Description:
Chief Product Officer
· Location: Perth, on-site (Uluu HQ, Waterman’s Bay)
· Reports to: Co-CEOs
· Start Date: April 2026
· Type: Full-time, permanent position
· Starting salary: AUD 180,000 p. a. plus 12% superannuation
· Starting equity: 0.3% options (subject to plan terms and approvals).
About Uluu
Uluu is an Australian startup creating a new class of natural materials to replace conventional plastics. We produce polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) that perform like plastic but are made from seaweed rather than fossil fuels. Our materials are biodegradable, non-toxic, and climate-positive at scale.
Backed by leading global investors and brand partners, we are moving from pilot production into commercial scale, with applications across multiple industries.
A core pillar of Uluu’s strategy is the development of fibre-grade PHA pellets capable of replacing polyester in textile applications, alongside continued optimisation of injection-moulding grades.
We are now hiring a Chief Product Officer to lead this transition: translating Uluu’s technology into commercially successful products, with a primary mandate to bring the company’s fibre-grade pellets to industrial readiness.
About the role
As Uluu’s Chief Product Officer, you will own the product strategy that turns Uluu’s seaweed-based PHAs into fit-for-purpose products at industrial scale. This is a pivotal leadership role with a clear near-term mandate: to bring Uluu’s fibre-grade PHA pellets from development through industrial validation and into early commercial deployment in textiles.
The role exists because Uluu’s textile opportunity, spanning fibre-grade pellets, melt-spun yarns, and finished textiles, requires ambition, integration, and execution across internal teams and a global network of industrial partners. This work cannot be effectively housed within any single function, and
requires dedicated product leadership to ensure ambition, integration, and execution.
You will lead Uluu’s Product function, with accountability for product prioritisation, readiness, and go-to-market timing across applications. You’ll orchestrate an external ecosystem of brands, manufacturers, strategic investors, and R&D partners working across fibres and textiles. In parallel, you will work closely with our polymer engineer to ensure continued optimisation of Uluu’s injection-moulding grade pellets for existing and near-term customers.
This is a hands-on CPO role suited to someone comfortable operating across disciplines, geographies, and levels of abstraction: from polymer properties and processing constraints to industrial partnerships and commercial readiness. You’ll be motivated by building a category-defining business delivering environmental and social impact at scale.
You will play a defining role in proving that bio-based polymers can replace fossil-derived plastics in some of the world’s largest industries. Success in this role looks like fibre-grade PHA-based pellets that industrial partners are confident to scale, and injection-moulding grades that remain commercially reliable as Uluu grows.
Key Responsibilities
Fibre-grade pellets & textiles
- Set and own Uluu’s textile product ambition and roadmap, defining partners, budgets, and timelines to take fibre-grade PHA-based pellets from development through semi-industrial and industrial melt-spinning, textile production, and commercial launch.
- Drive execution and market readiness across brands, mills, and R&D partners to ensure materials meet industrial performance, processing, quality and scale requirements.
- Maintain momentum and alignment across a growing portfolio of textile development programs, including paid joint development agreements with brands and strategic partnerships with leading mills & manufacturers.
Product leadership & integration
- Act as the integrator across Uluu’s Science, Operations, Commercial, and Finance teams to ensure product decisions balance technical feasibility, customer value, manufacturability, and scale readiness.
- Own product definitions across applications, including grades, specifications, performance criteria, and readiness thresholds.
- Lead and manage a global ecosystem of industrial-capable R&D and manufacturing partners, expanding beyond purely academic collaborations.
- Prevent siloed execution by maintaining tight alignment across teams, partners, and geographies.
Injection-moulding products & optimisation
- Support continued optimisation of Uluu’s injection-moulding grade pellets for existing and near-term customers.
- Provide direction, prioritisation and commercial framing to polymer engineering activities within the Product function.
- Partner with the Commercial team to meet customer-specific requirements while shaping scalable, repeatable injection-moulding product offerings.
- Work with Operations and Science teams to support QC/QA, certification, and polymer consistency for injection-moulding grades.
Customer & partner engagement
- Partner closely with the Head of Commercial on customer trials, development programs, and technical validation activities.
- Participate directly in key customer, partner and investor engagements, particularly where product readiness, performance, or roadmap credibility are critical.
- Represent Uluu credibly with global brands, manufacturers, and strategic investors.
Co-product development
- Own the development and positioning of Uluu’s residual seaweed biomass as a commercial aquafeed ingredient, aligned with Uluu’s scale-up and business model.
- Manage R&D partnerships with universities, government agencies and industry partners to ensure the co-product meets aquafeed performance, formulation, and commercial requirements.
- While secondary to the fibre-grade and injection-moulding mandates, this work is strategically important to Uluu’s integrated business model.
Team & capability building
- Build and scale Uluu’s product capability over time, including people, processes, and external partners.
- Ensure the Product function evolves to support a commercial manufacturing business while remaining lean, pragmatic, and fit-for-purpose.
Experience and skills
- Product leadership: Senior product or technical leadership experience in materials, polymers, chemicals, textiles, or adjacent industrial sectors, ideally within high-growth or scale-up environments.
- Industrialisation & scale-up: Demonstrated experience taking complex, physical products from development through industrial validation and early commercialisation, working with external manufacturing partners.
- Scale mindset: Experience prioritising product development in contexts where technical difficulty and market demand are asymmetric, balancing manufacturability, demand pull, and time-to-market.
- Technical depth with commercial judgement: Ability to engage deeply with polymer science and processing while making pragmatic, market-driven product decisions.
- Integrator mindset: Comfortable operating across science, operations, and commercial teams, aligning diverse stakeholders around clear product priorities.
- External-facing: Credible and confident working with global brands, manufacturers, investors, and R&D partners.
- Hands-on & resilient: Comfortable working in ambiguity, with pace and urgency, and willing to stay close to the work when needed.
- Mission-motivated: Energised by building materials that deliver real climate and environmental impact. This role is not suited to a purely academic, advisory, or low-urgency operating style.
What we offer
- The opportunity to lead the product strategy behind a mission-driven company redefining how materials are made.
- A competitive salary and equity package, with meaningful ownership in the value you help create.
- The chance to work closely with a highly capable team of scientists, engineers, and operators tackling a complex, real-world challenge.
- Relocation support to Perth, if required.
We’re looking for people who bring rigour, integrity, and resilience. Our team has different strengths, experiences and backgrounds, but all care deeply about improving people’s lives and restoring our planet. You’re encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn’t precisely match the job description — your skills and curiosity will stand out, especially if your career has taken some extraordinary twists and turns. We actively seek diverse perspectives and particularly welcome applications from First Nations people, those identifying as LGBTQIA+, people of all ages and genders, people with disabilities, and culturally and linguistically diverse people.