Associate Director of R&D Cooking Aids & Mini Meals

Role Purpose
The Associate Director of R&D - Cooking Aids & Mini Meals North America is accountable for shaping the future of the category while delivering superior business performance today. This role serves as the strategic R&D leader and primary business partner to Category Marketing Supply Chain Procurement Finance CMI and Global R&D teams. The role integrates innovation strategy consumer understanding technology development productivity organizational effectiveness and talent leadership to accelerate sustainable growth strengthen competitiveness and ensure long-term category success.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Category Leadership
Develop and execute the categorys long-term innovation renovation sustainability and technology strategy.
Build and maintain a robust multi-year pipeline of growth opportunities across core adjacencies and white-space opportunities.
Translate business ambitions into actionable R&D roadmaps investment priorities and capability plans.
Serve as a key member of the category leadership team influencing strategic business decisions and portfolio direction.

Consumer & Innovation Leadership
Champion consumer-centricity across all category decisions ensuring consumer understanding informs innovation renovation and superiority programs.
Leverage Consumer Technical Insights (CTI) market intelligence and technical learning to shape innovation strategy and product design.
Drive delivery of superior consumer experiences and differentiated innovation platforms that strengthen brand power and market competitiveness.
Guide the development of innovation narratives and selling stories that connect technology consumer benefits and business growth.

Business Performance & Value Creation
Own the R&D contribution to category growth profitability productivity and competitiveness.
Lead value engineering cost transformation and productivity programs that deliver sustainable savings while maintaining product quality and consumer experience.
Connect technical decisions to business performance including revenue growth margin improvement and portfolio health.
Establish governance and performance management systems to track execution of strategic priorities and business commitments.

Portfolio & Technology Development
Lead development of future-fit technologies capabilities and platforms that create competitive advantage.
Partner with Global Design Centers external technology partners suppliers flavor houses and manufacturing teams to accelerate innovation.
Balance speed-to-market with technical rigor consumer validation regulatory compliance and quality requirements.
Anticipate emerging consumer technology and competitive trends to future-proof the category portfolio.

Resource Organization & Capability Leadership
Deploy people resources and investments dynamically against the highest-value opportunities.
Build organizational agility and capability to enable rapid response to evolving business needs.
Lead talent development coaching succession planning and capability building for the category organization.
Foster an inclusive high-performance culture that empowers teams to deliver breakthrough results and continuous improvement.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence
Build strong partnerships across Marketing CMI Finance Supply Chain Procurement Quality Regulatory and Global R&D organizations.
Influence decision-making across complex stakeholder networks without direct authority.
Lead cross-functional teams through ambiguity balancing consumer technical operational financial and sustainability considerations.
Represent the category and R&D organization with credibility strategic insight and strong business acumen.

Transformation & Organizational Excellence
Lead transformation initiatives that strengthen category competitiveness and organizational effectiveness.
Drive adoption of new ways of working digital tools and agile operating models.
Build systems and processes that improve resource effectiveness portfolio governance and executional excellence.
Champion employee engagement culture initiatives and organizational health to create a winning growth culture.

Leadership Expectations
The Associate Director demonstrates:
Strategic Leadership Thinks beyond projects to shape the future of the category and business.
Consumer Obsession Uses consumer understanding as the foundation for decision-making and innovation.
Business Acumen Translates technical choices into measurable business outcomes.
Talent Builder Enables individuals and teams to grow succeed and perform at their highest potential.
Change Leadership Leads transformation with courage resilience and clarity.
Enterprise Mindset Balances category priorities with broader business objectives.
Execution Excellence Delivers results through disciplined prioritization governance and accountability.

Pay: The pay range for this position is $146200 to $219400. Unilever takes into consideration a wide range of factors that are utilized in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets experience and training licensure and certifications qualifications and education and other business and organizational needs.

Bonus: This position is bonus eligible.

Long-Term Incentive (LTI): This position is LTI eligible.

Benefits: Unilever employees are eligible to participate in our benefits plan. Should the employee choose to participate they can choose from a range of benefits to include but is not limited to health insurance (including prescription drug dental and vision coverage) retirement savings benefits life insurance and disability benefits parental leave sick leave paid vacation and holidays as well as access to numerous voluntary benefits. Any coverages for health insurance and retirement benefits will be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans and associated governing plan documents.

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