Project Management Lead - Personal Care

Overview

The Project Management Lead for the Personal Care Portfolio will drive end-to-end execution across a diverse personal care portfolio within the organization. This role owns the consolidated project pipeline and ensures structured governance, prioritization, and predictable delivery in a highly agile and business-driven environment. The portfolio may span skincare, haircare, hygiene, and other topical personal care categories. While the direct team is lean, this role leads and aligns a broader project network of stakeholders across R&D, Regulatory, QA, Procurement, Packaging, Marketing, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing. This position requires strong cross-functional influence, execution discipline, speed of decision-making, and the ability to bring structure to complexity in a fast-moving and aggressive launch environment.

Responsibilities

Portfolio & Governance Leadership

• Own the consolidated project pipeline for the Personal Care portfolio.
• Drive structured prioritization aligned with business goals, launch readiness, and market opportunities.
• Implement and maintain stage-gate governance, milestone tracking, and launch readiness reviews.
• Ensure risk visibility and proactive escalation to leadership for fast decision-making.

End-to-End Project Delivery

• Lead execution from concept/brief through development, validation, regulatory clearance, production, and launch.
• Ensure clarity of scope, timeline, and accountability across functions.
• Drive adherence to milestone plans and manage critical path dependencies in an aggressive timeline environment.
• Anticipate and mitigate risks related to formulation performance, packaging feasibility, claims, compliance, and supply readiness.

Cross-Functional Coordination (Large Stakeholder Environment)

• Act as the central integration point across 40-60 cross-functional team members.
• Align diverse teams toward common delivery objectives and speed-to-market commitments.
• Facilitate decision-making forums, drive closure, and remove bottlenecks.
• Manage trade-offs between speed, compliance, cost, quality, and brand expectations.
• Collaborate closely with Regulatory and QA to ensure compliant and timely submissions and approvals.
• Minimize rework through first-time-right planning and strong upfront alignment.

Performance Management & Reporting

• Track KPIs including On-Time Launch, Development Cycle Time, Cost Adherence, and Risk Escalation Trends.
• Provide structured dashboards and crisp project updates to business and R&D leadership.
• Drive corrective actions and recovery plans when delivery risks arise.

Key Competencies & Requirements

• 10-12 years of experience in project/program management within FMCG, Personal Care, Cosmetics, Pharma, Nutraceutical, or regulated consumer health categories.
• Proven ability to manage large cross-functional teams in matrix organizations.
• Strong understanding of product development lifecycle, especially for personal care and regulated categories.
• Demonstrated experience managing multiple concurrent launches under aggressive timelines.
• High emotional intelligence and strong influencing capability without reliance on authority.
• Structured thinker with strong risk anticipation and mitigation skills.
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity, frequent priority shifts, and driving accountability across teams.