Head of R&D Strategy and Operations

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

We are seeking a Head of R&D Strategy and Operations to serve as a senior enterprise leader responsible for defining, prioritising, and orchestrating the global innovation agenda across brands, categories, regions, and capabilities within a Consumer Healthcare organisation.

This role has end‑to‑end ownership of the global R&D Capabilities
, ensuring R&D investments are rigorously prioritised, actively governed, and translated into sustainable growth and long‑term value creation. As a core member of the Global R&D Leadership Team, the role acts as a strategic partner to the Chief R&D Officer and works closely with senior leaders across categories and operating units to drive innovation speed, impact, and organisational effectiveness at scale.

The Head of R&D Strategy and Operations integrates science, consumer insight, commercial strategy, data, and market analytics to ope rationalise enterprise innovation and R&D strategies and deliver superiority and sufficiency across sub‑categories, formats, benefits, channels, and price corridors versus competition.

• Operationalize global innovation and R&D strategy in partnership with senior R&D leadership, including functional strategies (e.g. Packaging, Advanced Research).

• Translate enterprise growth priorities into clear strategic choices and operational action plans across categories, platforms, technologies, and time horizons.

• Lead long‑range R&D planning, scenario development, and strategic investment framing.

• Ensure alignment with consumer health purpose, regulatory standards, and value‑creation objectives.

• Own the overall R&D pipeline and capabilities across all lifecycle stages and innovation tiers.

• Identify gaps, risks, and opportunities and drive corrective actions.

• Lead governance forums, including prioritisation, funding decisions, and resource allocation.

• Balance near‑term delivery with long‑term innovation, platform building, and scientific advancement.

• Hold leaders accountable for R&D outcomes, value delivery, and risk management.

• Translate strategy into actionable roadmaps, milestones, KPIs, and success metrics.

• Lead multi‑year R&D operationalisation initiatives, including operating model design and governance.

• Drive speed‑to‑value, productivity, and cost efficiency through simplification, digital enablement (including AI), and strategic partnerships.

• Ensure R&D outcomes are scalable, repeatable, and commercially impactful.

• Serve as a trusted advisor to the Chief R&D Officer and help set the enterprise R&D agenda.

• Partner closely with Quality, Supply Chain, Commercial, Regulatory, Strategy, Finance, Data & Analytics, Transformation, and HR leaders.

• Lead preparation and presentation of R&D strategies for Executive Committee and Board‑level forums.

• Represent perspectives in senior enterprise decision‑making.

• Maintain an external lens on consumer health trends, science, technology, and best practices.

• Support strategic partnerships and innovation ecosystems that strengthen pipeline quality and capability depth.

• Bachelor’s degree in…