Director of Innovation

Role details

Why Choose Us? Novolex is a leading manufacturer of food, beverage, and specialty packaging that supports multiple industries including foodservice, restaurant delivery and carryout, food processing, grocery and retail, and industrial sectors. Novolex manufacturing and sourcing expertise spans a diverse range of substrates including resin, paper, molded fiber, aluminum and more. We provide customers a broad array of stock and customized solutions with 120 product categories, 250 brands and over 39,000 SKUs.

Our Sustainability Commitment

The Novolex sustainability vision is built upon three pillars: our products, our operations and our people. Each is critically important to our growth and future as a business. These pillars form the foundation of our company-wide commitment to sustainability, helping us achieve our ambitious goals through our wide-ranging initiatives.

Job Description

Position Summary

The Director of Innovation leads new product development and innovation programs supporting Novolex's Distribution, International Industrial, and Beverage businesses. This role translates customer needs, market insights, technology opportunities, and business priorities into a focused innovation pipeline and drives programs from concept through commercialization. The position is designed for a high-impact innovation leader with the capability and potential to progress into a Senior Director role with broader portfolio, organizational, and strategic leadership responsibility.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the innovation and new product development portfolio across assigned business units, aligning priorities with growth strategies, customer needs, and commercial opportunities.
• Own complex NPD programs from opportunity identification and business case through development, validation, scale-up, launch, and post-launch review.
• Drive disciplined project and program management, including scope, milestones, resources, risks, financial targets, and executive-level portfolio reporting.
• Partner across Product Management, Sales, R&D, Engineering, Operations, Quality, Procurement, Sustainability, and suppliers to accelerate commercialization, acting as a connector across departments to surface innovative thinking and enable execution.
• Translate voice of customer, competitive intelligence, market trends, sustainability requirements, and emerging technologies into actionable product and technology roadmaps.
• Provide technical leadership in flexible and food packaging, materials, converting processes, product performance, and design for manufacturability.
• Engage directly with customers and commercial teams to identify unmet needs, facilitate innovation sessions, and develop differentiated solutions and value propositions.
• Drive awareness and adoption of innovation programs across the organization.
• Define KPIs, track impact, and report on outcomes of innovation initiatives.
• Build organizational capability by improving innovation processes, mentoring cross-functional teams, and establishing scalable practices that support future portfolio growth.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Packaging Science/Engineering, Materials or Polymer Science, Chemical or Mechanical Engineering, or related technical discipline required; Master's degree strongly preferred.
• 10+ years of progressive packaging, product development, engineering, innovation, or related manufacturing experience, with demonstrated leadership of complex commercialization programs.
• Strong project and program management experience; PMP or formal program management training is a plus.
• Experience in flexible packaging and food packaging strongly preferred; beverage, industrial, distribution, or international market experience is a plus.
• Strong manufacturing orientation with experience translating product concepts into scalable, commercially viable production solutions.
• Experience using market insights, customer research, competitive intelligence, and industry trends to shape innovation strategy is highly desirable.
• Strong executive communication, cross-functional influence, analytical thinking, business acumen, and ability to lead across multiple priorities without direct authority.

Leadership & Career Path

This role is positioned as a key feeder for broader Senior Director leadership. Success requires more than project execution: the Director will be expected to shape portfolio strategy, influence business-unit growth priorities, develop organizational capability, and demonstrate the ability to lead increasingly complex, cross-business innovation programs.

Measures of Success

• Strength and strategic value of the innovation pipeline and product roadmaps.
• Speed, predictability, and quality of NPD execution and commercialization.
• Revenue, margin, customer adoption, and value creation from new products.
• Cross-functional leadership, manufacturing readiness, and organizational innovation capability.

Company Benefits

What You'll Get From Us

Benefits

With safety as our top priority and a commitment to employee well-being an important focus, we offer comprehensive and competitive benefits that include medical, dental and vision insurance as well as a variety of other well-being resources focused on mental, physical and financial health. Specific benefits and well-being programs may vary depending on where you work.

Community Engagement

At Novolex, giving back to the local communities that support us is important. Our Focused Giving Program prioritizes support for organizations whose missions promote sustainability initiatives or address food and hunger needs. We also encourage facility level support of activities in the communities where our employees live and work.

Training and Development

We offer constant opportunities for advancement. From skills development to advanced education programs, training and development programs and courses are available through MyLearning. Programs include company and industry training curricula, support for formal education through the Tuition Reimbursement Program (Non-Union), and a Learning Management System that supports and enhances employee skills at all levels of the organization.

Novolex is committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all employment practices, including but not limited to selection, hiring, promotion, transfer, and compensation to all qualified applicants and employees without regard to age, race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, handicap or disability, genetics, citizenship status, service member or veteran status, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local law. Any individual who, because of his or her disability, needs an accommodation in connection with an aspect of the Company's application process should contact [email protected] .

Formerly Pactiv Evergreen