Manager of New Product Development, Stationery & Art

Excited to design and develop beautiful new physical products? Minted’s ability to continually innovate and bring to market new and beautifully designed products year after year has been a cornerstone of our success and growth. As Manager of New Product Development, Stationery & Art, you’ll work closely with Minted’s leadership and a cross-functional team to bring to market the most innovative products in Minted’s flagship Wedding, Holiday, Greeting Cards, Fine & Children’s Art and other categories, reinventing the future of retail in these categories by utilizing Minted’s advantage in crowdsourcing the freshest, most unique design to create innovative and delightful products and services.

You will develop products across our direct-to-consumer, wholesale, and physical retail channels, and licensing & partnership opportunities with well-known brands and entities. You’ll travel the world to source the most innovative manufacturing techniques available in the market, and help develop new techniques in conjunction with vendors. This role offers a creative, strategic, and dynamic product leader the opportunity to lead and collaborate cross-functionally with stakeholders across Minted’s largest businesses, including Brand, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Product Management, and Engineering. 

The ideal candidate intuitively understands the end-consumer, shops for these products, and loves great design. They are knowledgeable about product design/manufacturing in the stationery & art spaces, both on-demand and at scale. They thrive in a fast-paced environment and understand the need to be agile. They have superb product intuition, a passion for driving business results, strong collaboration and communication skills, and the ability to both think strategically and roll their sleeves up to get things done quickly and with limited resources. 

Based in Minted’s San Francisco office, this role reports to the Director, Physical Product Design & Development, Stationery & Art, and works closely with Minted’s founder and co-CEO Mariam Naficy. This role requires in-office work (5 days per week), domestic travel, and occasional international travel. Candidates must demonstrate a valid passport and proof of up-to-date vaccination status, including COVID-19. When not traveling, this role regularly interfaces via phone, email, and video conference with vendors in the US Eastern time zone and in Asia; early morning, evening, and weekend availability may be necessary as business requires.

#LI-CB2

You Will:

• Lead the physical product development process for specific product initiatives in Minted’s Wedding, Holiday, Greeting Cards, Fine & Children’s Art and other categories, including competitive research, product specifications, prototyping, testing, and SOP definition to ensure quality standards are are met. 
• Collaborate closely with the Director of New Product Development, Stationery & Art and category teams to test customer interest in new products, refine concepts and prototypes, and ensure that the key product benefits are being effectively communicated via positioning, naming and site experience. 
• Source new manufacturing techniques and innovative competitors. Ensure Minted leads the world in what can be offered in stationery & art categories.
• Occasionally move equipment weighing up to 50 pounds. This role entails physically moving displays, boxes and other visual materials.

You Are:

• A strategic, consumer-centric thinker who has proven the ability to identify opportunities and a sound strategic path to achieve them. You understand consumer segments deeply and intuitively, and you naturally gravitate to the consumer when answering questions or considering strategies.
• Results oriented. You are most comfortable in work environments which are outcome-oriented and merit-based, and are highly motivated by goal accomplishment.A passionate customer advocate. You are ready to put the customer first and influence others across the company to think similarly. 
• Receptive to change. You are flexible, adaptable, innovative, and open in response to competitive pressure and market change.
• A collaborative thinker. You enjoy an environment that has been structured for collaboration and interdependency, drawing on strong functional areas to build your business.
• A shopper or collector. You have strong natural retail insights and an understanding of how and why consumers use Minted products, informed by a personal interest in shopping or collecting design or fashion goods. You have a strong personal passion for Minted’s categories of products.
• A systems thinker. You intuitively understand interdependencies, ask follow-up questions, and drive to solutions that balance the success of initiatives across revenue, quality, brand, and cost goals. 
• A self-starter with the ability to prioritize in a fast paced environment and meet changing deadlines and priorities on multiple simultaneous projects.
• Able to work independently, driving projects to completion with little oversight.
• Willing to roll up your sleeves to execute tasks as needed, get things done quickly and with limited resources.

Qualifications and experience:

• 7+ years of increasing stationery, textile, art, home decor, consumer packaged goods or e-commerce product development experience.
• An eye for great design and intuitive understanding of what customers want, but also what constitutes truly differentiated and high-quality products.
• Exceptional and obsessive detail orientation to ensure brand integrity and flawless execution.
• Exceptional presentation and communication skills with a strong ability to influence others across the organization, vendors, and suppliers.
• Strong prototyping skills and understanding of print, art, textile, home decor manufacturing capabilities and substrates
• Strong command of Adobe Creative Suite
• Thirst for knowledge and passion for new tools and equipment.
• 4 year degree in relevant field, highly preferred

About Minted:

Minted is a design platform bringing the best in independent design to consumers everywhere. The company's art, stationery, and textiles products have reached over 75 million homes worldwide.

Minted uses technology to bring unique, best-selling design to market at scale. Using its crowdsourcing technology, consumers are empowered to vote for the designs they love and want to see sold, ensuring that Minted always sells continuously fresh and trend-forward product. The winning designs are manufactured by Minted, enabling artists from around the world to share and sell their work while letting Minted do the rest. Since launch in 2007, the company has expanded to serve consumers in new categories including wall art, textiles, digital content and home decor, as well as serve major retailers and consumer products brands with data-backed design through licensing and wholesale partnerships. 

Minted is headquartered in San Francisco, CA and currently employs 350+ full-time employees plus additional temporary workers during the holiday season. The company has raised over $300M from top-tier investors including Benchmark Capital, T. Rowe Price, Permira, Ridge Ventures, Technology Crossover Ventures, and Norwest Venture Partners. Angel investors include Marissa Mayer, Jeremy Stoppelman, Julia & Kevin Hartz, Yishan Wong, and more.

Minted is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to inclusion and diversity. We welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives and will consider all qualified applicants for employment in accordance with all state, local, and federal laws. Minted participates in the E-verify program. Minted's Job Applicant Privacy Policy.