Consumer Research Senior Manager

About the Opportunity

Driscoll’s has a Mission to delight consumers in alignment with its customers and berry growers. It is at the heart of everything we do in R&D. A key strategy to this Mission is to Win with Flavor, and Driscoll’s R&D is seeking a senior leader for a Consumer Research team to drive innovation in how we integrate consumer preferences into the development and management of new varieties that will see us deliver even more delightful fruit to our consumers, every day of the year. The consumer is changing as we expand into new geographies and demographics; this role will work closely with Consumer Insights and other R&D teams to anticipate how we will adapt. The Consumer Research Senior Manager will bring innovation and new thinking into R&D, championing best-in-class protocols across global research sites where consumer data is one of our most strategic assets. With a strong scientific foundation and the drive to collaborate and seek out new opportunities, this is an ideal role for someone who wants to shape how Driscoll’s will Win with Flavor in the next generation of berry varieties.

 Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a global strategy for consumer research to Win with Flavor for the next generation, partnering with Consumer Insights and other R&D teams, while seeking out new opportunities to take delight further.

• Champion change management, leading in consumer data as an asset, ensuring alignment and adaptation of standardized sensory and post-harvest protocols across global sites.

• Serve as a key member of the R&D Management Team while mentoring and inspiring a consumer research team generating flavor data at scale across global R&D locations and performing innovative discovery research.

• Collaborate across R&D functions to automate the collection of sensory and post-harvest data, working with teams on designing training sets and developing models, and ensuring data standardization and governance.

• Partner with IT teams to develop new solutions that connect data streams across consumers, employees, central location testing, and trained employee panelists to fuel the next generation of prediction models.

• Be a leader in organized data and reproducible science, supporting both Next Generation Breeding and other teams in flavor and post-harvest research priorities.

• Manage budgets and allocate resources associated with the Consumer Research team.

    Candidate Profile

•   PhD or Master’s Degree in sensory science, post-harvest, fruit physiology, or a related field with significant exposure to modern breeding methods and technologies.
•   Five or more years of industry experience in a field related to consumer research.
•   Five or more years of people leadership experience.
•   Consumer and sensory testing, including the supervision and development of consumer panels for flavor ratings, and trained panels for descriptive analytics.
•   Post-harvest fruit physiology and research, including in the testing of post-harvest applications to improve shipping and shelf-life of soft fruits.
•   Compilation, staging and analysis of diverse data types, including basic statistics, principal component analysis, partial least square regression, hierarchical clustering, repeatability/heritability estimates, and interpretation of these results.
•   Advanced sensory research and post-harvest soft fruit research experience.
•   Bilingual skills in Spanish is a plus.

Compensation and Benefits

The following information is provided in good faith as a general description of the salary range and benefits for the position posted.  The actual compensation offered to the successful candidate is dependent upon experience, skills, education, work location, internal pay equity, and other objective job-related factors. 

Salary Range estimated for the Consumer Research Senior Manager: $107,345.00/year to $173,429.00/year.

Driscoll’s is committed to a culture of care and offers an attractive benefits package that varies between our locations. Benefits may include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, life insurance, and disability coverage for positions working more than 30 hours per week (US). Other benefits may include: 401(k) with employer match, profit-sharing participation, paid sick time, paid vacation, paid personal and family care leave, and a free Employee Assistance Program (EAP).  More detailed information regarding the benefits package based on your geographic location will be shared during the application process.

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