Position Purpose:
The Director, Food Applications Development (Sweeteners) is responsible for leading a team of product developers across the Food & Beverages and confectionary categories. The role will partner with the R&D and commercial teams to identify and deliver consumer-centric, winning products to support the growth agenda of the company. They will lead a team of product developers and scientists within the United States ensuring brand technical innovation is developed and new products with points of differentiation are delivered to support the values of unrivaled quality, creativity, and innovation across our product portfolio and categories, especially in the field of sugar reduction, sweeteners & FMPs.
Essential Duties:
- Lead, grow, and develop a strong team of food and beverage product developers, scientists, engineers, and technicians.
- Catalyze the development of new products, processes, and technologies that have application in the food and beverage space focusing on sugar reduction and adoption of new natural sweet proteins manufactured using precision fermentation platform.
- Explore new processes, formulation and ingredient technology solutions to deliver differentiated products with relevant consumer benefits and to maintain superiority.
- Lead and partner with commercial teams to deliver innovation, renovation, and sustainability metrics according to Business Goals and Strategies.
- Execute and deliver the innovation agenda for sugar reduction in food & beverages, confectionery, and baked goods.
- Lead a team of Applications scientists to build capabilities and tools to create new and improve existing products across all categories, focusing on application of natural sweeteners and FMPs.
- Work cross functionally with Sensory team to complete necessary testing throughout the product development pipeline.
- Responsible for effective ways of working with pilot plants to increase productivity and efficiency to unlock potential for all businesses.
- Lead the selection of key new vendors with procurement and maintain strong relationships with incumbents to continuously identify and deliver on innovative ideas and expanded capabilities.
- Collaborate closely with all relevant stakeholders to support operational excellence in scaling product launches across both internal and external manufacturing facilities.
- Communicating the technical and commercial needs of an applications team to develop and piloting partners to collaborate on product improvement and design.
- Other duties as assigned
Knowledge, Skills and Experience (Required):
- Masters or Doctoral degree in Food Science or Engineering required; Doctoral degree in Food Science or Engineering preferred.
- Minimum of 10 years (typically 15+ years) of experience in product design/development of sweeteners (preferably in the food or beverage industry). The ideal candidate will have progressive and increasing levels of responsibility and leadership accountability with a minimum of 5 years managing product programs and people.
- Demonstrated leadership in cross functional teams involving marketing, sales, purchasing, and manufacturing in the development of new products.
- Technical depth and relevant experience in food sciences, technology, and processing. Most preferably, the candidate has experience in successfully designing and launching products in zero calorie beverages & focusing on sugar reduction technologies and formulations. Able to fully understand complex and unstable business environment to activate proper strategy to drive business results from a top and bottom-line perspective.
- General knowledge of the processes within marketing, industrial design, production, supply chain, and global sales channels.
- Strong commercial acumen, technical development skills, judgment and understanding of the sweetener and FMP business and industry. Experience leading a product development function across multiple markets or countries preferred.
- Ability to create a roadmap for short term and long-term technical deliverables and skills to influence relevant cross functional business partners for implementation.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Excellent business skills and understanding of the levers of R&D
- Self-starter, autonomous, and demonstrated ability to bring disruptive and innovative ideas
- Detail-oriented and possess strong organization and strong analytical skills
- Travel 25-50%. Must be available to travel to various customer meetings, tradeshows, technical meetings, test runs, co-packers, or suppliers and conduct business during any shift or day.
Supervisory Responsibilities:
This job has supervisory responsibilities.
Work Environment:
The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.
Physical Demands:
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable
Individuals With Disabilities To Perform The Essential Functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit, stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel. The employee must be able to frequently lift and/or move up to 30 pounds. Be able to bend and squat while performing duties. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision.
The above job description is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of duties and standards of the position.
Incumbents will follow any other instructions and perform related duties, as assigned by their supervisor.
