papers, suppliers, internal stakeholders) to further product knowledge and to determine project feasibility - Support commercial & financial vetting internally including product costing & feasibility - Develop and communicate business cases to key stakeholders - Lead product development improvement initiatives to improve the quality of existing products in response to customer feedback, to improve nutritional value, colour, flavour, texture, and convenience, or to improve cost efficiencies - Work collaboratively cross-functionally to help drive business alignment and prioritization - Partner closely with sales and marketing teams to understand and integrate customer strategies into the innovation pipeline - Provides technical leadership to manage, develop, and commercialize new medical food products that address specific health conditions in collaboration with the R&D team - Other ad hoc tasks or projects assigned by your supervisor **Your**Skills** and Experience**: - Prior experience in entrepreneurship or product for a food tech, medical nutrition or medical device products - Ability to immerse yourself in the nutritional problems faced by surgeons and/or their patients and to identify & evaluate nutrition-based solutions - Strong interpersonal & communication skills that enable you to collaborate effectively with both internal & external stakeholders. - Prior experience vetting opportunities, developing a business case and/or business model canvas - Prior end-to-end experience in the product development process - Proven ability to drive projects including product ideation & development from concept to launch - Strong organizational skills and ability to handle multiple priorities in a fast-paced and dynamic work environment that is common in start-ups. - High self-motivation and attention to detail. **Your**Qualifications**: - Must have prior work experience in entrepreneurship or start-up - Must have: at least 3 years of prior work experience in nutrition or medtech in product - Must have: Degree in nutrition, science, business, or related field - Must have: proficient with project management software (ClickUp), Microsoft Office 365 including OneDrive, Wor