Supply Planning & Innovation Director

innocent’s tasty fruit and veggie-based juices and smoothies are known as ‘Europe’s favorite healthy little drinks.’ The company recently opened a new carbon-neutral factory in Rotterdam and is looking for a Supply Planning & Innovation Director to lead their strategic transition to increase inhouse production.

About innocent

Launched in 1999, innocent started with a simple mission: to create tasty drinks that are also good for you. Back then, they mixed smoothies and handed them out at a music festival. Today, they offer a wide variety of healthy fruit and veggie-based drinks — and sell more than two million bottles per week.

The company is owned by Coca-Cola and until recently, relied on third-party partners and co-packers to fulfill their supply chain needs. But in 2021, innocent built a new juice and smoothie factory. which is called ‘the blender’ in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The carbon neutral facility enables the brand to produce and pack the majority of their products inhouse and support their mission to work more efficiently and sustainably. innocent is proud to be a B Corporation and donates ten percent of annual profits to charity, including their own innocent Foundation, which helps to prevent world hunger.

In the past two years, innocent has grown significantly. This expansion continues as they ramp up their production capacities at the blender. innocence is on a journey to stabilize their inhouse operations and build up their supply chain teams, which will enable the blender to run smoothly and maintain their market position as Europe’s favorite healthy little drinks company.

Vacancy: Supply Planning & Innovation Director

After opening their ultra-modern carbon-neutral factory, ‘the blender,’ innocent is undergoing an important scale-up phase. The Supply Planning & Innovation Director will drive this transition, put the right innovative systems, processes, and teams in place to ensure the company’s production and delivery run smoothly. They will develop innocent’s end-to-end planning strategy, implement new tools and ways of working, and guide the team along this transition to a new ERP-enabled supply chain.

In the short term, innocent is working to transition eighty percent of their production from third-party supplies to the blender. The Director will take a hands-on role to manage this transition effectively, ensuring the blender can run at the desired capacity by the end of 2024. They will maintain the company’s strong relationships with external partners as their role in innocent’s supplier network changes, while keeping all supply planning on track at the blender.

Utilizing data to maintain a detailed oversight of the current production situation, the Director develops plans that align with the company’s goals of increasing production capacity at the blender. They offer clear recommendations to procurement, enabling the team to in-source more volume while maintaining ninety-eight point five percent service consistently across all regions.

The Director will ensure the company’s entire European supply chain network is on track to deliver Long-range Planning (LRP) against commitments. They are proactive and planning to consistently identify challenges, implement solutions, and pursue strategic opportunities for innovation and growth. Focused on maximizing efficiencies, they will drive standardization across the blender and with co-packers, while implementing KPIs to monitor service, volume, cost base, quality, and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

They will be a key part of the supply leadership team and report to the Group Supply Chain Director. The Director will lead a team of thirty employees responsible for innocent’s supply chain planning and innovation delivery activities, including finished goods, materials, logistics planning and packaging, as well as new products and supply commercialization. The Director will also manage innocent’s indirect co-packer and supplier base.

As a confident and energetic leader, the Director connects and motivates their team. They have a vision for the future of innocent’s supply chain and understand how to effectively manage the change needed to achieve it. They emphasize the importance of teamwork and create a culture of accountability and achievement, supporting professional growth while working towards achieving results.

“innocent is in the middle of a major business transition, and our success depends on how we handle it. The Supply Planning & Innovation Director will bring the knowledge, structure and leadership needed to get our production at the blender running at full speed, and ensure our supply network is helping us realize our ambitious growth and sustainability goals.” – Maeve Lynch, Chief of Blender

innocent employees live by the company’s five main values: to be commercial, responsible, natural, open-minded, and unified. They all share a passion for the company’s mission to keep people healthy and make sure our planet becomes healthier too. This role is perfect for a results-driven individual with strong project management skills and a background in supply chain transformation and planning who is looking for a leadership position where they can make a significant impact.

Interested?

innocent is working with Top of Minds to fill this vacancy.
To express your interest, please contact Annelijn Nijhuis at annelijn.nijhuis@topofminds.com.