R&D Head MJN, ASEAN

We are Mead Johnson Nutrition

With our market-leading brands Enfa and Nutramigen brands, Mead Johnson Nutrition play a vital role in the lives of newborns, infants, parents and Health Care Practitioners (HCPs).  

Through our innovative and trusted brands, we nurture and protect them and their loved ones throughout their lives. This creates a unique opportunity to build a remarkable and purposeful career, growing and developing every day alongside talented diverse people. 

About the role

The role of the R&D Head of MJN, ASEAN is to maintain a complex portfolio of infant and child nutrition products on a global scale. Following key departmental objectives of safety, quality, service and margin, the role is responsible for managing multiple teams across Singapore and Thailand to deliver a varied set of projects and activities aligned with the relevant business, regulatory and supply strategies. The role is responsible for driving best in class delivery across the group and defining strategy for relevant areas of responsibility in alignment with senior stakeholders. The job is dynamic and complex, and the challenges you will face will give you the possibility to develop quickly, laying a solid foundation for your future career.

Your responsibilities

• Lead and manage one or more R&D teams across the ASEAN region, sometimes remotely. Accountable for providing R&D leadership to the infant and child nutrition portfolio to protect the existing business through the delivery of compliance programs and supply service maintenance as well as implementation of cost saving initiatives to increase the profitability.
• Build key business relationships with senior stakeholders in the safety, quality and compliance, regulatory, supply, procurement and commercial teams and wider R&D matrix including R&D innovation and nutritional science.
• Contribute to the development of a compelling strategy for the R&D organization that is in full support of the overall brand and business objectives.
• Strong partner with other parts of R&D PDM to drive process improvements, best practise sharing and talent development.
• Go to person for senior stakeholders for operations in your area of accountability.

Provide Strategic direction to the team in order to:

• Provide leadership, coaching and development to your team.
• Develop and drive vision and strategy in alignment with business partners and targets.
• Lead development of new ways of working to improve efficiency & quality of department output and overall organization performance.
• Identify and recommend key strategic opportunities within own area of responsibility and share opportunities across the R&D Operations group.
• Develop and lead the team, ensuring sufficient resource availability and by empowering and supporting the team. Lead recruitment for your team and support the wider team in recruitment. Continually develop team’s technical capabilities.
• Lead the delivery of facility improvements, namely: offices and laboratories. Ensuring that a professional and compliant working environment is provided for the teams and that all areas are audit ready.
• Ensure that facilities and processes are operated with a prioritization to Health and Safety and to the required standards of good manufacturing and laboratory practices. Ensure that all work performed is subject to the scrutiny of internal and external auditors.
• Manage assigned budget and proactively look for cost optimization and simplification activities.
• Drive your network across IFCN (infant and child nutrition) internally and externally to build capability of the team and ensure we are leading edge in how we approach operations for IFCN.

The experience we're looking for

QUALIFICATIONS

• Degree level (Food/Nutritional Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering or other relevant science)
• Masters/PhD desirable

EXPERIENCE

• Minimum 10 years R&D experience with a proven track record of planning, prioritization and implementation of projects as well as identifying cost saving opportunities and problem-solving ability.
• Proven experience of working in a remote managed environment and proven ability to manage remote teams.
• Ability to work well under pressure.
• Ability to identify and communicate risks.
• Capable of building strong working relationships and strong networking skills.
• Strong negotiating & analytical skills.
• Ability to anticipate, plan and realize significant projects involving multiple technical and scientific hurdles.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills and excellent presentation skills.
• Ability to manage, control and optimize budgets for teams and projects.
• Talent and organization development skills
• You will be driven to do the right thing, always. This means that you will work with a focus on putting consumers and people first – this should drive the way you make decisions.
• You will seek out new opportunities, strive for excellence in all you and your teams deliver and build shared success across the cross functional teams you work with.
• Strong leadership, influencing, motivational and interpersonal skills.
• Capable of building strong teams and motivating teams to deliver outstanding results.
• Ability to anticipate, plan and realise significant projects involving multiple technical and scientific hurdles.
• Ability to convert rational thinking into action (a thinker and an achiever).
• An Openness to change and ability to think out of the box.

What we offer

Equality