Steve Winchell joins Dude Wipes as Chief Product Officer
His mandate is to accelerate innovation, continue raising the bar on product quality, and bring more “game-changing” products to consumers as Dude scales beyond the USD 1 billion lifetime sales mark.
USA – Flushable wipes brand DUDE Wipes has named Steve Winchell as its first-ever Chief Product DUDE (Chief Product Officer), marking the flushable wipes brand’s inaugural C-suite executive hire since its 2011 founding.
The move comes immediately after the company announced it has surpassed USD 1 billion in lifetime sales, a milestone that underscores its evolution from a viral startup into a scaled consumer packaged goods (CPG) player.
Reporting directly to co-founder and CEO Sean Riley, Winchell will lead product strategy, innovation, research and development, quality assurance, and regulatory functions across the entire Dude Wipes portfolio.
As a member of the senior leadership team, he is tasked with steering the next wave of product innovation while safeguarding the quality and performance standards that have underpinned the brand’s rapid growth and retail expansion.
Riley framed the hire as a natural inflexion point for a billion-dollar business: at startup stage, founders “wear a dozen hats, including product,” but at scale the company needs a dedicated executive whose sole focus is making great products even better.
He noted that Winchell, with more than 25 years of CPG product leadership at major brands, chose to join “that cool butt wipes company,” and called the appointment a huge milestone for Dude as it builds out its first C-suite role focused on product.
Winchell brings over two and a half decades of experience leading innovation, R&D, product commercialization, and operations for some of the world’s most recognizable consumer brands.
Most recently, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at The Honest Company, where he oversaw R&D, Supply Chain, and Technology while driving enterprise-wide innovation and long-term growth strategy.
Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President of Product Innovation at The Parent Company, helping guide the business through its public market debut and leading innovation strategy and portfolio expansion.
Earlier in his career, Winchell spent more than 14 years at The Clorox Company, leading R&D and innovation across the Home Care business and Burt’s Bees, where he helped launch award-winning product platforms and establish industry-leading product standards.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, combining deep scientific expertise with proven executive leadership in product development, commercialization, and innovation.
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