NPD (New Product Development) Operations Strategist

About the Job

🎯 NPD (New Product Development) Operations Strategist

🌍 London, N4

️ 4 days in our office, 1 day working from home

🤝 Reporting to Kelan Patel, Operations

💰 £45-55k per annum + equity

Join Shellworks as an Operations Strategist and help us materialise a better future by eliminating

plastic pollution.

About Shellworks

Our vision is a world where the products around you don't damage our environment or our health. At

Shellworks we're making that a reality by creating high performance plastic-free materials for everyday

products.

Our technology Vivomer makes the impossible possible. It's grown by bacteria using fermentation,

creating a material that is stable in use but degrades in every environment. Its breakthrough is being

dishwasherable and home compostable at the same time.

We've closed our Series A and are working with some of the world's most recognised brands to replace

plastic at volume. We're at an inflection point: scaling from proof-of-concept to mass-market production.

About the Role

This is a high impact role sitting at the heart of Shellworks’ desire to deliver 1 Billion units by 2030. You

will drive new initiatives to market standing up operational capabilities and relentlessly executing against

them. We are looking for a system builder who can go deep into new problems (e.g. launching our D2C

business in a new geography or delivering a new product to market) to drive Shellworks forwards.

You will need deep understanding of what Shellworks does and who we are to constantly bring

commercial/ operational & engineering views to new problems and find the right solutions for

Shellworks

Key Responsibilities:

• ● Drive new products to market: Own the delivery of new Shellworks products (e.g. Suri
• toothbrush/ Before Oral Care bottles/ Ocean Saver cleaning products), balancing financial,
• commercial and engineering perspectives to deliver success for the customer
• ● Own the operations for new initiatives: Lead the execution of our newest initiatives. In the
• short term this is launching direct to consumer products in 2 geographies.
• ● Leverage analysis for decision making: Build robust analysis of the operational expenditures,
• understand what decision cost and why, to maintain healthy scaling pathways
• ● Identify Improvement opportunities: Relentlessly hunt for ways to improve systems and fix gaps
• Our Ideal Candidate
• ● High-agency owner: 3+ years in a high-intensity operational environment (e.g. Start-up, Strategy
• Consulting) where you’ve owned, end-to-end, the outcomes and process of high-stakes projects.
• ● Strong first-principles thinker: You break unfamiliar problems down to their fundamentals and
• reason your way to the best answer, balancing analysis, research and judgement to decide and
• move
• ● Operational Excellence: You execute with high precision under conditions of high ambiguity and
• uncertainty, maintaining momentum against tight timelines without constant supervision
• ● Bias to execution: You are relentless about turning strategy into shipped reality. Ambiguity and
• obstacles energise you rather than stall you, and you keep momentum without needing to be
• managed
• ● Solution-focused: When something isn’t working, you find another way. You’ve pushed through
• hard things before and you’ll learn whatever it takes to make this succeed
• ● STEM Background
• What we offer
• 🌴 28 days holiday + statutory holidays
• 👶 12 weeks maternity, 6 weeks paternity, both at full pay
• 💚 Heka wellbeing allowance - gym, therapy, nutrition, fertility support and more
• 🩺 Virtual GP with same or next day appointments
• 🚲 Cycle to work scheme - save up to 42% via salary sacrifice
• 🍕 Daily catered lunch at the office
• Hiring Process
• 📞 Initial Chat
• 🧠 Technical task
• 🏭 Onsite
• 🙌Offer subject to 2 references