[Hiring] Innovation Operations Manager @BIOptimizers

Role Description

We are seeking an experienced Innovation Operations Manager to lead the exploration and evaluation of new product and business opportunities that extend beyond our core competency of creating and commercializing capsule and powder dietary supplements across categories such as minerals, digestion, and more. This role will also manage the operations aspect of all new products, allowing us to get the products to commercialization stage.

This is a highly cross-functional role for a natural investigator and organizer—someone who can take an early-stage innovation concept, dig into its technical and commercial feasibility, engage the right internal and external partners, and provide stakeholders with clear, evidence-based recommendations on whether a concept can be successfully commercialized and made profitable, or whether it should be shelved.

If you thrive on ambiguity, love connecting the dots between science, operations, and market opportunity, and can drive structured decision-making, we'd love to hear from you.

This role exists specifically to handle novel, high-ambiguity concepts — the ideas that fall outside what we already know how to make. Just as important as finding the winners is closing out the losers. We are looking for someone who reaches a defensible answer quickly and is comfortable recommending that we stop. A fast, well-evidenced “no” is a successful outcome in this role, not a failure — concepts that sit in permanent exploration are the specific problem this role is being created to solve.

Key Responsibilities

• Research & Investigate: Identify, research, and investigate new innovation ideas and concepts to assess their technical and commercial feasibility, including opportunities outside our existing product formats and categories.
• Collaborate with R&D & Formulators: Work closely with our formulators and R&D teams to deeply understand each innovation concept, its scientific underpinnings, and its technical requirements and constraints.
• Conduct Feasibility Analyses: Design and execute structured feasibility analyses covering technical viability, manufacturability, cost, regulatory considerations, timelines, and commercial potential.
• Source & Manage External Partners: Identify, vet, and manage relationships with external parties—such as vendors, contract manufacturers, labs, consultants, and specialists—to fill capability gaps and validate concepts. Prepare RFQs and manage the quote and aware process with contract manufacturers.
• Enable Decision-Making: Synthesize findings into clear business cases and recommendations that help stakeholders determine whether a concept can be commercialized profitably or should be deemed unviable.
• Manage Projects End-to-End: Own project plans, timelines, budgets, milestones, and stakeholder communications across multiple concurrent innovation initiatives. This is a hands-on, in-the-weeds role with no supporting staff — you will personally do the research, build the models, chase the vendors, and run the trials.
• Report & Communicate: Present findings, risks, and recommendations to leadership and cross-functional stakeholders in a clear, actionable format.
• Own the Innovation Intake Queue: Serve as the single point of entry for concepts from any source — founders, leadership, R&D, or the field. Log every idea, run a fast initial screen, and work with leadership to maintain a ranked, capacity-bound queue with an agreed limit on how many concepts are under active investigation at once.
• Apply Stage-Gate Discipline: Establish and enforce a phased evaluation process with defined time and spend budgets per phase, pre-agreed kill criteria, and formal gate reviews. Escalate for a decision when a concept exceeds its budget rather than letting it drift.
• Build the Business Case & Unit Economics: Develop COGS build-ups, MOQ and landed-cost scenarios, pricing and margin models, break-even volumes, and required capital investment, so every recommendation is tied to a defensible financial picture and measured against our margin hurdles.
• Own Regulatory, IP & Claims Due Diligence: Assess patent landscape and freedom-to-operate (particularly relevant for novel delivery technologies), ingredient regulatory status (NDI, GRAS, novel food), label and claims substantiation requirements, and any category that falls outside DSHEA — including devices, equipment, and non-ingestible products.
• Coordinate Sampling, Pilot Runs & Validation: Manage bench samples, pilot and scale-up trials, stability and shelf-life testing, sensory evaluation, analytical method development, and draft specifications — including sourcing the labs and partners needed to execute them.
• Drive Commercialization Handoff: For greenlit concepts, carry the project through first successful commercial production run, then execute a formal handoff to the standing product and operations team with complete specs, vendor agreements, cost models, and documentation. The mandate is not to research ideas — it is to get them commercialized or closed.
• Maintain the Innovation Knowledge Base: Document every concept evaluated, including those shelved, with findings, cost, the reason for the decision, and the conditions that would justify revisiting it — so the same idea is never investigated from scratch twice.
• Set Expectations & Protect Core Team Capacity: Communicate realistic timelines, cost, and resource requirements up front, including to stakeholders who are personally enthusiastic about a concept. Act as the buffer between exploratory work and the core team, formally negotiating any core-team time a project requires rather than pulling on it ad hoc.

Qualifications

• Minimum 7 years of demonstrated success as a project manager, ideally with exposure to product development, innovation, or new-category exploration.
• Experience in the dietary supplement, nutraceutical, food & beverage, CPG, or pharmaceutical industries.
• Extensive experience with R&D/formulation processes, manufacturing technical capabilities, and regulatory frameworks (e.g., FDA/DSHEA/cGMP).
• Strong background in ingredients and their technical use in dietary supplements.
• Hands-on experience with novel delivery formats — liposomal or encapsulation technologies, softgels, gummies or jellies, sprays, sachets, or functional beverages.
• Superb organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities simultaneously.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to translate technical concepts for diverse audiences and influence stakeholders.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to structure feasibility assessments, evaluate data, and build sound business cases.
• Fluency in project management systems/tools (e.g., Asana, Monday.com, Smartsheet, MS Project, Jira, or similar).
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and driving clarity in early-stage, undefined projects.
• A track record of finishing, not just exploring: at least one novel or first-of-its-kind product, format, or process personally taken from early concept through commercial launch.
• The judgment and backbone to recommend “no”: comfort delivering and defending unfavorable recommendations to senior stakeholders, including founders and executives who are personally invested in an idea.
• Working financial literacy: able to independently build COGS build-ups, margin and break-even models, and simple business cases in Excel or Google Sheets.
• Technical reading ability: able to critically evaluate scientific literature, supplier technical packets, specifications, and certificates of analysis, and to ask informed questions of formulators and manufacturers.
• Availability during US business hours: this is a remote role with heavy cross-functional coordination; overlap with EST is required, US location required.

Preferred (Nice to Have)

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field (business, science, engineering, or related); PMP or equivalent certification a plus.
• Experience commercializing an ingredient or raw material B2B: specification development, GRAS/NDI dossiers, tox and safety packages, and ingredient customer support.
• Experience working outside of ingestibles — consumer hardware, devices, or wellness equipment — including sourcing, certification, and safety testing.
• Experience operating a formal stage-gate or phase-gate innovation process.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first year, you will have established a repeatable feasibility-evaluation process, built a network of trusted external partners, and delivered clear go/no-go recommendations that give leadership confidence in where to invest—and where not to.

Concretely, within the first 12 months we would expect:

• A documented intake, prioritization, and stage-gate process in active use, with a live queue visible to leadership.
• [X] concepts taken through full feasibility to a documented go/no-go decision, with average time from intake to recommendation under [X] weeks.
• Every greenlit concept supported by a validated COGS model and at least one identified, vetted manufacturing partner before approval.
• At least one concept carried through to first commercial production run, or handed off to the core team launch-ready.
• Shelved concepts closed out cleanly and documented — a well-evidenced “no” delivered in six weeks is a better outcome than a “maybe” that runs for six months.

Work Location

This is a fully remote position. BiOptimizers has a globally distributed team and supports flexible work arrangements across time zones.

Company Hours & Collaboration

With team members across many countries and time zone differences of up to 16 hours, we’ve established a standard collaboration window from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EST. This is not a required work schedule, but a shared time frame for meetings and team syncs. At BiOptimizers, we support flexibility — team members are encouraged to work the hours that best suit them, as long as they:

• Attend required meetings
• Communicate effectively across time zones
• Deliver work by agreed-upon deadlines

Equal Opportunity Statement

BiOptimizers is committed to diversity and inclusion and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other basis protected by applicable law.