Whether the cook is a future Emeril or a toddler helping to make chocolate chip cookies (licking the spoon, of course!), chances are Pampered Chef has a better, faster, and more delicious way of getting things done in the kitchen. We sell our superior-quality, innovative collection of prepping, cooking, and serving products through a network of more than 42,000 direct sales consultants throughout the US, Canada, and Germany. Millions of customers use our products every day. Each of our 450 HQ coworkers—from product designers and supply chain specialists to ecommerce developers—is committed to bringing the best to our customers. And we have fun doing it!

Established in 1980 by Doris Christopher, Pampered Chef was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway in 2002, a sure sign of our growth potential. In 2014, Tracy Britt Cool, a key member of Warren Buffett’s team, joined as our CEO to lead our transformation into a progressive, open door, cutting-edge workplace. We believe happy coworkers are the best coworkers and are committed to keeping creativity, innovative solutions and customer engagement top of mind. Pampered Chef is pushing the boundaries for our customers, consultants, and coworkers.

MAIN COURSE (Job Responsibilities)

Develop PC solution-specific strategies to produce meaningfully differentiated new solutions and/or platforms that deliver best-in-class performance (As positioned) based on consumer’s and consultants evolving trends (attitudes, desires, needs, and behavior) as well as leveraging insights and market intelligence to collaborate with the category management team to develop new solution roadmaps, build category equity, support development of show solutions, develop solution concepts in early stage, and guide strategic decision-making across the solutions team.

• You’ll provide innovative leadership and management for the development of new solutions and evolution of existing —specifically identifying and contributing to a three-year innovation pipeline, leading key new projects, and acting as the voice of the customer, at the solution use level, across all categories.
• You’re responsible for key inputs into category decisions based on ongoing programs, consumer and consultant insights, integrated data, trend information, and competitive intelligence. You’ll take a creative approach to assimilating data and trend info, and will be expected to develop a corresponding agile testethodology that leverages our advantages.
• You’ll develop comprehensive programs to drive consumer POU insights into our development process, including but not limited to on-site consumer research and concept reviews, consumer surveys, and comparative competitive analysis.
• You’ll drive increased collaboration between the design and engineering teams, with our Food and Trend Innovation team as they develop the recipes, to derive opportunities to solve real problems and enhance the aspirations of our customers through development of solutions that enable our customers to do what they want, in a much more effective and convenient manner.
• You will be responsible for developing a strategy around the visual brand language (Materials, colors, geometry, etc) including the appropriate user interfaces and performance / quality translations.
• You’ll lead development of an integrated data platform for POU consumer insights, supportive data, trend info, etc. This will act as a key input into the strategic roadmap and portfolio.
• You’ll leverage innovative research techniques as well as various data sources to support and prioritize new solution development.
• You’ll be a core team representative for consumer research function, providing the right organizational “tension” to ensure the teams are appropriately oriented and thoughtful to the customer and their perspective.
• You’ll oversee ID vendor management to obtain best-in-class category insights, analytic tools, and reporting expertise.
• You’ll provide direction to the design and engineering teams on the development of solution concepts, prioritization through research, consumer testing, identification of key solution claims (POD), customer presentations, etc.
• Principle accountabilities, listed in order of importance
  1. 50%— provides strategic leadership and input, from the customer perspective, into the solutions roadmap, portfolio evolution and curated vignettes / discrete offerings.
  2. 40%— collaboratively engages in the innovation pipeline across all categories and identifies streams of new solutions and supports the cross-functional category project team(s) to deliver three-year roadmaps that are meaningfully differentiated.
  3. 10%— Provide ongoing analysis of the trends (Solutions, material, colors, etc.) that are relevant for our consumer and brand.

KEY INGREDIENTS (Position Requirements)

Education & Experience:

• BS in Industrial Design required; Masters in Marketing or PD preferred, MBA highly desirable.
• Minimum of 5 years in new solution and/or technology development in a business segment with lifecycles in the 3-5 year range, preferable housewares.
• Proven track record in innovative and creative new solution, technology and/or application development, preferably CPG with housewares a plus.
• Demonstrated success in highly a collaborative environment where representing the customer in all aspects of the development process is requisite.
• Experience developing both mechanical and electrical products desired.
• Demonstrable technical ability and alignment with business strategic goals.
• Excellent communications and business acumen.
• Ability to work well in cross-functional teams.
• Previous experience in a global multicultural work environment.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities Required

• Demonstrated ability to balance art with science.
• A passion for cooking is strongly desired.
• Demonstrated skill in interpreting category strategy and positioning, and ability to translate both into actionable innovation strategies and plans.
• Creative with respect to developing strategies from limited available data.
• Understanding of marketing research tools.
• Knows what questions need to be asked.
• Independently translates results into implications and actions.
• Develops insights that go beyond the obvious.
• Adept at building solid business propositions, including strong financial skills.
• Familiarity with consumer marketing, including solution development, packaging, consumer promotion, advertising, and trade.
• Understands solution development and can provide direction to design, engineering, sourcing, etc.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills.
• Deals with (relishes) ambiguity.
• Analytical and financial acumen. Able to compile and interpret data to identify business issues and opportunities. Must understand financial implications of various business decisions.
• Team focus—ability to work in a cross-functional, team-focused organization is a must.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Able to manage multiple projects and lead cross-functional teams in front-end development.

DESSERTS! (Sweet rewards of working at Pampered Chef):

Our core values are respect, humility, accountability, meritocracy, integrity, authenticity, passion, and innovation (in no particular order!).  We embody those values in our work, but also in the great desserts we offer to our coworkers.

• Each and every coworker makes a difference every day by asking tough questions, finding the answers, and then making it happen—our entrepreneurial employees are the key to our success! Pampered Chef is big enough to implement cutting-edge technology, and small enough for all ideas to be heard and challenged.
• We are a learning focused environment—we want you to learn from us, and we expect to learn from you and what you’re passionate about! We even provide training and development for added brainpower.
• We collaborate every day in a high-tech space with writable walls, open collaboration zones, quiet “I need to contemplate” zones, and fun zones with ping pong, basketball, and bags, of course. No boring cubicle farms here!
• We are concerned about your physical and financial well-being and offer BC/BS PPO or HMO health plans, dental, disability, matched 401K, life insurance, on-site fitness center, comfy chairs, on-site cafeteria, and dry cleaning valet service.

• Most importantly, Pampered Chef has a strong, proven history of bringing fun to cooking, creativity to recipes, and sharing to family and friends around the table.