.**Summary**: Contributes locally, regionally and globally to enable How to Win and Where to Play initiatives with specific focus on elevating Food Science capabilities and technologies related to the Sauces & Dressings product category.**Essential Duties & Responsibilities**:- Collaborates cross-functionally to assess market, consumer and customer needs, capitalizes on technical capability advantages and address capability gaps to identify future growth paths.- Manages R&D process of optimizing the innovation portfolio across product categories, customer segments and geographies with specific focus on Sauces & Dressings- Makes go/no-go decisions to prioritize and deprioritize projects as necessary and provides project updates in collaboration with Marketing and NA stakeholders.- Partners with Marketing, Culinary and NBD to deliver proactive product platforms infused with innovation technologies and designed to solve consumer problems for a broad range of customers.- Builds innovation culture across regional/unit cross-functional teams.- Validates business cases and assumptions to prioritize innovation projects and support resource allocation decisions.- Responsible for fiscal and LRP innovation financial targets, with specific focus on Sauces & Dressings.- Identifies and executes processes to protecting the integrity and confidentiality of technical innovations (security, patentability)- Identifies and collaborates with strategic partnerships to co-develop and promote intellectual property.- Integrates tools and approaches that drive technology initiatives and Griffith Foods' digital transformation- Regarded as an internal and external Sauces & Dressings product category thought leader to enable Product Leadership positioning.- Leads and manages resources to develop and execute project plans/briefs that communicate objectives, measurements, variables, methodologies, resources and timing required.- Works with Marketing, Sensory, Purchasing and Commercial Team teams to execute the commercialization/go-to-market execution plan.- Identifies and engages targeted external innovation partners (suppliers, academia, consultants, NGOs).- Works with Global R&D Sauces & Dressings product category leader and regional teams to communicate, review and transfer innovative technologies, knowledge, ideas and project data.- Works with Regulatory, Nutrition and Legal functions/resources to identify and assess the viability of new ingredients, technologies or funtionality claims.**Qualifications**:- Bachelor's degree (B.S.) and Master's degree from four-year College or University in food science or related field require. PhD or MBA preferred.- The following experience is required:- Fluency in Spanish and English- Strong analytical skills including knowledge of ingredient functionality across a range of food products.- Strong research project planning, management and execution skills