Executive Director, Technical Excellence, Advanced Science & Prospective Innovation

Description

The Executive Director of Technical Excellence, Advanced Science & Prospective Innovation at The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) will establish and lead the development of ELC advanced capabilities supporting best in class NPL operations and accelerating the path to igniting novel packaging innovation for ELC.

By building and orchestrating specialist teams in technical design, modelling & simulation, advanced methods development, supplier excellence, data, systems and AI, this role ensures that ELC Packaging operations leverage the best of technology and supplier partnerships to deliver excellence in NPL, leading the transformation of ways of working looking forward for more predictability and efficiency, notably via better integration and leverage of digital solutions. This role also critically involves the acceleration of technology entrepreneurship and significantly increase ELC’s ability to disrupt our categories with novel technology innovation pipeline leveraging the best of internal and external capabilities.

This is a role for an influential technical leader, looking to sponsor the advancement of science, technology, ways of working and standards across the global Packaging organization, and lay out new path to growth via Strech and Disruptive Innovation.

The ideal candidate is a visionary technical leader with significant packaging development experience and an ability to combine deep expertise in advanced technologies, materials, digital enablement, and open innovation with a proven track record of building high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams.

This is an NYC-based role and reports to the VP of Packaging Operations Excellence, Stretch & Upstream Innovation.

Success Measures

• Accelerate innovation velocity through advanced simulation, AI, and digital enablement.

• Increases technical excellence and confidence in the NPL pipeline via methods excellence, technical design and M&S

• Develop a high-performing future-fit Technical Excellence organization with strong capabilities in advanced science, digital, and innovation.

• Establish and lead an ambitious new technology pipeline - Expand the external innovation ecosystem for Packaging through strategic partnerships, technology scouting, and collaboration with suppliers, start-ups and academia.

Key Responsibilities

Leads Corporate Packaging Technical Design and Predictive competencies supporting best in class NPL across brands and categories

• Leads technical design capability enabling NPL teams to support and accelerate best in class “art to science” in the NPL process

• Leads modelling and simulation developing the capability to enhancing predictive performance of our Packaging solutions

• Leads digital and physical Prototyping capabilities supporting NPL, platform and innovation streams, leveraging the best of internal and external capabilities

• Champion the increased use of advanced modelling, simulation and virtual prototyping to predict packaging performance, optimize designs, and reduce physical testing cycles.

Advance Technical Methods & Standards

• Establish and maintain global technical standards, development methodologies, and best practices for packaging design, testing, and validation to ensure consistency, quality, and regulatory compliance.

• Lead the development of novel technical methods, testing protocols, and design tools to address emerging challenges in packaging performance, sustainability, and manufacturability and unlock the design or novel technical solutions to enable superior consumer performance.

Leads Supplier technical excellence, ensuring best in class supplier performance and partnerships in Innovation - In partnership with GSM and VRO, auditing technical competencies of new partners where necessary and leading competency improvement plans where necessary.

Ignite and lead global Packaging Stretch and Disruptive innovation pipeline serving ELC global businesses

• Explore and establish a high-performing external innovation eco-system and technology partnerships enabling ELC strategic innovation and growth agenda. Involving the negotiation of partnerships and piloting with clear success criteria, governed via a strict collaboration rhythm and performance expectations.

• Lead technology discovery big bets serving ELC biggest growth opportunity spaces, in coordination with R&I and GSM.

• Own Packaging IP strategy, involving the development of internal and external capability to create, capture, and protect IP.

• Connect-in the APAC innovation eco-system via Shanghai Packaging team

Leads Packaging work processes excellence, simplification, digitalization and standardization

• Owns and drives continuous improvement of Packaging Work Processes serving global Packaging operations in partnership with Category VPs, ensuring delivery with excellence, initiative speed and simplification for all eco-system actors.

• Leads Packaging Digital strategy, PLM design, integration and Digital transformation, including accelerated AI impact. Orchestrates and sponsors the systems roadmap, ensuring appropriate resourcing and change management. Deploy AI/ML use cases to improve reliability and performance; leading experimentation-to-scale.

Strategic Leadership & Vision - Sponsors advancement of technology, packaging processes, methods and standards

• Define and execute a multi-year technical excellence roadmap for Global Packaging, aligning advanced science and prospective innovation with business strategy, brand positioning, and sustainability commitments.

• Serve as the functional champion on emerging packaging technologies, materials, and digital capabilities, representing the organization within industry forums, supplier innovation sessions, and academic collaborations.

Qualifications

Critical Competencies:

• Advanced Technical Mastery: Deep expertise in material science, packaging technologies, methods and manufacturing processes relevant to prestige beauty packaging.

• Packaging work processes excellence: deep expertise in end-to-end packaging operations, quality systems, validation, and continuous improvement

• Technical packaging expertise: materials, formats, componentry, decoration, filling/assembly, and process capabilities

• Expertise in technical design and predictive modelling, including uses of modelling/simulation and statistics to anticipate performance, capacity, risk, and cost

• Technology scouting, innovation & IP: Ability to scan, evaluate, and champion emerging technologies and materials that create competitive advantage and future-proof the packaging portfolio

• Packaging systems, Digital & Data Fluency: Proficiency in data analytics, PLM systems, applied AI and other digital technologies to accelerate lead simplification and efficiency

Critical Experience:

• 15+ years in packaging development, including NPL and fundamental packaging technology expertise

• Proven leadership of multi-disciplinary technical teams, with a track record of building capability and driving performance.

• End-to-end innovation delivery with demonstrated success of taking complex, custom packaging innovations from concept through prototyping, validation, tooling, and full-scale commercialization.

• Advanced science and digital enablement with experience leading and partnering with R&D functions.

• Extensive network and working knowledge of global packaging suppliers, technology partners, start-ups, and academic institutions to source innovation.

Equal Opportunity Employer

It is Company's policy not to discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws and ordinances. The Company will endeavor to provide a reasonable accommodation consistent with the law to otherwise qualified employees and prospective employees with a disability and to employees and prospective employees with needs related to their religious observance or practices. Should you wish to apply for this position or any other position with the Company and you believe you require assistance to complete an application or participate in an interview, please contact [email protected].