Sr PM, Product Development (Beauty)
Employment Type: Freelance
Position Summary
The Sr PM, Product Development is a freelance leadership role responsible for managing the execution of new product initiatives, line extensions, and updates across a fast-paced consumer brand environment. This person will guide projects from concept through launch, ensuring cross-functional teams stay aligned, deadlines are met, and priorities remain clear throughout the development lifecycle.
This role calls for a highly organized project leader who can bring structure to complexity, balance multiple workstreams at once, and confidently partner with stakeholders across product, packaging, sourcing, regulatory, creative, and marketing. The ideal candidate is proactive, solutions-oriented, and comfortable operating in an environment where speed, collaboration, and adaptability are essential.
Key Responsibilities
Project Leadership & Execution
- Lead multiple product development projects simultaneously from kickoff through commercialization.
- Build and manage detailed project plans, timelines, milestones, and dependencies.
- Monitor progress against deliverables and proactively address risks, delays, or scope changes.
- Ensure teams remain focused on priorities and critical deadlines throughout the launch cycle.
Cross-Functional Coordination
- Serve as the central point of contact across Product Development, Packaging, R&D, Supply Chain, Regulatory, Legal, Creative, and Marketing.
- Facilitate status meetings, working sessions, and milestone reviews to maintain alignment.
- Communicate project updates, action items, and next steps clearly to stakeholders at all levels.
- Support coordination across distributed teams and external partners when needed.
Process & Operational Improvement
- Strengthen project management processes to improve visibility, accountability, and speed to market.
- Create and maintain trackers, dashboards, status reports, and documentation for active initiatives.
- Help standardize workflows and templates to support more consistent execution.
- Identify opportunities to streamline approvals, handoffs, and decision-making across teams.
Planning, Prioritization & Risk Management
- Support prioritization across a changing portfolio of projects and business needs.
- Partner with functional leads to evaluate timelines, capacity, and resource constraints.
- Anticipate challenges that could affect product readiness, launch timing, or execution quality.
- Develop practical mitigation plans and follow through to keep initiatives on track.
Launch Readiness
- Coordinate readiness across teams to ensure launches are delivered smoothly and on time.
- Drive milestone checkpoints, go/no-go reviews, and post-launch follow-ups.
- Align product delivery timing with broader business, campaign, and retail objectives.
- Help establish a clear operating rhythm that improves consistency across launches.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- 7+ years of project or program management experience, preferably in beauty, consumer products, or another fast-paced industry.
- Proven ability to manage complex cross-functional product development or commercialization programs.
- Strong skills in planning, prioritization, risk management, and stakeholder communication.
- Experience with project management tools such as Asana, Smartsheet, Wrike, or similar platforms.
- Exceptional organizational skills and attention to detail.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present updates clearly and concisely.
- Comfort working in a high-growth environment with evolving priorities and tight timelines.
- Experience collaborating with global or distributed teams is a plus.
What Success Looks Like
- Projects are organized, visible, and progressing according to plan.
- Stakeholders remain aligned on priorities, timelines, and ownership.
- Risks are surfaced early and addressed before they impact launch timing.
- Cross-functional teams work more efficiently through clearer processes and communication.
- Product launches are executed with strong coordination and fewer last-minute issues.
