Research And Development Project Manager

HM's top 3 "must haves":

- Clear Communication (speaking & writing)

- Demonstrated ability to lead a team/project

- Energy! I need people self-motivated and solution-oriented

- Food Industry or Consumer Packaged Goods experience

Position Summary

The Manager, R&D – Commercialization is responsible for delivering large scale projects within the portfolio of brands owned among other new platform innovation initiatives and/or highly visible capital and cost out initiatives. The Manager will collaborate with cross functional parties at all levels of the organization, including relevant brand stewards in Marketing, R&D, and Finance, as well as relevant technical and execution resources and/or field operations. In addition, this person will play a key role in strategic governance forums, like Stage Gate, and provide regular updates on progress, cost management, and next steps to project sponsors and key partners.

Key Components

• Lead commercialization efforts for projects across the BU, platform innovation programs or significant capital related initiatives.

• Ensure effective team engagement which may include establishing and managing team meetings. Review project timelines and cost regularly with the project team, facilitate creation of mitigation/contingency plans and lead communication.

• Run cross-functional teams in the development and implementation of a broad, coordinated set of projects to meet the revenue, volume, growth, efficiency and quality goals and priorities

• Support and/or participate in various category collaborator governance forums (i.e. Stage gate/Leadership teams), advise on project status and conformance to business governance rules

• Manage Business and Manufacturing Systems initiatives as the need arises and support the continuous improvement of the commercialization process through collaboration with key partners

• Facilitate the definition of project scopes, goals, tasks, and resource (people and cost) requirements; resolve or assist in the resolution of unique challenges within and between projects or functional groups; develop methods to supervise and report project progress and provide corrective action as needed

• Initiate the finished good Master data setup and communicate completed information to all collaborators so all information systems can be accurately set up to produce, ship, sell and invoice our products.

Operating Environment

• Management of the category’s project portfolio requires extensive influence across many levels and functions. Positive relationships and effective partnerships with internal functions, e.g. Marketing, Sales, Finance, Global Supply Chain (Customer Service & Logistics, Manufacturing and Procurement), RD&Q, Legal, Package Brand & Design are instrumental to success.

• Each category contends within a multifaceted environment and its commercialization agenda must be agile to react quickly to changing customer, consumer, and internal needs. As a result, the category project portfolio covers a broad array of long term strategic and short-term tactical initiatives.

Requirements

• 3+ years experience in a consumer-first environment

• Understanding of project management methodology

• Strategic capabilities/discernment

• Demonstrated ability to lead and navigate ambiguity

• Mentality to work towards results

• Experience growing, building, and strengthening relationships

Exceptional Communication-Written and Presentation