VP, Innovation

Title: Vice President, Innovation

Location: Stamford, CT 

Job Type: Full-Time, Exempt 

About the Role:  

Curaleaf is looking for a Vice President of Innovation to define, lead, and scale the company’s end-to-end innovation agenda across its house of brands and major product categories, including flower, pre-rolls, vapes, edibles, and emerging cannabis formats. The VP of Innovation will be responsible for the renovation pipeline from consumer insight through commercialization, ensuring that new products are differentiated, brand-led, technically feasible, margin-accretive, regulatory-compliant, and executable across Curaleaf’s multi-state operating model. This leader must bring the rigor of best-in-class CPG innovation while understanding the unique complexity of cannabis: state-by-state regulations, operational variability, supply constraints, product quality variation, evolving consumer behavior, and a category that is still early in the development of true national brands.

What You’ll Do: 

• Define and lead Curaleaf’s enterprise innovation strategy across brands, categories, formats, and markets, ensuring alignment with long-term brand strategy, category growth priorities, consumer opportunities, and commercial goals. 
• Build and manage a prioritized innovation and renovation pipeline across flower, pre-rolls, vapes, edibles, and emerging categories, balancing near-term revenue opportunities with longer-term platform, technology, and brand-building innovation. 
• Ensure the pipeline is sufficient in terms of revenue potential, margin impact, scalability, timing, and strategic importance to deliver Curaleaf’s short-term and long-term growth objectives. 
• Create a clear framework for how Curaleaf evaluates innovation opportunities, including consumer desirability, brand fit, technical feasibility, regulatory feasibility, operational complexity, commercial viability, margin impact, and portfolio role. 
• Partner with Brand, Commercial, Finance, and Operations to ensure innovation choices strengthen the portfolio rather than create unnecessary complexity, cannibalization, or fragmentation. 
• Prepare and deliver regular updates to the Executive Leadership Team on innovation pipeline health, priority initiatives, key decisions, risks, launch readiness, and post-launch performance. 
• Partner with R&D to manage relationships with external partners across ingredients, hardware, packaging, equipment, product technology, formulation, sensory, manufacturing support, and enabling innovation capabilities. 

    
What You’ll Bring:

• 12+ years of experience in innovation, product development, product strategy, R&D, commercialization, brand-led innovation, or portfolio strategy within CPG, cannabis, food and beverage, wellness, beauty, alcohol, nicotine alternatives, or adjacent consumer industries. 
• Strong understanding of CPG innovation best practices, including stage-gate processes, concept development, consumer validation, business case development, commercialization planning, and post-launch performance measurement. 
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, including experience evaluating revenue potential, margin impact, pricing, cost of goods, incrementality, and portfolio tradeoffs. 
• Experience working closely with R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Regulatory, Finance, Sales, Brand Marketing, and external partners. 
• Cannabis experience is a plus, but not required. Curiosity, adaptability, consumer orientation, and the ability to learn the category quickly are essential. 
• Ability to lead through influence in a complex, matrixed organization. 
• Experience in regulated, operationally complex, or multi-market environments strongly preferred. 

What Success Looks Like 

Success in this role means Curaleaf has a disciplined, consumer-led innovation engine that consistently delivers stronger products, sharper brand differentiation, faster speed to market, better commercialization discipline, and measurable business impact. The VP of Innovation will help Curaleaf move from opportunistic product development to a more strategic CPG-style innovation model: fewer random launches, stronger consumer reasons for being, clearer brand roles, better cross-functional execution, stronger margin discipline, and a higher hit rate in market. 

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

This position directly supervises the work activities of others and is accountable for the management of others, through a subordinate supervisor, concerning selection, recommending termination, performance appraisal, and professional development.