Senior Product Development Manager - 12 Month FTC

Want to help us bring happiness to the world? Want to join an ambitious and fast growing global biscuits and confectionery business investing heavily in iconic global brands, infrastructure and people? Then this is the place for you.

As proud bakers and chocolatiers and custodians of iconic global brands, we don't compromise on the quality of ingredients in our products or on the people we hire. We are looking for entrepreneurial spirits who share our passion for bringing happiness to our consumers and who embody our Winning Traits.

To succeed at pladis you need to be purpose-led , resilient and positive to succeed here because we expect pace and agility , we insist on collaboration and demand accountability. If that is your thing, then pladis offers global ambition, a clear Vision and roadmap for success, challenge, and unrivalled opportunities to learn and make an impact

pladis operates in highly competitive, fast-moving markets where it is essential to maintain and extend market share through profitable branded growth . Successful innovation through product development, continuous value improvement and consumer perceived quality superiority vs. the competition are critical .

This is a critical role responsible for building opportunities to explore, develop and implement protocepts to prototypes to fit concepts that will drive brand strategies across multiple geographies . They will work closely with marketing teams to activate and bring to reality technical briefs.

They will support the Breakthrough Product Director in the delivery against an ambitious and transformational breakthrough product strategy that is aligned to the growth ambition and sustainability aspirations of the company.

The role requires an individual who is competent and skilled at working across cultur es and functions and collaborating to deliver with others . They need to be able to wo rk effectively with both internal and external partners to identify appropriate opportunities and drive development of innovative solutions, best practice approaches and systems .

• Managing the development and the Global Savoury Expansion initiative - with an aim of growing the pladis portfolio in new and existing markets : working closely with both global commercial and regional R&D teams while employing strong technical project management
• Leading initiatives to u nlocking future technologies by applying both strong product and process knowledge to build scale platforms for innovation . This will include prototyping, planning and executing trials in both pilot plants and production facilities , identifying p rocess requirements
• Defining and delivering technical concepts into product development
• Developing solutions to technical hurdles
• Providing a technical response to commercial brief s
• Owning and delivering bench samples and pilot / factory trials
• Managing trial budgets and project plans

• Global
• UK & Ireland
• Europe & Emerging Markets (EEM)
• Turkey , Central Asia (TRCA)
• Middle East, North Africa (MENA)
• North America (Nam)
• Asia pacific (APAC)
• Godiva (Global)

• Product Innovation
• Identification and unlocking of future technologies
• Portfolio transformation for Health and Happiness
• Sustainability (i.e. environment-friendly initiatives)
• Transformational Productivity, through product reformulation

• Define and deliver a medium to long term roadmap and align an agenda to drive innovation , sustainability and productivity - build the internal cross-functional expertise and relationships to deliver that agenda.
• Build strong collaborative relationships with Suppliers to capture the best practices on the market and monitor project implementation.
• Build strong collaborative relationships with regional teams to build opportunities which scale across multiple regions.

The position will report to the Head of Innovation for the Savoury category . I t is expected that the incumbent will work very closely with their counterparts across the Central Innovation & Technology team , as well as the Global commercial team to effectively delivery the joint growth and transformation agenda and ensure balanced focus on delivera