POSITION SUMMARY:
The Director of Research & Development • Portfolio Management serves as the R&D leader responsible for portfolio visibility, prioritization, stage-gate process effectiveness, and execution discipline across the Human Nutrition & Health (HNH) business.
This role is accountable for ensuring that R&D programs, including market-driven innovation, customer-driven new product development (NPD), and support projects, are clearly defined, properly prioritized, and effectively executed. The Director leads a team of project managers and provides structure and coordination across Food Solutions, Minerals & Nutrients, and Technical Operations teams and operates with visibility to related R&D activities across other business segments supporting alignment where appropriate.
The Director partners closely with R&D and cross-functional leadership to ensure alignment between project objectives, timelines, resource capacity, and business priorities, while leading portfolio governance, reporting, and metrics. This role also serves as a key interface with Finance and other functions to align R&D activities with business performance and planning.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:
- Accountable for the safety of all R&D personnel and activities within scope, promoting a culture of zero injuries.
- Ensure all R&D activities comply with regulatory, quality, and corporate standards.
- Serves as the R&D leader for portfolio management, execution discipline, and reporting across HNH.
- Leads the development, maintenance, and visibility of the R&D project portfolio across all HNH business units.
- Partners with Food Solutions, M&N, and Technical Operations leadership to align on project prioritization, sequencing, and trade-off decisions.
- Ensures that projects are clearly defined with scope, objectives, timelines, and success criteria, and that prioritization decisions are supported by structured data, defined evaluation criteria, and alignment to portfolio balance and resource capacity.
- Ensures appropriate portfolio balance across market-driven NPD, customer-driven NPD, and support projects, aligned to defined frameworks and available resources.
- Maintains visibility to resource allocation, capacity, and execution risks to support realistic planning and delivery
- Leads a team of project managers responsible for major R&D programs across HNH.
- Establishes, leads, and continuously improves project management standards, tools, stage-gate governance, and ways of working, ensuring consistent execution across market-driven, customer-driven, and support project processes.
- Leads, maintains, and continuously improves the HNH R&D stage-gate processes and systems, ensuring adoption, execution discipline, and alignment to business and portfolio needs.
- Drives cross-functional accountability for project progress, timelines, deliverables, and execution outcomes, including identification and escalation of risks or constraints across R&D, Commercial, Technical Operations, and other involved functions.
- Leads planning and facilitation of monthly innovation and portfolio review meetings for each HNH business unit, ensuring discussions are structured, data-driven, and aligned to decision-making, prioritization, and cross-functional accountability.
- Drives follow-up actions, decision tracking, and adherence to agreed commitments across participating functions.
- Develops and maintains portfolio and project metrics, including value, status, timelines, and resource utilization.
- Tracks and reports on R&D organizational performance, including portfolio value, project delivery, team utilization, and progress against annual objectives.
- Serves as the primary R&D interface with Finance for portfolio valuation, resource planning, and performance tracking, and leads development of executive-level reporting and presentations.
- Owns and maintains project and portfolio management systems and serves as the R&D SME for ERP-related activities within HNH.
- Ensures data integrity, system utilization, and alignment of R&D data with business, financial, and stage-gate process tracking needs.
- Leads training, adoption, and continuous improvement of systems, tools, workflows, and governance processes across the R&D organization.
- Acts as a central coordination and accountability point across R&D, Commercial, Finance, and Technical Operations teams, ensuring alignment between strategy, priorities, execution, and agreed cross-functional commitments.
- Maintains visibility to related R&D processes and project management practices across other business segments, supporting alignment where appropriate
- Builds, leads, and develops a high-performing Portfolio Management team.
- Owns talent development, capability building, and succession planning within the PMO function.
- Establishes a culture of accountability, transparency, and execution excellence.
- Serves as a role model for safety, quality, and professional standards.
- Performs other duties as assigned
QUALIFICATIONS: - BS in Business, Science, Engineering, or a related field is required. An advanced degree (MBA, M.S., or similar) is preferred.
- Minimum of 10+ years of experience in project management, portfolio management, or related roles within technical, R&D, or CPG environments
- Proven experience leading project management teams and complex cross-functional portfolios.
- PMP (Project Management Professional) certification or equivalent project management certification is strongly preferred
- Strong understanding of product development lifecycles, including market-driven innovation, customer-driven NPD, and commercialization processes.
- Experience working with project and portfolio management systems and tools.
- Experience working with ERP systems and cross-functional data processes is preferred.
- Strong business acumen, including experience with financial metrics, portfolio valuation, and resource planning.
- Excellent organizational and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
- Strong leadership skills, with experience developing and managing teams.
- Outstanding communication and facilitation skills, capable of driving alignment across diverse stakeholders.
- Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a matrixed, cross-functional organization.
WORKING CONDITIONS:
- Work involves the use of computers, collaboration platforms, and project management tools. Some business travel by automobile, bus, train, and plane is required.
- Occasionally, may be required to participate in laboratory, pilot, or manufacturing environments to support project alignment and execution.
The expected salary range for this position is $180,000 -$220,000 per year.
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