Director

Job Description : Director Innovation & R&D – Food production: DUBAI Responsible for leading, developing, communicating, and executing the strategic plan. Full responsibility for the P&L results. Designs and executes the innovation and R&D standards the GCC and North Africa regions building the new innovation centers of excellence and smart factories. This profile will work in collaboratively with the regional CEO and VP Technical & Innovation. Oversees all innovation, product, and quality matters. The incumbent will drive volume, drive sales, manage CAPEX costs, drive supply chain costs and innovation. Builds impactful relationships and rapport with strategic customers and suppliers. A commercially focused, creative executive who can look at clear channels for key growth across innovation, development, and sustainability landscape. We are one of the world’s most recognized diary and juices giants delivering to the world exceptional flavors daily. The role is to work in partnership with the VP Technical & Operations to design, define and execute the next level of innovative products, solutions, and categories for our customers across the globe. With a key focus on sustainability, ESG, environment and quality and safety we are looking for elite creative thinkers who want to deliver best in class experiences for our customers and consumers. This role will develop the Innovation strategy working with smart factories, food R&D experts, packaging experts, quality, and suitability experts along with the technical and operational product teams. Your focus will be to elevate, educate and wow our customers’ needs and expectations in terms of product development, from crazy idea stage, through to production, until validation during Project Hand over and execution. The person: Leads the development of the GCC and North Africa innovation ideas and smart factories. • Develop the innovation centers, develop the R&D centers, work with the tech center technical capabilities and deliver incredible ideas of complexity, simplicity, and taste to maximize trends with market conditions and ambiguous needs of the ever-changing consumer. • Constantly monitor costs and budget of the Smart factories and innovation centers of excellence, as well as its benefits for the company. How do we develop excellence to deliver to the market? • Support Project Execution by contributing to product Quality validation or Technology checks during equipment construction or commissioning of smart centers and smart factories. • Participates in the execution of leadership, development, coaching and mentoring, quality assurance, quality control and innovation and R&D leads. • Be the subject matter expert on all innovations and R&D matter related to product and quality. • Works hand in hand with Technical, System engineering, Quality, Projects, and Technical Services internally. • Be the subject matter experts to customers on new innovations. • Participates in customer information requests, customer improvement projects, material change programs and customer assessments • Be a member of the leadership for Quality, innovation and product development. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Strategy •Strong connection to the Company’s purpose and values, with a compatible sense of personal purpose. Must have the confidence to address inconsistencies and challenge the status quo. Must be a creative wizard who can understand consumer trends within food and beverages. •Significant experience leading successful transformation and culture change initiatives. An out of the box innovative thinker who can maximize products, R&D and quality consistently. •Solutions-focused and flexible. Able to operate effectively within a changing and dynamic environment. Able to manage and influence others whilst holding empathy. •Strong strategic and analytical skills. Able to assess processes and outcomes by establishing solid metrics of performance. Predict the future state needs. •Lead, run and grow the business. Drive and create strategy for sales, innovation, technical and quality. Financial •Deliver financial expectations aligned with the agree business growth plan. Manage budget from a CAPEX perspective and look at the ROI for. •Full financial understanding of the P&L and ability to lead an organization to deliver results in a purpose driven manner. Operations •Oversee quality, products, and R&D along with innovation capabilities, leveraging existing operational capabilities and develop new capabilities to deliver growth. •Ensure the business has best in class technology, methodologies, and practices across the organization to meet existing and future customer needs. •Direct and coordinate appropriate operations metrics, process improvements and organizational changes to drive continuous improvement. Relationships •Build impactful top-level relationships internally, with customers, suppliers, and industry associations. •A non-political team player who can quickly establish themselves as a valued member of the business leadership team. Collaborate well across all functional teams. A travelled citizen who is adaptable and resilient. •Provide linkage between overall strategies to ensure effective communication, alignment, prioritization and implementation of agreed functional strategies. •Take a strategic approach and mindset while balancing the need to get hands-on in performing day-to-day operational work, demonstrating willingness for both, and utilizing strong commercial and analytic skills. •Lead and execute the overall business plan, successfully drive results by leading and coordinating cross functional teams within the business as a resource through influence. People •Develop and execute a strong people and organizational plan. Guide the resource allocation to the top strategic priorities. A leader of innovation, R&D, Technical and engineering personnel. •Build a team to strengthen core and new capabilities. Highlight gaps and needs in the markets for attrition. •Ensure that a healthy and vibrant culture is ingrained across the organization. •Lead processes and communication which drive employee engagement to enhance the organization’s performance. •Excellent verbal, written, interpersonal communication and presentation skills, including comprehension, effective listening and negotiating skills. Experience: •10+ year hands on experience as Innovation Director/ R&D Director driving a world class smart factory, innovation hub within food and beverages. •Creating New and Different: Strategic Mindset. A track record of scaling up and driving profitability, the ability to deliver what is unexpected and be a true innovator in your product space. •Understanding the Business: Customer Focus and Financial Acumen •Focusing on Performance: Drives Results; Ensures Accountability •Influencing People: Drives Engagement •Being Flexible and Adaptable: Situational Adaptability •Managing Execution: Plans and Aligns •Being Authentic: Courage

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