Director, Commercialization

What You’ll Do

The Director of Commercialization is responsible for leading commercialization strategy, governance, and cross-functional execution for the portfolio. 

This role serves as the central business and operational leader across Product & Innovation, Marketing, Product Development, Packaging Engineering, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Procurement, Manufacturing, Quality, Finance, Commercial, and market teams. 

The Director ensures initiatives move from concept through commercialization readiness with clear priorities, timelines,  decision-making, risk management, and cross-functional accountability. The role balances speed, technical and operational complexity, resource capacity, regulatory requirements, and business priorities across a dynamic portfolio. 

This position reports into the Supply Chain organization and plays a key role in strengthening scalable commercialization capabilities as the business continues to grow. 

What You’ll Be Working On

Portfolio Leadership 

• Lead commercialization strategy and execution for the portfolio, including new product launches, product extensions, reformulations, renovations, and other portfolio initiatives. 
• Own portfolio-level visibility across priorities, timing, risks, resource requirements, dependencies, and critical business decisions. 
• Ensure projects are aligned with established business objectives, launch expectations, and operational realities. 
• Provide strategic direction to project teams and ensure clear ownership, accountability, and follow-through. 
• Anticipate and partner with supply teams to resolve risks that may affect launch timing, production, inventory availability, retailer commitments, cost, or revenue. 
• Partner with leadership on portfolio prioritization, resource allocation, and business trade-off decisions. 

Global Leadership 

• Lead commercialization planning and governance for new market and regional expansion initiatives. 
• Coordinate cross-functional readiness across Regulatory, Product Development, Packaging Engineering, Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality, Finance, Commercial, and regional teams. 
• Ensure market-specific requirements, operational dependencies, localization needs, regulatory options, and supply considerations are reflected in project plans and decisions. 
• Establish clear timelines, milestones, ownership, and escalation paths for market entry programs. 
• Maintain visibility to market entry risks, dependencies, decisions, and readiness status. 
• Drive alignment between global launch priorities and regional market requirements. 

Commercialization Governance & Stage Gates 

• Lead commercialization governance from concept through Commercialization Readiness. 
• Own and facilitate strategic launch meetings, portfolio reviews, stage gates, and readiness reviews for the assigned portfolio. 
• Ensure stage-gate criteria, approvals, and business decisions are clearly defined, documented, and completed before projects progress. 
• Establish clear governance around risks, assumptions, dependencies, mitigation plans, and unresolved decisions. 
• Drive timely issue resolution through stakeholder alignment, action ownership, and appropriate escalation. 
• Ensure consistent execution of commercialization standards and governance processes across all portfolio initiatives.

Integrated Portfolio & Timeline Management 

• Oversee integrated cross-functional commercialization timelines for multiple concurrent initiatives. 
• Ensure timelines accurately reflect technical development, regulatory, sourcing, manufacturing, financial, and regional market requirements. 
• Maintain visibility to critical-path activities, milestones, project interdependencies, and portfolio-level risks. 
• Create clear communication and reporting that provide leadership with an accurate view of timing, readiness, and required decisions. 
• Hold teams accountable for commitments while proactively addressing changing priorities, project redirects, and emerging risks. 
• Ensure business priorities and resource capacity remain aligned across the portfolio. 

Commercialization Readiness & Operational Handoff 

• Lead cross-functional readiness activities through Commercialization Readiness and applicable launch authorization reviews. 
• Ensure technical, operational, regulatory, sourcing, and financial requirements are achieved before projects progress. 
• Confirm commercialization deliverables, approvals, and prerequisites are complete before operational ownership transitions to Supply Planning. 
• Partner with Supply Planning and Manufacturing to ensure capacity, lead times, production requirements, and operational constraints are reflected in commercialization decisions. 
• Maintain visibility and communication continuity through operational execution and launch stabilization. 
• Escalate readiness gaps that may place launch timing, service, inventory, or commercial commitments at risk. 

Continuous Improvement & Capability Building 

• Lead continuous improvement across commercialization governance, tools, processes, reporting, and cross-functional ways of working. 
• Identify opportunities to simplify processes, improve execution speed, and remove unnecessary complexity. 
• Strengthen stage-gate requirements, readiness criteria, portfolio reporting, and decision-making frameworks. 
• Establish consistent commercialization methodologies, templates, and standards. 
• Improve transparency, accountability, and communication across cross-functional teams. 
• Use portfolio insights, recurring risks, and lessons learned to identify systemic improvement opportunities. 
• Partner with functional leaders to implement sustainable solutions rather than project-by-project workarounds. 
• Build scalable commercialization capabilities that support business growth and increasing portfolio complexity. 
• Drive adoption of new processes and ensure improvements are embedded into day-to-day ways of working. 

Cross-Functional Leadership 

• Serve as the senior commercialization partner for all portfolio initiatives.
• Build strong partnerships across Marketing, Product Development, Packaging Engineering, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Procurement, Manufacturing, Quality, Finance, Commercial, and regional teams. 
• Align stakeholders around shared priorities, execution plans, and business outcomes. 
• Influence decisions across multiple organizational levels without relying solely on direct authority. 
• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, operational rigor, and proactive risk management. 
• Provide leadership and guidance to project managers supporting the assigned portfolio. 

Must Haves

• 10+ years of experience in commercialization, new product development, program management, project management, product innovation, supply chain, or a related cross-functional leadership role. 
• Significant experience leading complex product commercialization programs within beauty, cosmetics, personal care, consumer products, or a related industry. 
• Demonstrated experience managing a significant portfolio of concurrent global initiatives. 
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end product lifecycle, from concept through commercialization readiness, operational execution, and launch stabilization. 
• Experience leading commercialization governance, integrated timelines, stage gates, and readiness reviews. 
• Demonstrated experience with global market expansion and coordination across international or regional stakeholders. 
• Strong understanding of product development, regulatory, sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, and commercialization dependencies. 
• Proven experience driving process improvement, organizational change, and scalable ways of working. 
• Strong business acumen with the ability to assess operational, financial, and strategic trade-offs. 
• Strong executive communication, facilitation, stakeholder management, and influencing skills. 
• Demonstrated ability to anticipate risks, navigate ambiguity, and drive decisions in a fast-paced environment. 
• Ability to balance strategic portfolio leadership with detailed operational execution. 
• Strong proficiency in Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, and web-based project or portfolio management tools. 

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