Job Description
THE MISSION
ZURU Edge is on a mission to disrupt the world’s biggest beauty categories — fast. Backed by world-class manufacturing in China, founder-led ambition out of Auckland, and disruptive sell-in across the US and EU, we build brands that earn their place on shelf at Ulta, Sephora, Target, Walmart, Amazon and beyond.
The Beauty Innovation Executive is the radar and the engine of our pipeline. You’ll obsess over what’s hot before it’s hot, spot the white spaces our category giants are sleeping on, and turn that insight into briefs that hit shelf in months, not years. You’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with the Innovation Director, our creative and commercial teams in Auckland, operations in China, and sales partners around the world. Your playground: centered on Men’s and Skincare, but our pipeline moves fast and you'll go where the next white space takes us. Main market is the world’s most exciting beauty environment — the US, with a fast-growing presence in the EU.
WHY THIS ROLE MATTERS
Innovation is the engine of ZURU Edge’s growth. This role is instrumental in feeding the Beauty vertical with the right brands, the right products, and the right ideas at the speed our business demands. The work you ship here will land in carts, on shelves, and on TikTok feeds around the world.
WHAT YOU WILL OWN
Know the market. Live the consumer.
Be the resident expert on your categories and the people who buy them — what they want, what they pay for, what they post about.
Inhale TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, Reddit and trend platforms like WGSN every day. Surface what matters in a weekly trend drop to the team.
Tap into Korean and Chinese innovation through our China ops team — translate what’s winning in Asia into what could win for ZURU.
Cut through Nielsen, Circana, Amazon best-seller and other data sources to size the prize and spot the gaps.
Walk Ulta, Sephora, Target, Walmart and Amazon — physically and digitally — tracking every launch our competitors make.
Stay close to creators and consumers: scan reviews, talk to real people, run quick-turn surveys when you need a sharper read.
Spot the gap. Create the magic.
Identify the white spaces big beauty is too slow to fill, and build a sharp, differentiated proposal: positioning, target consumer, hero product, line architecture, claims, price ladder.
Write the briefs that get our creative, formulation and packaging teams fired up — the kind of brief that turns into a brand.
Use AI every day. Trend synthesis, ideation, claim sharpening, mood-boarding, mocks — we expect you to push the frontier of how innovation gets done at ZURU.
Work with our commercial team to build the business case: identify the right competitor pricing, ensure target margin is respected and that the innovation fits the retailer. Innovation has to make commercial sense before it makes it to shelf.
Drive it to shelf.
Run the pipeline end-to-end: claim lists, sample rounds, testing, timelines, costs
Manage benchmark buys, sample organisation and competitive teardowns — keep R&D and creative armed with what they need.
Coordinate across Auckland (brand, creative, commercial), China (operations, sourcing, formulation) and US/EU (sales). Keep everyone aligned and moving.
Present your work at innovation gates: pitch to leadership, defend your thinking, evolve the proposition.
Close the loop post-launch — track sell-in, sell-through and consumer response, and feed the learnings into the next round.
WHAT YOU BRING
3–5 years in beauty, FMCG, CPG, retail, consulting or a related innovation/marketing role.
A degree in business, marketing, engineering or equivalent.
A genuine obsession with beauty — you can talk fragrance notes, actives, formats, hero brands and indie disruptors without prep.
A nose for a trend before it trends. You’re on TikTok before breakfast and you can articulate why something is about to pop.
Sharp commercial instincts — you can read a P&L, work a pivot table in your sleep, and turn data into a decision.
Ridiculously organised — you can run twenty projects without dropping one.
A great communicator who can write a brief, pitch a deck and email a buyer with equal confidence.
Comfortable with AI — you’ve already pulled tools like Claude, ChatGPT and image-gen into how you work.
Fast, scrappy, curious, ambitious. You like building more than perfecting.
WHY ZURU
ZURU is one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer companies — founder-led, global by design, and built on a refusal to do things the slow, traditional way. Our HQ sits in Freeman’s Bay, Auckland, with teams across China, the US and Europe.
You’ll work alongside sharp people, ship product faster than anyone in the industry, and own a slice of a category in a market that doesn’t wait around. If you want a JD that says “support the team” — this isn’t it. If you want to build brands that people post about, this is the room.
WHAT WE OFFER
🌱 Culture for Growth
🧘 Health & Well Being Benefits
🌎 Global Opportunities
💡 Surrounded by an A Player Team
💰 Competitive Remuneration
🍓 Lots of fresh fruit, coffee, pals fridge and more
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