R&D Technical Project Leader

Job Description – Dove Hair Technical Project Leader (TPL) + Formulation Function: R&D Work Level: 1D Reports to: R&D Manager Scope: LATAM Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina Terms & Conditions: Full-time About Unilever Unilever is the place where you can bring your purpose to life through meaningful innovation, creating a better business and a better world. Our Culture Shop defines how we show up every day, guiding behaviours and decisions across the organisation. Job Purpose The Technical Project Leader (TPL) is the single point of accountability for end-to-end R&D technical delivery of innovation projects. The TPL partners closely with the Marketing Project Leader and Supply Chain to deliver winning products that meet quality, cost and time commitments, while ensuring consumer safety, compliance and technical excellence, fully aligned with Unilever Culture Shop values. Key Responsibilities • Own end to end R&D technical delivery of Dove HAIR innovation projects, acting as the single point of accountability and representing the R&D voice in cross functional teams. • Lead and integrate all R&D technical workstreams (formulation, packaging, process, claims, regulatory), ensuring aligned, robust and timely delivery. • Drive technical decision making and risk management, balancing quality, cost and time, and proactively leading mitigation and trade off discussions. • Partner with Marketing and Supply Chain to define project objectives, milestones and assumptions, jointly owning OTIF delivery and technical feasibility of brand concepts. • Ensure consumer safety, compliance and technical excellence, including regulatory, IP, sustainability and crisis management when required. Key Formulation-Related Activities (R&D Skills Hive aligned) • Translate consumer and brand needs into clear formulation briefs, ensuring technical feasibility and alignment with project scope. • Coordinate formulation strategy across the R&D network, integrating formulation, process, packaging and claims decisions. • Guide formulation development from concept to scale-up, ensuring robustness, stability, performance and consumer safety. • Lead formulation risk assessment, identifying trade-offs and mitigation plans across quality, cost and time. • Ensure formulation compliance with regulatory, safety, IP and sustainability requirements across relevant markets. • Drive design-for-value and cost-efficient formulation choices, balancing performance, margin and supply resilience. • Support data-driven formulation decisions using experimental design, data generation and technical insight. • Partner with Supply Chain and Manufacturing to ensure formulations are scalable, transferable and manufacturable. • Enable effective collaboration with external partners or suppliers contributing to formulation development. • Coach and challenge formulation workstream leaders to deliver high-quality technical outputs on time in full. Experiences & Qualifications • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Chemistry, Pharmacy or related scientific discipline. • 5+ years of experience in R&D, technical project management or innovation delivery within FMCG, beauty, personal care or similar industries. • Proven experience leading cross-functional, multi-disciplinary technical teams. • Strong understanding of product development lifecycle, from concept to launch. • Experience working with external partners, suppliers or third parties is a plus. • Full professional proficiency in English (written and spoken). Key Skills & Capabilities • Technical leadership and systems thinking across formulation, packaging and process. • Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across functions and seniority levels. • Risk management and decision-making under uncertainty. • Project management with focus on quality, cost and time trade-offs. • Consumer safety, regulatory and compliance mindset. • Coaching and development of technical team members. • Clear communication and ability to simplify complex technical topics. Culture Shop Behaviours Care Deeply: Acts with empathy and ownership for consumer safety, people and the long-term impact of technical decisions. Focus on What Counts: Prioritises the critical few technical activities that deliver maximum value, managing trade-offs across quality, cost and time. Stay Three Steps Ahead: Anticipates technical risks, future capabilities and innovation opportunities, proactively shaping project direction. Deliver with Excellence: Drives disciplined execution, accountability and high standards to ensure robust, scalable and compliant launches.

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