Product Development Manager Dairy

Position Job Title: Product Development Manager, Dairy

BG and BU: Amcor Flexible Europe, Middle East and Africa

Function: Research and Development

Location: Open in Europe

Line Manager’s Job Title: Product Development Director

Contract Type: Permanent

Job Purpose and Dimensions:

• Lead the Dairy Product Development team and own the dairy segment product and project portfolio. Partner with Sales to deliver innovative, market-ready solutions; drive cost-out through raw-material optimization, value engineering, and simplification; and ensure business continuity by qualifying alternatives and adapting to regulatory and compliance requirements.

• Ensure efficient resource allocation and project execution aligned to business objectives, balancing short-, medium-, and long-term priorities.

• Manage internal and external partners, with a strong focus on customer needs.

• Business partner to the Meat & Dairy BU, leading dairy product development across yoghurt, desserts, processed cheese, soft cheese, and dairy specialties.

• Part of the Global Protein Growth category.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Technical Specification and Product Development Portfolio:

• Own the project portfolio, contributing to profitable growth through innovation and sustainability, simplification, compliance, and cost-out initiatives aligned to the business strategy.

• Lead the execution of the approved R&D pipeline through the Stage-Gate process, delivering to committed timelines and enabling strong cross-functional teamwork across multiple functions and sites.

• Prioritize and allocate resources based on project complexity, value, and strategic importance.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure successful delivery of key business initiatives.

• Actively contribute to global Protein technical portfolio leverage.

• Provide technical support for existing products.

• Lead the deployment of Global and BG R&D programmes, KPIs, processes, and tools.

2. Team and Culture:

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team.

• Cultivate a collaborative, innovative culture and ensure effective communication across regions, business units, functions, and markets.

• Champion safety and customer focus.

• Drive process management and compliance.

3. Intellectual Property Management:

• Manage IP strategy and confidentiality agreements.

• Oversee the patent-filing process in coordination with Legal.

• Protect company innovations from competitive threats.

Key Challenges:

• Translate diverse customer needs into commercially viable packaging solutions, and respectfully decline requests that are not viable.

• Build and lead cross-customer project teams to deliver high-impact results (end-to-end processes, raw-material simplification, BCP, and portfolio management) across diverse regions and cultures.

• Balance short-term and long-term priorities through effective resource allocation and a strong drive for results.

Qualifications/Requirements:

• Master’s degree in chemistry, engineering, material science or equivalent.

• Min 5 years’ experience in product development management, preferably in a matrixed B2B environment.

• Project management experience in matrix organization.

• Experience in innovation and competitiveness portfolio management, with strong data analytics fundamentals.

• Proven people leadership.

• Proven customer engagement and stakeholder management.

Specific Skills and Abilities:

• Strong project and resource management skills.

• Excellent interpersonal, negotiation, and presentation skills.

• Solid understanding of market trends and customer dynamics.

• Strong business acumen and strategic mindset.

• Comfortable working in complex, matrixed organisations.