Director, New Business Development 

SharkNinja  |  Product Incubation  |  Reports to: SVP, Product Incubation 

Purpose 

This is a future-oriented role that requires skills in creating brand-new categories for SharkNinja, operating at the fuzzy front end of the innovation development process. No single role today carries the full cross-functional capability needed to take a category from a blank sheet to a fundable, roadmap-ready opportunity – this role fills that gap. It combines capabilities in product development, technical program management, and consumer insights, and finance in one leader who can identify, evaluate, recommend, and develop categories SharkNinja does not compete in today. 

The role serves four purposes: 

• Leadership. Set the vision for a new category and drive the decisions that move it forward. 

• Business model development. Shape raw market trends and ideas into sustainable, high-growth, high-margin businesses and products, backed by financial and quantitative analysis. 

• New product development. Identify, define, and develop the product concepts that establish SharkNinja's entry into the category. 

• Partnership development. Find and lead the external product and technology partnerships that accelerate category entry. 

Key Responsibilities 

Category leadership and vision 

• Own selected new-category initiatives end-to-end at the front end: business and product vision, product definition, and portfolio strategy. 

• Act as the connective enabler across PD, ACE, consumer insight, finance, and external partners. 

• Drive timely decisions so early initiatives make rapid progress and do not stall. 

Market and business case development 

• Run market and consumer research to size categories, assess trends, and synthesize insights. 

• Map the competitive landscape and define where SharkNinja can win. 

• Build the financial models that test revenue and margin potential and go-to-market scenarios. 

• Present a balanced view of risk and opportunity, with the few metrics that matter most. 

Product concept development 

• Ideate product concepts for SharkNinja's entry into the category. 

• Screen opportunities on Desirability, Viability, and Feasibility (DVF). 

• Work with ACE to start development and inject concepts onto the SharkNinja product roadmap. 

• Build the final business case and present it to executive leadership for a go decision. 

Partnerships 

• Initiate and build relationships with external category and technology experts. 

• Identify new partner opportunities that support category and product strategy. 

• Connect internal teams and external partners to share information and move faster. 

Education and Experience 

• Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, or engineering. MBA preferred. 

• 8 to 10 years of experience, including category creation, new business development, or a combined strategy and execution role. 

Required Skills 

• Exemplary leadership: inspire, motivate, guide, and drive individuals from broad functional backgrounds to deliver significant business results. 

• Exercises high judgment in early-stage, ambiguous work. 

• Passion for creating game-changing products that solve major consumer problems. 

• Strong business evaluation, analysis, and problem-solving to assess and develop new opportunities. 

• Excellent critical thinking and thought leadership. 

• Manage multiple initiatives at once, each at a different stage of development and across very different consumer categories. 

• Develop and manage productive relationships with external partners and SMEs to find opportunities and create complementary products. 

• Strong team orientation, with the ability to coach and mentor regardless of reporting relationships. 

• Self-starter who works with minimal direction and keeps information flowing openly. 

• Communicate complex ideas simply and present persuasively to executive leadership. 

• Influence across the organization at all levels, including outside your span of control or authority. 

• Guide and steer engineering and design direction. 

• Creative, adaptive, and comfortable operating in a high ambiguity environment 

• Balances business acumen with technical capability; thinks strategically, acts tactically.