Job Description

Are You Ready to Make It Happen at Mondelēz International?

Join our Mission to Lead the Future of Snacking. Make It With Pride.

Leading a team of RDQ professionals in product development, you identify and prioritize development activities. You lead teams that deliver RDQ activities needed to complete new product development, and that maintain portfolios and/or productivity projects, keeping in mind the goal to create the desired consumer experience.

How you will contribute

You will work with a cross-functional partner to define, initiate and lead teams to successfully deliver business goals using technical rigor and best practices while effectively allocating resources and prioritizing workloads. Influencing skills are important in this role because you will use them to educate business stakeholders about technical risks, ensuring clear communication and understanding to allow for effective cross-functional decision making. You will also create and maintain accurate consumer-led specifications. As a technical and people leaders, you demonstrate your own high levels of technical rigor and expertise and that of your team by tapping into internal and external resources to stay up-to-date on the latest best practices and to continuously identify opportunities for improvement, keeping in mind consumers’ wants and needs. As a people leader, you recruit, retain and develop a team of direct and indirect reports to ensure highest team performance, and mentor and coach your team and others to grow capability and support career development.

What you will bring

A desire to drive your future and accelerate your career and the following experience and knowledge:

Leading teams and coaching and mentoring to foster performance and team effectivenessInfluencing cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders in decision makingDelivering results in a fast paced, complex and ambiguous environmentHandling multiple prioritiesBeing a champion of consumer needsSucceeding in a fast-moving consumer goods environment

What you need to know about this role:

As a (Regional) Biscuit Product and Process Development Section Leader, you will play a pivotal role in driving the realization of Canadian BU’s 2030 vision through influencing the business strategy and Executing initiatives end-to-end. You will lead a dynamic team of innovators and collaborators, overseeing the entire product & process development lifecycle from ideation to launch and play a critical lead role in the combined biscuit and chocolate product/process team. Your strategic mindset, leadership abilities, and passion for innovation will be instrumental in shaping the future of our products.

 

Extra ingredients you will bring:

Strategic Planning: Align and influence strategic plans across Innovation, productivity, and large capital expansion programs for Canada Biscuit brands with Sr BU stakeholders and functional leads (sales, marketing, supply chain and across R&D functions etc.).  Be the voice of R&D across Innovation strategic planning, influencing a deep understanding of the consumer problem and embedding innovation excellence KPIs throughout the strategic innovation 4-2-1.   Act as the R&D representative to influence total BU project prioritization, linking technical and consumer opportunities and to business objectives and ensure resource sufficiency across all R&D functions to maximize ROI.  Optimizing R&D workflows and methodologies to increase efficiency and productivity.

Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and inspire a team of developers across chocolate and biscuits teams, ensuring teams have robust and stretching goals with clear KPIs that are tracked throughout the year.  Own and foster a culture of creativity, collaboration, and accountability within the team with clear metrics defined and governed.  Day to day ownership of budgets across chocolate and biscuit, with a strategy to maximize return, and track aligned plan to meet yearly spend KPIs.

Innovation Management:  Drive innovation pipeline influence by championing new ideas, technologies, and methodologies.  Encourage experimentation and risk-taking while maintaining a focus on delivering impactful, scalable solutions.  Influence Sr stakeholders and business unit LT to adopt and expand capability across Innovation Excellence, embedding consumer first principles across the BU, ensuring that robust KPIs are aligned and adhered to with regards to the consumer.

Execution Excellence: Oversee the end-to-end product & process development process, ensuring timely delivery of high-quality products that delight consumers.   This includes influencing appropriate timelines from the start, and proactively identifying and mitigating risks to project timelines and budgets throughout the project life cycle. Continuous quality improvements to deliver journey to <5cpmu.

Productivity E2E Excellence:  Oversee the total Productivity Pipeline for Canada biscuits, ensuring that we have a deep pipeline of consumer first reformulation ideas to maintain savings ambition and resource sufficiency.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:  ELT R&D member for Canada, Foster strong partnerships with other functional leaders, including marketing, BD, RGM, Sales, PCM and MSC/ISC, to ensure seamless integration of product & process initiatives across the organization.

Communication and Reporting: Communicate progress, challenges, and achievements to senior leadership and other stakeholders. Prepare and deliver clear, concise presentations and reports to convey complex ideas and recommendations.

Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in food science, chemical engineering, or a related field; advanced degree preferred.

 

Job specific requirements

Proven experience (12 + years) in product/process management or product development leadership roles, with a track record of successfully delivering end to end projects, business strategies, and multi-functional KPIs.

Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate high-level vision into actionable plans and initiatives.

Excellent leadership and team-building abilities, with a demonstrated ability to inspire and motivate cross-functional teams.

Deep understanding of product development methodologies, including agile, technical rigor tools, and design thinking principles.

Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively at all levels of the organization.

Experience working in dynamic, fast-paced environments; ability to thrive in ambiguity and drive results in challenging situations.

Travel:  Up to 25% travel to various locations including the US and Mexico

 

Country to country Relocation support available through our Global Mobility Policies

Business Unit Summary

With several brands that are among consumer favourites, including Cadbury, OREO, Christie and Maynards, we are one of the largest snack companies in Canada. Many of our iconic brands are ranked first, second or third in their categories, and our manufacturers and pastry chefs have an enviable mission to create and manufacture chocolate, cookies, crackers and candy in our iconic factories and locations across Ontario. A company with many ambitious growth targets, we have invested close to $250 million in our Ontario plants in recent years alone; We run marketing campaigns promoting innovative products such as Cadbury Dark Milk tablets and OREO Birthday Cake and Peppermint Bark cookies. Our community of more than 2,683 employees is present across Canada and our head office is in Toronto. Passion and dedication characterize our Company. We encourage all our employees to be themselves at work, to speak out and to encourage diversity in all areas of activity. In addition, we foster a flexible work environment and place great importance on the notions of trust and empathy to promote a true sense of belonging.

Mondelez welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates with disabilities taking part in all aspects of the selection process.  Please note that the term "accommodation" in this posting means changes that are made in order to meet the needs of a person with disabilities and not lodging.

Job Type

Regular

Product development

Science & Engineering