NPD Manager - Bleach London Hair Products!

Hello, I’m Bleach London! 

The meteoric rise of hair brand Bleach London is best described by Time Out as  “The grungy salon that pioneered the dip-dye, then conquered the globe.” The female-led, boundary-pushing business was launched by Alex Brownsell and Sam Campbell in 2010 as the world’s first salon focused on colour. 

With a closely knit family of international premises, ever-expanding vegan product range and intuitive digital salon services, Brownsell and Campbell have reimagined the way people approach their hair. They’re on a mission to make Bleach’s expertise accessible to all, so anyone can express themselves through their hair colour affordably and informatively.   

To date, the company has sold over £30million worth of products in the UK alone and is carried in retailers including Boots, Cult Beauty and ASOS. The coveted Bleach brand, regularly featured in Vogue, Dazed, i-D and more, paired with its pioneering approach, marks a new era in digital beauty and at-home hair dyeing. 

With a team of dedicated specialists across creative, colour chemistry, styling, retail, marketing, social, digital, data and global operations, Bleach saw a 600% D2C growth in 2020 and is set to continue to expand in 2021. New market launches including the USA will continue to reinforce Bleach’s position as a leader in the £40billion hair colourant category.

We’re a diverse and credible team set to build a business of significant value in the $70B haircare industry, and the NPD Manager is central to delivering on our vision.

A bit about the role

It’s critical we stay ahead of the competition in the category by making first to market, and best on the market, trend led products. We currently are in a real sweet spot whereby we can turn NPD around a lot quicker than the corporates due to the efforts of our stylists turning around trials and our super tight sign off process. And we’re a good enough size that the profession and leading manufacturers want to work with us (which an emerging brand might not have access to) So we need to keep working on doing everything we can to reduce and improve the NPD cycle.

Some of the things you’ll be doing:

• Getting products to market and quickly with super quick NPD cycles
• Project Management the NPD process - detailed knowledge of how to meet deadlines, overcome obstacles and issues at speed 
• Be a valued member of the Brand Team, you will be responsible for overseeing NPD, sustaining momentum and driving forward projects, mitigating risk, ensuring supply and continuously  improving processes for managing and delivering projects
• Be accountable for the success of projects from start to finish, including RFQs for a variety of products and services
• Contributing to cross-functional projects and routinely present recommendations and operational considerations to the wider Bleach team to inform the company’s strategy for product launches
• Lead negotiations with current and future suppliers to support our business objectives; including cost, contracts, superior formulation 
• Manage relationships with your suppliers, organising business reviews and escalating issues when necessary
• Partner with multiple internal teams in achieving innovation and commercial goals, including Retail, Finance, Design, Logistics.

Must have experience:

• Preferably some experience in an analytical supply chain/operations role, but we would love to hear from candidates with any valuable experience relevant to the role
• Outstanding communication (written and verbal) for internal and external communication and values relationships/teamwork cross-functionally
• Managing budgets, researching cost comparisons and communicating proposals to the wider business.
• You are a learner - always seeking to improve yourself, your team, your suppliers and the world around you
• You appreciate a great result quantitatively and qualitatively and celebrate accordingly, but you also recognise a failure and take pride in learning from experience and feedback
• You're humble and understand that contributions to our success as a brand come in all shapes and sizes
• You’ll be an advocate for all things related to sustainability with the NPD process, formulation and packaging.  

Here’s what we think about Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging…

At Bleach London we want the diversity of our team to reflect the diversity of our customers. We pride ourselves on an inclusive work environment where everyone feels supported and respected which in turn nurtures new ideas, thinking and approaches.