Helene Rutledge
About Helene Rutledge
I am a forward-thinking Innovation, R&D, and business transformation strategist with over 15 years of leadership experience across Fortune 100 organizations and as a Founder of dynamic start-ups. My journey has spanned diverse sectors, including digital health, clinical nutrition, alternative pain management, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and consumer products, where I have consistently built lean, profitable, and sustainable innovation ecosystems. Throughout my career, I have been at the forefront of driving vision, strategy, and execution for innovation and new product development. My expertise extends to product commercialization, launches, lifecycle optimization, business restructuring, and M&As. I take pride in my ability to champion and integrate customer-oriented value propositions, insights-driven business models, lean operational processes, and open innovation methodologies. As a chemical engineer and an EMBA graduate, I leverage my technical and business skills to design, develop, and deliver solutions that address the needs and preferences of our customers and partners. This holistic approach accelerates speed-to-market, improves product quality, and ensures regulatory compliance. Career Highlights: • Founded Upgraid as a developer of organic, D2C nutritional supplements and drove the product lifecycle from concept to launch in just 6 months, delivering YoY revenue growth and merging with Mend Nutrition. • Created the Upgraid by Mend digital health solution for Total Joint Replacement from MVP to pilot. As part of Mend’s leadership team, drove fundraising and business development, securing $15M in Series A funding. • Built a lean innovation ecosystem for Avon International Products, restructuring included delivering a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, launching the first-to-market Espira™ nutritional supplement line, and generating $450M in annual product portfolio revenue. • Streamlined product development and innovation across a $3B pipeline at The Nature’s Bounty Company, driving 6 product launches and reducing post-launch rework from 32% to under 10% in a year. • Partnered with David Edwards (the inventor of inhaled insulin and Founder of AeroDesigns) to drive product innovation and delivery, optimizing existing product delivery with a 35% COGS reduction. • Led GSK’s newly formed Global Open Innovation team to deliver 50% of the new product development pipeline through external technology licensing, partnering, and co-development. • Founded Caliper Innovation, a consultancy firm working with CPG and healthcare companies