RD&A Director, Pet Food

About Kerry

A career with Kerry Taste & Nutrition offers you an opportunity to shape how people across the globe view food and beverage while providing you opportunities to explore and grow as your interests do. With our commitment to a sustainable future, a career with Kerry is something you can feel good about.

About the role

The RD&A Director will be focused on Kerry’s Pet Food portfolio and has full accountability to perform as the subject matter expert in support of the commercial and marketing organizations.  With this role, there is full responsibility to pro-actively partner with sales leaders to support technical discussions with customers, drive the advancement of the technology, and collaboratively develop business case for technical innovation. 
 

Key responsibilities

 

Actively engage in strategic customer activities (across multiple technologies) in a cross functional team setting.  Manage technical projects across those same teams.
As the subject matter expert for products and technology sold into Pet, provide technical input to the Sales function, in support of commercial success linked to various technologies.
Continually and pro-actively partner with sales leaders and various levels of stakeholders to help drive collaborative innovation, solutions for our customers, and the advancement of projects.
Oversee design of experiments for product development and technology assessments.
Provide support to customer manufacturing plants in processing our ingredients.
Develop and execute technical projects with customers.  Meet deadlines to close the sale quickly.
Collaboratively develop business cases for technical innovation.
Remain connected to academic, research, conferences, and learning opportunities to increase knowledge.  Continually apply this knowledge both internally and externally to drive cutting edge solutions for our customers
Take a strong leadership position to ensure there is a collaborative effort in developing a sustainable pipeline of growth
Develop strong relationships with all functions, in order to execute projects and drive the technology forward

Qualifications and skills

 

Experience/Skills Required for the Role:

Master’s Degree required, PhD in Food Science or related discipline preferred.
10-12 years progressively responsible in related technical or R&D roles within a pet food company.
Experience using experimental design as a tool for problem solving
Strong presentation skills with the ability to explain technical information and data to support sales propositions.
Experience integrating products into manufacturing processes.
Have a working knowledge of the regulations in the Pet Food industry and has experience solving technical problems within stated boundaries.  Has experience working with the regulatory function in a matrix organization
Demonstrated ability to connect with various levels of stakeholders, including VP/Director levels at customer organization
Demonstrated ability to formulate technical strategies and turn them into clear compelling actionable plans and results
Effective interpersonal skills with a proven ability to work within cross-functional sales teams
Leadership and management (of employees, projects or agencies)
Biased towards action.  Ability to manage multiple, complex priorities within demanding timeframes
Experience leading an R&D group is preferred.