Product Manager

ROLE OVERVIEW

The Strategic Portfolio Manager will lead expansion into new lithium-ion safety product lines within a Chemical Safety business unit. This role owns portfolio strategy, road mapping, and governance for growth programs spanning new-to-the-world product platforms, line extensions, and adjacent categories tied to lithium-ion battery handling, storage, charging, incident mitigation, and compliance-driven safety solutions.

Translate market and customer needs into a prioritized, value-creating portfolio; define where to play and how to win; and drive disciplined execution through stage-gate / new product development processes. Success requires strong cross-functional leadership across engineering, product management, marketing, operations, quality/regulatory, supply chain, and sales—often without direct authority.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Portfolio Strategy and Roadmap Ownership

• Build and maintain the lithium-ion safety category strategy, including customer segments, applications, competitive landscape, and differentiation thesis.
• Define portfolio architecture (platforms, tiers, variants, accessories, and services) to scale growth efficiently.
• Develop and manage a multi-year roadmap aligned to business-unit and enterprise objectives, including revenue, margin, SKU vitality, and risk.
• Own prioritization decisions and resource recommendations across programs, including engineering capacity, capital expenditures, supplier development, and testing bandwidth.

Market Intelligence, Voice of Customer, and Opportunity Assessment

• Lead voice-of-customer insight generation through customer interviews, site visits, channel input, service/incident data, and win/loss learning.
• Translate insights into opportunity spaces, concepts, and product requirements with clear use cases and buying triggers.
• Track emerging trends in battery chemistries, regulations, insurance requirements, facility safety standards, and fire suppression/containment practices; convert findings into actionable portfolio decisions.
• Create business cases with pricing corridors, cost targets, margin models, and investment needs.

Program Governance and Cross-Functional Leadership

• Lead portfolio reviews and governance rhythms, including monthly operating reviews, quarterly roadmap reviews, and gate readiness.
• Ensure rigorous stage-gate execution: problem definition, requirements, risk assessment, validation plans, and launch readiness.
• Drive cross-functional alignment on scope, schedule, cost, and risk; manage tradeoffs and escalate decisions when needed.
• Create standard work for portfolio management, including dashboards, KPIs, templates, decision logs, and lessons learned.

Product Definition, Differentiation, and Value Proposition

• Own product positioning and value proposition development in partnership with business-unit marketing and product management.
• Define competitive claim strategy and validation plans, including test methods, protocols, thresholds, and documentation.
• Partner with engineering to translate requirements into robust designs with clear safety factors, durability, and compliance considerations.
• Build pricing and packaging strategies tied to customer value and total cost of ownership.

Operational Readiness and Launch Excellence

• Partner with operations and supply chain to ensure manufacturability, quality plans, supplier readiness, and capacity alignment.
• Support make/buy decisions and supplier selection aligned to cost, quality, and lead-time needs.
• Lead launch plans and commercialization readiness with sales enablement, channel strategy, and post-launch performance tracking.

Financial and Performance Management

• Own portfolio-level performance, including forecast assumptions, business-case governance, investment tracking, and variance management.
• Define and track KPIs such as pipeline health, NPD throughput, time-to-launch, on-time gate performance, gross margin, mix, attach rates, and field quality.

SUCCESS MEASURES

• Establish a clear, aligned 12–36 month lithium-ion safety portfolio roadmap with measurable growth, margin, and share objectives.
• Maintain a balanced pipeline across core, adjacent, and transformational programs, with transparent investment choices and portfolio tradeoffs.
• Improve cycle time and on-time/on-budget launch performance through strong governance and risk management.
• Apply scalable platform thinking—including modularity, common components, and repeatable validation methods—to improve speed and profitability.
• Develop voice-of-customer-driven product definitions with compelling value propositions and differentiated claims supported by test data.
• Deliver launch-ready programs that are operationally executable (capacity, tooling, quality controls, sourcing) and commercially enabled (pricing, channels, training, content).

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or a related field; Engineering strongly preferred. MBA is a plus.
• 3+ years of experience in portfolio management, product management, strategy, or new product development leadership in industrial/manufacturing environments.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional new product development portfolios through a stage-gate process.
• Strong business-case development skills, including market sizing, pricing, margin modeling, and investment tradeoffs.
• Proven ability to influence without authority, with strong executive communication and stakeholder management.
• Ability to travel approximately 25% to plants, test labs, customer sites, and corporate offices.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE

• Experience in industrial safety, hazardous materials handling, chemical safety, EHS products, fire protection, or containment systems.
• Exposure to lithium-ion battery safety applications, including storage, charging rooms, thermal runaway mitigation, smoke/fire containment, or compliant enclosures.
• Familiarity with relevant standards and compliance environments such as OSHA, NFPA, UL, or comparable frameworks.
• Experience launching platform-based products and building modular portfolios with common components and scalable variants.

Pay: $120,000.00 - $145,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Health insurance
• Retirement plan

Work Location: Remote