Senior Project Manager (NPD)

Application Deadline: 11 June 2025

Department: New Product Development

Location: Andover

Description

Great People Work Here

Are you searching for a career with bags of variety, in an environment that celebrates differences and empowers collaboration, which values people and will encourage you to make an impact? Do you want the freedom to explore, and the opportunities to find new ways and to innovate? If so, TwiningsOvo delivers.

Do you want to help shape the future of Tea at Twinings? We’re recruiting for an interim Senior Project Manager to join our Innovation and NPD teams and play an instrumental role in delivering our motivated growth agenda. We’re looking for advanced project delivery skills across complex projects including tech-heavy initiatives and disruptive innovations including fuzzy front-end exploration of opportunity spaces. You’ll operate across strategic and operational levels, collaborating closely with senior leaders and cross-functional teams to bring innovation to life holistically, effectively and swiftly. You’ll be a true partner to our international markets and central teams, aligning priorities, resolving roadblocks, communicating with clarity and challenging assumptions and risks all in the spirit of delivering innovations that delight our consumers across the globe. With a deep understanding of Program Management combined with Twinings systems, tools, and processes, you’ll energise teams and drive accountability. Due to the global nature of our business, flexibility across time zones will be required as well as some occasional travel to key markets and supply centres.

Key Responsibilities

This is a global-facing role, covering innovation and NPD (New Product Development) projects across Twinings’ international markets. You will manage projects during ideation and from concept through to launch, balancing operational detail with strategic influence, while ensuring that teams remain focused on strategic intent. While this role does not currently have direct reports, you will lead cross-functional project teams and engage stakeholders across departments such as Marketing, Supply Chain, Procurement, Regulatory, Finance, and external partners including suppliers and agencies.

• Oversee several projects concurrently with varying levels of complexity.
• Operate across geographies and time zones, aligning central and local teams.
• Have autonomy to shape project approaches, timelines, and delivery frameworks.
• Be a visible and trusted project leader, often working with senior stakeholders to align priorities, overcome challenges and proactively manage critical risks.
• Act as a connector between central functions and markets, ensuring that innovation plans are both realistic and ambitious, commercially sound, and fully executable.
• Expert at risk assessments and engaging relevant people for risk mitigation.
• Proactively identifies risks which cannot be mitigated and engages stakeholders with options for resolution.
• Champions efficiency and operational excellence of processes, systems, data bridges to ensure innovations are successfully delivered to market through Twinings internal supply chain.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Experience of using agile methodologies
• Expertise in waterfall / stage-gate process of project management with high proficiency in managing NPD in CPG environments with a specific focus on processes and operations to ensure innovations are successfully delivered to market through internal supply chain.
• Fast leaner; able to quickly learn and build proficiency in Twinings specific project management and data systems.
• Planning a project at opportunity identification / ideation stage, able to assess early the best suited project management approach basis the innovation type and setup the project.
• Able to plan and coordinate multi-functional ideation sessions - central functions and markets.
• Knowledge of task scheduling, Gantt charts / MSP and simple work breakdown structures (WBS) / WSL (workstream lead) approach, handling complex dependencies, and optimizing resource allocation.
• Expert at creating risk assessments and engaging relevant people for risk mitigation.
• Proactively identifies risks which cannot be mitigated and engages stakeholders with options for issue resolution or other decisions.
• Able to coordinate cost forecasting, P&L and financial analysis, and manages budget constraints in dynamic environments.
• Early escalation of budget risks with well-considered scenario options.
• Drives progress though focusing team on key Jobs to Be Done to meet project objectives.
• Partners to define project scope, constantly ensures team is focused on defined scope and deliverables.
• Manages scope creeps, making sure changes happen intentionally, not by default, and are aligned through stakeholders and via the change management process.
• Deliver clear project updates and status reports for project teams and line managers.
• Orchestrates multiple activities at once and can arrange high volumes of information in a useful manner.
• Able to tailor communication for executives, sponsors, and project teams, and presents project insights and analysis effectively as per the audience.
• Ability to work well under pressure and to tight timescales, displaying strong resilience and problem-solving approach.
• Skilled in navigating ambiguity and channelling ideas effectively, while challenging the team to define a clear and actionable scope.

Benefits

• Yearly bonus based on personal contribution and financial performance
• Flexible working options
• 25 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays and the option to buy and sell holidays
• Onsite Gym and Wellbeing Centre
• Perkbox – employee discount scheme with discounts online, in high street stores, cinema, holidays, restaurants and many more
• Pension scheme with your contributions matched for up to 10% of your salary
• Cycle to work scheme
• SimplyHealth Cash plan
• Onsite Staff shop and online staff discounts
• Bupa Private Medical Insurance
• Competitive Car Allowance
• Electric Car Scheme