Job Information
The Coca-Cola Company Senior Manager, Technical Research & Development in Atlanta, Georgia
The Global Development and Innovation (GDI) center is pivotal to The Coca‐Cola Company's beverage innovation and the GDI Nutrition category team is primarily focused on juices, dairy and plant based beverages with responsibilities in areas including product development, supply continuity, and process/package interactions. As a Senior Manager in Product Development, you will plan and lead continuity efforts and identify technologies and capabilities that contribute to our portfolio's security and growth by developing new or enhancing existing beverages and the strategies necessary to deliver them into the future. The role should have strong product development skills and system execution knowledge to be able to identify solutions that can execute in our system and supply chain.
Qualifications & Requirements:
At least 8 years successful product development experience and/or supply chain experience in the beverages industry or 8-10 years of successful experience in the food industry. Understanding of procurement capabilities a plus.
Bachelor's, Master's, or Post-Graduate degree in food science, chemistry, supply chain or related field.
Fluent in English, with proficiency in an additional language preferred.
Willing to travel up to 20% annually.
Key Responsibilities:
Work as part of a cross-functional team (Procurement, R&D, Regulatory Affairs, Quality, Analytical Services, Marketing): plan and execute projects to deliver beverage and ingredient continuity, enhancements, and innovations to enable security of supply and competitive edge in our portfolio.
Supply Continuity: Work cross-functionally across the globe in partnership with the agricultural procurement team to identify and manage medium and long term supply opportunities across juices, plant based ingredients, dairy ingredients and others critical to our beverage portfolio. Identify and execute potential technical solutions to eliminate or reduce the risk to the portfolio utilizing an enterprise first mindset.
New Risk Awareness: Stay informed about emerging risks, especially those related to agricultural ingredient selection, product design, and supply concerns (climate impacts, agricultural growing practices, geopolitical issues, growth trends, etc) to ensure product safety, sustainability, and supply continuity.
Project Execution: Execute new recipe development or adaptations (assigned by and under supervision of manager), ensuring projects meet quality, timing, and budget targets. Employ a 'design to value' and E2E approach to incorporate supply availability, sustainability, regulatory requirements, consumer preference, and supply chain considerations from the start.
Experimentation: Continuously search for new and better ways to drive a positive consumer experience in an efficient and sustainable manner with a focus on reducing the risk exposure of our portfolio from an ingredient perspective.
Understand existing literature in areas of beverage technology and leverage all available tools and subject matter experts to find new ways to do things better, faster, and more cost effectively.
Innovation and Prototyping: Develop lab-scale prototypes, conduct analytical, sensory tests, facilitate pilot-scale productions, and co-lead with the operating unit the scale up trial runs in manufacturing facilities. Apply statistical methods and design of experiments to enhance product development efficiency and learning. Leverage digital tools to document formulas and mixing instructions.
Communication and Collaboration: Report project outcomes, share learnings, participate in and lead cross-functional teams, and provide insights and data to guide decisions and innovations. Effective partnership, storytelling ,and technical communication will bridge technical recommendations with strategic business objectives.
Sustainability and Technology: Integrate sustainability principles and digital tools (e.g., AI, digital prototyping) early in the development process to map impacts and accelerate innovation. Your digital acumen will enable you to leverage data and technology in product development and risk management as well as contribute to unlocking future opportunities. Must be able to work with and leverage big data to develop a narrative and tell a story that can be used to drive strategy and influence key stakeholders.
External Focus and Innovation: Ability to identify and pilot novel propositions that can give our brands or products a competitive edge. Consider new technologies and ingredients and evaluate their potential for our purposes: co-creating the innovation pipeline.
Market Insights and Competitor Awareness: Maintain a strong interest in the activities and strategies of our competitors, as well as overall market trends. This involves not just understanding what exists but imagining new possibilities and translating them into technically feasible solutions. Ability to use this information to help shape category strategy.
Digital Savviness for Innovation: Harness digital tools, technologies, and platforms to gather insights for product development, such as market trends, consumer preferences, and social media information. Use artificial intelligence to aid in ideation and concept development, accelerate the creation of new ideas, and utilize digital prototyping to speed up innovation and enhance product quality. Employ data and software tools for managing sustainability from the design phase and assessing risks more effectively. Propose and drive continuous improvement for the category / department.
Strong knowledge of agricultural ingredients, beverage development, processing technologies, and industry standards. Horticultural, genetics, and/or bioinformatic knowledge preferred.
A strong scientific background, and ability to partner with our analytical science team to identify beverage technology breakthroughs for competitive edge and for superior consumer experiences.
Effective use of data to tell a story and to help create and define a strategy.
Stakeholder management, innovation leadership and strategic decision making.
Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and project management abilities.
Agility, resilience, and creativity to navigate new product development projects.
A willingness to disagree and push back on ideas early on in the ideation process. Must also be willing to disagree but commit on ideas embedded downstream in the stages and gates process.
Proficiency in statistical analysis and experimental design.
Commitment to sustainability and familiarity with science-based targets for eco-design and supply chain (e.g., tracking ingredient sourcing and lifecycle impacts, and foundational knowledge on circular economy).
Digital literacy: Advanced digital skills to employ data analytics, AI, and digital prototyping in innovation. Data integrity and cybersecurity awareness.
Skills:
Leadership; Product Development; Waterfall Project Management; Strategic Thinking; Empathy (Inactive); New Product Development; Research and Development Operations; Innovation; Researching; Analytical Thinking; Food Sciences; Communication; Product Design; Data Compilation; Research Development; Sensory Testing
$120,000 - $149,000
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.