Product Development Director – Americas

THE COMPANY

Our client is a global leader in home care and personal care market. They deliver high-touch innovation, operational excellence and speed to market to the world’s greatest brands. Every year, with the support of their nearly 15,000 employees, they develop and manufacture products for brands sold in countries all over the world, launch an average of 3,000 products and co-develop products for more than 1,000 brands.

THE POSITION

Job Description / Scope / Mission:

The Product Development Director coordinates, manages, and plans the activities connected to the Design & Industrialization department within in its own D&I assigned manufacturing plants (5 plants – 3 in USA, 1 in Mexico, 1 in Brazil) in the Americas. Supervises a team of 12 people. This position is based at our Hermosillo, Mexico large manufacturing plant and reports to the Chief Technical Officer (CTO) based in Europe.

Key Responsibilities/ Accountabilities:

• Manages the local Technical and Project Management resource and coordinates the activities of the local D&I department, in line with the priorities defined by the Divisional Technology Operations departments, ensuring the achievement of the objectives and executing the mediation activity for the conflicts that arise in his/her office.
• Ensures compliance with the standard procedures, adopted, and defined at Division level for the development of projects.
• He / she is responsible for the compliance of the products with product requirements and with the relative regulatory.
• Assures the respect of the local D&I department budget.
• Verifies the professional growth of the resources (Both technical and Project management) in his/her department, taking care of the training also through coaching activities.
• Support the CTO and the Technical Program Management Directors/Managers, to assure the success in new project Launches and industrialization Projects.
• Monitors the projects and controls the reports on the project’s status, verifying the respect of the defined schedules and taking eventual corrective actions.
• Manage the Local Project Management resources assigning, in alignment with the CTO and the relevant Technical Program Managers/ Director the specific resources (project Managers and Project Managers assistant) to the specific Project / Program Account
• Participates and/or develops individually or in a team the activity of preliminary analysis and offering, on the base of the guidelines of and in agreement with the CTO.
• Support Plant Managers in assuring proper technical / management support of D&I / Project Management / Mold engineering department to day-to-day technical related issues in the plan and to the Cost improvement initiatives.
• Supervise locally the communication between Department resources and customers, assuring that guidelines given by CTO are respected.
• Coordinates were necessary locally cuts follow up’s personally or by assigning proper technical / management Resources assuring adequate follow up.
• For the specific Corporate  responsibility (Americas Region ) will work along with its reporting Technical Area Supervisors and In line with the CTO guidelines  to the Definition and the Continuous update of the Technical standard procedures, and Documentation adopted inside the Division Technical Design and Industrialization Department  to assure the compliance with product requirements / quality and   regulatory standard  and to unify the Design and Development processes across the different D&I Sites.

THE CANDIDATE

Education:

• University Degree in Engineering or similar  

• MBA as a plus.

Candidate Experience:

• 8 + years of experience in the Design & Industrialization department of international manufacturing companies (i.e., product engineering and introduction into manufacturing)
• Experience in electrical small appliance Design / manufacturing.
• Experience in Manufacturing Assembly processes and Manufacturing Automation is a Plus
• Experience in Packaging design is a plus.
• Experience in Plastic Molding is a plus.
• Experience in the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) market is a plus

Specific Knowledge: (Technical/Product, Organizational and Interpersonal)

• Product Design
• Project Management

Others:

• Teamwork and team leadership
• Problem solving
• Flexibility
• Communication skills
• Available to travel up to 30%.