Senior Product Development Manager, Retort & Blueloop PP

Inspired to grow with your experience, learn and share with new colleagues?

Huhtamaki is a key global provider of sustainable packaging solutions for consumers around the world, enabling wellbeing and convenience. Our innovative products protect on-the-go and on-the-shelf food and beverages, ensuring hygiene and safety, and help prevent food waste.

We are committed to protecting food, people and the planet and are on the lookout for passionate and consummate professionals to join our growing team to help us deliver on our ambitious 2030 Strategy. We look for colleagues who Care, Dare and Deliver.

The Senior Product Development Manager Retort & Blueloop PP will support our Flexible Packaging segment by leading and managing product development programs in the Retort Packaging market with a focus on Blueloop PP solutions. You will work alongside the commercial team to strategize and increase Huhtamaki's market share in Retort packaging solutions whilst ensuring connection to Huhtamaki Global R&D and Technical Account Managers to get the best value of the overall innovation pipeline.

Reporting into the Head of R&D for Flexible Packaging and as part of the Global Product Development team, you will bring competitive advantage and add value, in line with the strategic objectives of the Flexible Packaging segment.

You must be based a reasonable distance from one of our Flexible Packaging sites in; Ronsberg Germany, Istanbul Turkey, Prague Czechia, Tortona Italy, October City Cairo Egypt, Dubai UAE, Thane India, Samutsakorn Thailand, Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam.

Key Responsibilities

• Managing and developing strong working relationships across Huhtamaki regional innovation teams to ensure execution of the product development program
• Defining product development strategy and roadmap together with the Commercial team for the Retort laminate market with focus on Blueloop PP
• Driving execution, commercialization, and value engineering of new products
• Acting as an interface between the commercial community and R&D
• Leading Global Expert Community for Retort & Blueloop PP
• Project management of selected key global Retort & Blueloop PP projects
• Analyzing customers' needs and suggesting upgrades or additional features to meet their requirements
• Participating in the Product Development leadership team and contributing to overall Product Development strategy
• Aligning tasks, priorities, business needs, and information sharing with all relevant colleagues in R&D and TAM teams
• Organizing periodic meetings & innovation days with sales and important customers to familiarize them with Huhtamaki Flexibles global product offerings
• Developing strong working relationships across Huhtamaki regional innovation teams to enable prompt servicing of relevant customers and ensure standardization
• Analyzing competition activity in the Retort market and developing strategy to either enter unserved markets/products with Huhtamaki products or build up entry barriers
• Leading the process and being the facilitator to defend Huhtamaki's interests if Huhtamaki Flexibles related IP is infringed by a third party

• Degree qualified in packaging, materials science or related field
• 5+ years proven work experience as a Product Development leader, with strong experience in Retort processing
• In-depth knowledge of various packaging formats, machines, and laminate: machine interaction
• Ability to grasp customers' needs to reflect this in Product Development roadmaps
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Global professional with strong cross-cultural awareness
• Ability to build robust working processes and alignment across different teams
• Willingness to global travel and accept flexible working hours
• Ability to establish, maintain, and influence effective working relationships with internal and external customers
• Excellent English verbal and written communication skills, expertise in MS Office tools

• A meaningful job: At Huhtamaki, we believe in protecting food, people and the planet. Our innovative and transformative solutions touch the daily lives of people everywhere.
• Employees at the centre: As part of our 2030 Strategy, we are committed to building a high-performance workforce and in doing so strive to be the best workplace for our employees – employee safety and wellbeing is our top priority.
• Development opportunities: We care for each other – and want our talent to thrive and develop.
• Responsible employer: Sustainability is embedded in everything we do. We believe diverse teams fuel innovation. We invest in fostering an environment where everyone is safe both psychologically and physically and where diversity and inclusion are promoted through day-to-day behaviours, which are reinforced by our policies and practices.