Associate Director, R&D – Consumer

Job Description

Associate Director, R&D – Consumer Experience

As the Associate Director, NA R&D – Consumer Experience, you are accountable for consumer experience performance, business impact, and delivery across assigned categories and business units (BUs) within the North American Zone (NAZ). You lead how consumer needs, value curves, and experience trade-offs are defined, governed, and activated across renovation and innovation programs. This role owns category-level consumer experience (CX) roadmaps, value curves, gate knowledge, and key CX business metrics, and leads a team of Senior Managers and Consumer Experience scientists responsible for portfolios of brands.

The Group Lead serves as the primary CX business partner to Category R&D, Brand, and BU leadership.

• Own the consumer experience strategy for assigned categories and business units.
• Define and maintain value curves, experience principles, and category consumer truths.
• Govern experience trade-offs (e.g., cost vs. convenience, nutrition vs. indulgence, prep vs. performance) across the portfolio.
• Own CX performance metrics for assigned categories and BUs, including:
  • Consumer experience targets
  • Project readiness and gate quality
  • Innovation and renovation success indicators
• Lead CX programs and initiatives tied to business growth, renovation, and innovation priorities.
• Represent CX in portfolio, platform, and investment prioritization discussions.
• Own consumer experience gate requirements for renovation and innovation programs.
• Ensure projects enter and exit gates with:
  • Clear consumer problem statements
  • Validated experience hypotheses
  • Defined success criteria
• Hold teams accountable for CX rigor, learning quality, and readiness.
• Serve as the consumer experience leader for Category and BU leadership teams.
• Partner closely with:
  • R&D platform and technical leaders
  • Marketing
  • Sensory
  • Insights & Analytics
• Ensure teams operate from a single consumer truth across all programs.
• Lead and develop two Senior Managers, Consumer Experience, who own CX execution for their respective BU portfolios.
• Ensure consistency of methods, learning plans, insight quality, and stakeholder experience across portfolios.
• Coach leaders on business impact, value-curve trade-offs, stakeholder influence, and decision framing.
• Maintain category-specific value curves, experience frameworks, and usage & occasion models.
• Drive continuous improvement based on in-market performance, competitive benchmarking, and consumer feedback.

Team (salaried): 2 direct reports, 9 total team responsibility.

• Bachelor's, Master's or PhD in Science (e.g., Engineering, Industrial Design, etc.) or Consumer Psychology disciplines with 10+ years of progressive experience in consumer research, UX design, product innovation or related disciplines, including direct exposure to product development and commercialization.
• 3 to 5+ years leading brands, categories, or portfolios in a matrixed environment.
• Experience owning category or portfolio-level consumer strategy, gate or development governance, and value curves or experience frameworks.
• Proven people leadership, including leading senior individual contributors or managers.
• Strong ability to influence R&D, Brand, Marketing, and Sensory partners.
• Deep understanding of food product development and commercialization.
• Strong business, storytelling, and executive communication skills.
• Ability to communicate insights and recommendations using standard business tools and platforms.
• Travel required based on project and business needs, typically up to 10 to 15%.

This position operates primarily in a hybrid work environment and is based at the Kraft Heinz R&D Innovation Center in Glenview, IL. Our hybrid model provides flexibility based on business needs, allowing employees to work virtually up to two days per week, with an expectation to work on-site at least three days per week at the Glenview Innovation Center.

Physical demands include but not limited to

• List the job’s physical requirements. (Mental requirements are not…