Nick Budden

About Nick Budden

Hi! I’m Nick. I do innovation strategy. Mostly for $50MM+ brands. Mostly for…

Experience

1. Founder & Innovation Strategist

   Flavor Forward Strategy

   Jun 2021 — Present

   Independent Strategist partnering with brands to create healthy, sustainable food innovation Recent Projects: • Interim Innovation Director for a ($1B+) private equity backed juice brand. Responsible for creating a unified innovation architecture, shaping consumer insights & unmet needs into innovation platforms, establishing brand guardrails, and driving the brand\'s 3-5 year innovation pipeline. • External Facilitator for a (~$300MM) growth-stage, better for you, better for the planet meat snack. Conducted stakeholder interviews, planned, moderated, and recapped the brand\'s first-ever innovation summit generating 10 testable new product concepts. • Brand Strategist supporting a global team of behavior change specialists & nutritionists. Tasked with landscaping the dietary diversity needs of school-age children in India to fight malnutrition & micronutrient deficiency, mapping best practices & gaps in existing programs (public, private, NGOs, and and making recommendations to further improve the (~$600MM) health drink brand\'s social impact. • Interim Head of Insights & Innovation for a rapidly growing (~$50MM), purpose-driven, clean-label food brand. Responsible for innovation process design & governance, 3-year innovation pipeline development & sell-in, customer-facing category strategy, and long term growth strategy support. • Innovation Strategist for two of the world\'s largest ($1B+) salty snack brands. Elevated jobs to be done with culturally relevant & emotionally rich consumer insights, drafted discussion guides, moderated digital consumer interviews, facilitated cross-functional ideation workshops, and wrote new product platforms & concepts. More here: FlavorFwd.com

Education

• Drake University

  BSBA in Business Administration, Marketing & Public Relations

  2010 — 2014

Skills

• Microsoft Office
• Critical Thinking
• Crm
• Writing
• Integrated Marketing
• Time Management
• Brand Management
• Nielsen
• Sales
• Business Strategy
• Marketing Strategy
• Creative Problem Solving
• Event Planning
• Advertising
• Customer Relations
• Persuasive Communication
• Branding
• Project Management
• Marketing
• Teamwork
• Critical Analysis
• Competitive Analysis
• Public Speaking
• Consumer Behavior
• Social Psychology
• Research