Sr Scientist / Associate Principal

Description/Job Summary:
A Senior/Principal Food Scientist will provide technical support to new or existing customers with growth potential to grow sales of Tate & Lyle ingredients. This position requires a technical professional with 5 - 10+ years of experience in the food industry with strong knowledge of food systems, ingredient functionality, and processing across a broad range of food applications. Experience with starches and other hydrocolloids is a plus. The candidate must have strong communication and interpersonal skills and be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment with a large number of customers across a broad range of applications. Contribution is measured through quality growth in the technical project pipeline and conversion of technical opportunities to sales. Willingness to travel up to 50%.
 

Responsibilities: 
• Develop close working relationship with the technical community of new customers or under-developed existing customers. Identify, penetrate and build relationship with key decision makers leading to new opportunities and projects.
• Work cross functionally within Tate & Lyle to ensure customer performance goals are met.
• Leads customer projects and provides technical expertise and support to develop high quality, cost effective solutions.
• Partners with sales teams to build a strong project pipeline by identifying and shaping new opportunities.
• Capture new technical leads/opportunities to build a strong project pipeline in CRM system. Independently review projects, growth, and ability to move projects through development stages.
• Responsible for understanding customer needs and using these insights to support solution design, pipeline development and technical strategies.
• Understands customer culture, capabilities, structures and processes utilizing these insights to support the development of fit for purpose solutions.
• Follows and shares market intelligence and industry trends to contribute to solution development.
• Promote Tate & Lyle’s technical leadership position by presenting new product ideas and technologies to existing and potential customers.
• Supports customers in using ingredients by leveraging understanding of Tate & Lyle’s ingredients portfolio and their applications.
• Creates recognition for Tate & Lyle‘s ingredients/technologies by developing and fostering relationships within the industry.
• Builds a strong and diverse internal network to be able to draw upon the right sources of expertise as required.
Key Competencies:
• Understands and anticipates customer/market aims, needs, processes and success measures, to better develop and position solutions that have real impact.
o Senior Level: Assumes primary technical responsibility of customer interactions, draws out issues with timely responses
o Principal Level: Leads complex technical discussions with customers, mentors others on customer’s needs, develops strategies and influences stakeholders
• Combines insights on technical expertise, the external environment and our customers’ business with a deep understanding of Tate & Lyle to drive commercially astute business decisions consistent with our strategic objectives.
o Senior Level: Shares industry and market information back into business, participates in new business technical assessment, determines implicates of solution development and adoption, understand competitive solutions
o Principal Level: Drives new business technical assessment, combines understanding of T&L and customer value chain to grow the business, demonstrates strong commercial acumen, creates plans and strategies to mitigate risk
• Thinks creatively, analytically and holistically, employing innate curiosity to explore problems and generate impactful solutions.
o Senior Level: Effectively questions and explores concepts, represents the voice of the customer, adapts and delivers compelling value propositions
o Principal Level: Coaches team members and customers, develops and communicates compelling technical insights to secure customer commitment to engage in new solution design
• Carries out rigorous and high-quality research that elevates Tate & Lyle’s brand as a world-class solutions provider.
o Senior Level: Clearly and logically plans projects, follows processes and procedures, supports technical trials, analyzes large amounts of data to define the critical issues and make recommendations
o Principal Level: Determine best practices and the recommended path forward, adapts processes to better suit customer, recognizes issue to be resolved and can build multiple solution paths, proactively ensures alignment across multiple teams
• Acts as an advisor, both internally to drive the direction of Tate & Lyle and externally to inform thinking and action when solving complex problems. Leverages a deep understanding of stakeholders, partners and customers to influence and collaborate effectively.
o Senior Level: Develops broad industry network, build relationship with key internal colleagues, shares insights with cross-functional stakeholders, keeps stakeholders aligned and engaged
o Principal Level: Develops internal and external networks, engages a wide range of stakeholders, effectively influences with compelling rationale and recommendations, enables the sharing of insights with cross-functional stakeholders, identifies and navigates organizational dynamics
• Takes accountability for delivering world class solutions. Pro-actively takes ownership and shows initiative in leading and contributing to high-quality and timely work.
o Senior Level: Identifies and seizes new opportunities, converts plans into own tactics, monitors and assesses progress, takes responsibility to ensure quality and timeliness of deliverables
o Principal Level: Develops tactics and modified technology as needed, oversees design and delivery of complex customer implementations, creates clarity for self and others, holds people accountable for deliverables, embets culture of continuous improvement
 

Qualifications: 
• Education: Bachelor’s Degree is required (Master’s degree preferred) preferably in food science, chemistry, engineering or related area of study
• Food industry experience:
o Senior Level: 5 years
o Principal Level: 10+ years for of experience in the food industry. 
• Food formulation experience and understanding of food systems and ingredient functionality required. Sound knowledge of food science, food chemistry, food microbiology, and food processing.
• Broad industry experience including experience drawing on relationship management and professional maturity.
• Willingness to travel up to 50% (car and/or air)
*The Job title, role and responsibilities are subject to change based on qualifications / experience of the candidate and the business needs of the company.

California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA")

The Company is committed to complying with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and all data privacy and laws in the jurisdictions in which it recruits and hires employees. We collect the following categories of personal information for the purpose of hiring the best qualified applicants and to comply with applicable employment laws: Name and contact information; Job preference and work availability; Social Security Number and/or other identification information; Education and qualifications; Employment history and experience; Military service; Reference and background check information, including relevant criminal history and credit history; Social media information; Pre-employment test results; Post-offer medical examination information and results, including drug test results; Voluntary self-disclosure information regarding minority, veteran, and disability status; and Information provided by you during the hiring process.

Tate & Lyle is an equal opportunity employer, committed to the strength of an inclusive workforce.