[Hiring] Director, Innovation & Commercialization Operations @AG1

Role Description

AG1 is expanding its innovation portfolio across products, formats, and channels. We are seeking an experienced leader to operate, and continuously strengthen our enterprise Stage Gate governance and commercialization process. This role will combine governance design and decision discipline with hands-on cross-functional execution, helping AG1 move products from concept through development, manufacturing readiness, and launch with greater clarity, speed, and accountability.

Reporting to the Chief Legal & Administrative Officer, the Director will have meaningful delegated ownership of the governance model, including recommending and implementing gate standards, decision protocols, performance measures, and improvements. The Director will partner closely with Product Development leadership and functional stakeholders while maintaining an enterprise-wide perspective.

What You’ll Do

• Stage Gate Governance & Decision Discipline
  • Design, operation, and evolution of the Stage Gate governance framework with the executive owner, including gate criteria, required evidence, decision rights, and escalation pathways.
  • Lead high-quality gate reviews focused on decisions and readiness, not routine status updates; document approvals, conditions, owners, and formal closure.
  • Maintain a concise gate decision record covering evidence, approvals, conditions, decisions locked or left open, exceptions, and accountable owners; follow conditional approvals through closure.
  • Develop and maintain practical standards for decisions that become locked at each gate, including clear controls for material changes after approval.
  • Apply proportionate gate requirements for product variants, new flavors, pack sizes, and claims changes, based on risk and complexity rather than a one-size-fits-all process.
  • Identify decisions requiring executive intervention, frame options and trade-offs, and recommend an appropriate path forward.
• Cross-functional Planning & Execution
  • Integrate NPD plans across Product Development, Packaging, Procurement, Supply Chain, Quality, Regulatory, Finance, Marketing, Retail, DTC, and International.
  • Establish critical-path plans, realistic functional lead times, dependencies, and clean handoffs; ensure early functional engagement before downstream commitments are made.
  • Maintain integrated launch baselines and forecasts; when upstream milestones slip, make the impacts on timing, scope, resources, and risk explicit for the accountable decision-maker.
  • Provide visibility into project status, timing, risks, competing resource demands, and launch-readiness decisions.
  • Partner with accountable product and functional owners to resolve gaps without displacing their technical or commercial decision authority.
• Commercialization Readiness
  • Coordinate upstream-to-downstream requirements across formula and claims decisions, packaging specifications and qualification, artwork and labels, sourcing, master data, production, and channel launch activities.
  • Define clear readiness expectations for manufacturing, inventory, retailer execution, and DTC launch; ensure deviations are explicitly evaluated and approved.
  • Surface the timing, cost, and execution impacts of proposed late changes.
• Process Excellence & Adoption
  • Build on AG1’s recent Stage Gate redesign work, including streamlined tasks, improved sequencing and redesigned gate meetings, and operationalize changes across active launches.
  • Simplify or eliminate duplicative and legacy requirements while protecting critical controls and decision quality.
  • Review briefs, approval points, and handoff artifacts to ensure each has a clear purpose, owner, and downstream user; retire redundant documentation.
  • Create a reliable system of record for current decisions, approved versions, deliverables, owners, milestones, and changes.
  • Establish a practical framework for handling retailer-specific requests and other exceptions, including their incremental cost, capacity, and schedule implications.
  • Define useful measures of process effectiveness, such as on-time gate closure, changes to locked decisions, rework, and launch readiness; train teams and drive adoption.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in CPG new product development, innovation operations, commercialization, or related cross-functional leadership, ideally including food, beverages, or nutritional products.
• Demonstrated experience owning or materially redesigning a formal Stage Gate or comparable NPD governance framework, not merely participating in gate meetings.
• Experience launching physical consumer products and understanding formulation, regulatory/quality, packaging, supply chain, manufacturing, and commercial interdependencies.
• Strong judgment in setting governance standards while avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy; experience leading decision forums and navigating cross-functional trade-offs.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority, implement change, and turn complex workflows into practical operating routines.
• Excellent integrated planning, risk management, facilitation, and executive communication skills.
• Experience facilitating executive gate decisions, setting and tracking conditions of approval, and leading pragmatic change control.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience spanning mature CPG processes and high-growth, entrepreneurial environments.
• Experience with beverage or supplement categories and retail, DTC, Amazon, or international launches.
• PMP certification or equivalent formal training in project or program management methodologies.
• Familiarity with PLM, NPD portfolio tools, and process excellence methodologies.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and performance-based incentive plans.
• A 100% remote working environment (excluding Laboratory positions), which has been implemented from day one.
• A strong company culture that is enforced through the hiring process to ensure values alignment and a highly collaborative team.
• A mission-driven approach to everything that we do, with an overall goal to significantly improve our customers’ health and wellness.
• A high-growth, dynamic environment with opportunities for your direct impact to be felt.
• Paid holidays, company-wide reset and reflect days, and unlimited PTO (based on your country of residence).
• In-person team meetups for optimal collaboration, team building and accelerating productivity.
• A work environment and culture that is based on high performance, productivity and continuous improvement.
• The opportunity to work with passionate, high-growth, business-minded colleagues who bring their all to our mission each and every day.
• Access to AG1 products and branded swag.
• Monthly telecom stipend to offset some of the costs of home internet/wifi for eligible team members.
• All other benefits and insurances as required by law, based on your specific country of residence.