Director of Innovation

Director, Innovation

Location: Dallas, TX (onsite)

What You'll Do:

Relate Search has partnered with a high-growth, globally recognized restaurant brand in its search for a Director of Innovation. This is a highly visible leadership role responsible for building and operating a scalable innovation engine that drives profitable growth across menu offerings, customer occasions, and brand experiences.

Reporting into the Marketing organization, this leader will sit at the intersection of strategy, consumer insights, commercialization, and operational execution. The Director of Innovation will own the end-to-end innovation lifecycle—from identifying emerging consumer opportunities to testing, scaling, and optimizing new products and experiences—while ensuring every initiative delivers measurable business impact and operational feasibility.

This is an exciting opportunity for a strategic and commercially minded innovator to shape the future of a category-leading consumer brand through a disciplined, data-driven innovation agenda.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end innovation pipeline, developing and executing a repeatable process for ideation, testing, commercialization, and post-launch optimization across menu items, flavors, occasions, and customer experiences.
• Drive a structured test-and-learn agenda, leveraging consumer insights, cultural trends, analytics, and performance data to identify growth opportunities and accelerate speed-to-market.
• Partner with Finance, Marketing, Culinary, Operations, Digital, Supply Chain, and Analytics teams to evaluate opportunities, define success metrics, and ensure operational scalability.
• Establish innovation scorecards, revenue hypotheses, and performance frameworks that measure incremental traffic, profitability, customer adoption, and long-term business impact.
• Build and manage a balanced portfolio of innovation initiatives, making disciplined decisions to scale, refine, or discontinue programs based on performance and strategic priorities.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Innovation, or a related field required; MBA or advanced degree strongly preferred.
• 10 years of experience in innovation, brand strategy, product development, marketing, or related disciplines, preferably within QSR, restaurant, retail, or consumer packaged goods environments.
• Proven track record leading innovation initiatives from concept through commercialization, with demonstrated success driving measurable business results.
• Strong analytical and commercial acumen, including experience leveraging consumer insights, testing methodologies, performance analytics, and business case development.
• Exceptional leadership, communication, and cross-functional influence skills, with the ability to drive alignment and execution in a fast-paced, highly collaborative environment.

Perks & Benefits:

• Opportunity to lead innovation for one of the fastest-growing brands in its category.
• High visibility and partnership with executive leadership across Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, and Commercial teams.
• Competitive compensation package including base salary, bonus, equity participation, and comprehensive benefits.
• Significant opportunity to shape future growth strategies and advance within a rapidly expanding global organization.

Relate Search is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity and are committed to building inclusive teams where everyone belongs. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.