Associate Director of R&D - Cooking Aids & Mini Meals

Role Purpose
The Associate Director of R&D - Cooking Aids & Mini Meals North America is accountable for shaping the future of the category while delivering superior business performance today. This role serves as the strategic R&D leader and primary business partner to Category, Marketing, Supply Chain, Procurement, Finance, CMI, and Global R&D teams. The role integrates innovation strategy, consumer understanding, technology development, productivity, organizational effectiveness, and talent leadership to accelerate sustainable growth, strengthen competitiveness, and ensure long-term category success.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Category Leadership
• Develop and execute the category's long-term innovation, renovation, sustainability, and technology strategy.
• Build and maintain a robust multi-year pipeline of growth opportunities across core, adjacencies, and white-space opportunities.
• Translate business ambitions into actionable R&D roadmaps, investment priorities, and capability plans.
• Serve as a key member of the category leadership team, influencing strategic business decisions and portfolio direction.

Consumer & Innovation Leadership
• Champion consumer-centricity across all category decisions, ensuring consumer understanding informs innovation, renovation, and superiority programs.
• Leverage Consumer Technical Insights (CTI), market intelligence, and technical learning to shape innovation strategy and product design.
• Drive delivery of superior consumer experiences and differentiated innovation platforms that strengthen brand power and market competitiveness.
• Guide the development of innovation narratives and selling stories that connect technology, consumer benefits, and business growth.

Business Performance & Value Creation
• Own the R&D contribution to category growth, profitability, productivity, and competitiveness.
• Lead value engineering, cost transformation, and productivity programs that deliver sustainable savings while maintaining product quality and consumer experience.
• Connect technical decisions to business performance, including revenue growth, margin improvement, and portfolio health.
• Establish governance and performance management systems to track execution of strategic priorities and business commitments.

Portfolio & Technology Development
• Lead development of future-fit technologies, capabilities, and platforms that create competitive advantage.
• Partner with Global Design Centers, external technology partners, suppliers, flavor houses, and manufacturing teams to accelerate innovation.
• Balance speed-to-market with technical rigor, consumer validation, regulatory compliance, and quality requirements.
• Anticipate emerging consumer, technology, and competitive trends to future-proof the category portfolio.

Resource, Organization & Capability Leadership
• Deploy people, resources, and investments dynamically against the highest-value opportunities.
• Build organizational agility and capability to enable rapid response to evolving business needs.
• Lead talent development, coaching, succession planning, and capability building for the category organization.
• Foster an inclusive, high-performance culture that empowers teams to deliver breakthrough results and continuous improvement.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence
• Build strong partnerships across Marketing, CMI, Finance, Supply Chain, Procurement, Quality, Regulatory, and Global R&D organizations.
• Influence decision-making across complex stakeholder networks without direct authority.
• Lead cross-functional teams through ambiguity, balancing consumer, technical, operational, financial, and sustainability considerations.
• Represent the category and R&D organization with credibility, strategic insight, and strong business acumen.

Transformation & Organizational Excellence
• Lead transformation initiatives that strengthen category competitiveness and organizational effectiveness.
• Drive adoption of new ways of working, digital tools, and agile operating models.
• Build systems and processes that improve resource effectiveness, portfolio governance, and executional excellence.
• Champion employee engagement, culture initiatives, and organizational health to create a winning growth culture.

Leadership Expectations
The Associate Director demonstrates:
• Strategic Leadership – Thinks beyond projects to shape the future of the category and business.
• Consumer Obsession – Uses consumer understanding as the foundation for decision-making and innovation.
• Business Acumen – Translates technical choices into measurable business outcomes.
• Talent Builder – Enables individuals and teams to grow, succeed, and perform at their highest potential.
• Change Leadership – Leads transformation with courage, resilience, and clarity.
• Enterprise Mindset – Balances category priorities with broader business objectives.
• Execution Excellence – Delivers results through disciplined prioritization, governance, and accountability.

Pay: The pay range for this position is $146,200 to $219,400. Unilever takes into consideration a wide range of factors that are utilized in making compensation decisions including, but not limited to, skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, qualifications and education, and other business and organizational needs. 

Bonus: This position is bonus eligible. 

Long-Term Incentive (LTI): This position is LTI eligible. 

Benefits: Unilever employees are eligible to participate in our benefits plan. Should the employee choose to participate, they can choose from a range of benefits to include, but is not limited to, health insurance (including prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage), retirement savings benefits, life insurance and disability benefits, parental leave, sick leave, paid vacation and holidays, as well as access to numerous voluntary benefits. Any coverages for health insurance and retirement benefits will be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the applicable plans and associated governing plan documents. 

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