Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

Innovation Program Management Lead OTC is a senior leader within Portfolio & Project Management and a crucial contributor to successful delivery of Haleon’s innovation agenda. The role integrates business objectives, technical development plans, operational execution, governance, and organizational capability building. This leader orchestrates complex cross-functional programs across Commercial, R&D, Supply Chain, Quality, Regulatory and other functions to ensure strategic initiatives deliver business value. 

Role Scope 

• Innovation Program Leadership for Category – Lead complex, high-value innovation programs including new product development, claims innovation, process improvements and brand upgrades. 

• Innovation Portfolio Management – Provide visibility to project sufficiency, risks, dependencies, prioritization decisions and resource requirements. Deliver the Category/OU innovation scorecard  

• Integrated Innovation Master Planning – Develop and maintain by category integrated cross-functional plans and milestone alignment. 

• Governance & Stage Gate Excellence – Lead governance forums, stage-gate readiness, change control and decision processes. Ensures ambition for agility and speed and enterprise risk are associated in order to make sound decisions 

• Capability Building – Drive Project management best practices, tools, governance models and continuous improvement initiatives. 

• People Leadership – Coach, mentor and develop Project Managers and Senior Project Managers. 

• Decision Support – Provide strategic recommendations regarding investment choices, prioritization and delivery trade-offs. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Lead strategic innovation programs from concept through commercialization. 

• Build and lead high-performing cross-functional teams. 

• Maintain integrated project plans, budgets, resource forecasts and risk registers. 

• Drive speed to impact through disciplined planning and execution. 

• Partner with portfolio teams to support governance reviews and reporting. 

• Ensure project information accuracy within enterprise PPM systems. 

• Lead gate readiness and execution of governance outcomes. 

• Resolve risks, issues, conflicts and bottlenecks through influence and negotiation. 

• Conduct lessons learned reviews and institutionalize best practices. 

• Champion organizational capability building and PM excellence. 

• Role-model Haleon behaviors and leadership principles. 

Qualifications and Skills – Essential 

• Strong business leadership and commercial acumen. 

• Extensive project and portfolio management experience in complex matrix organizations. 

• Ability to connect business objectives, technical possibilities and operational execution. 

• Influence without authority and effective executive stakeholder management. 

• Excellent communication, negotiation and conflict-resolution skills. 

• Proven people leadership, coaching and talent-development capability. 

• Expertise in governance, stage-gate management, risk management and change control. 

• Ability to drive vision and purpose, and change management with high people engagement in tagged 

Knowledge, Education and Experience 

• Bachelor’s degree in Science, Engineering, Business, Supply Chain or related field. 

• 10+ years of experience across Project Management, Commercial, Supply Chain, R&D or Innovation functions. 

• Experience within Consumer Healthcare, CPG, Pharmaceutical or Medical Device environments preferred. 

• PMP, Agile, Program Management or Portfolio Management certifications preferred. 

 Job Posting End Date

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong.

During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. 

The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We’ll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence. 

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account (@haleon.com). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.