Thai Union Europe
Thai Union Europe (www.thaiunion.com) is a global FMCG company with multiple affiliates across EMEA. Thai Union Europe (TUE) is a subsidiary of Thai Union Ltd (TU); a global seafood business with more than 35,000 employees worldwide and HQ located in Bangkok. TU owns some of the world’s largest seafood brands – Petite Navire, Parmentier, Mareblu, John West, Red Lobster, King Oscar are well known examples. TU also has private label capabilities. Innovation is one of the Group’s major strategic priorities to achieve growth ambitions. To accelerate the innovation progress, TU launched the Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015. In this R&D center Thai Union challenges itself to think boldly, question the status quo and take calculated risks to unlock revolutionary changes in the way seafood is procured, produced, packaged and consumed. To accelerate innovation in Europe, TUE has recently launched an Innovation Hub in Wageningen, The Netherlands. At the moment the Innovation Hub is preparing a move to a state-of-the-art innovation location, also in Wageningen. To further strengthen the Innovation Hub team, we are searching for an ambitious and highly motivated Innovation Realization Officer.
Steering the cross functional innovation process for European markets
Functie
- Responsible for driving the innovation strategy at European scale, building on the existing innovation roadmap and putting in place the required work frame, best practices and milestones
- Building and managing a small team for portfolio management and project leadership
- Driving the innovation process with continuous improvement and ensuring to have an updated overview of all innovation and renovation initiatives across European organizations
- Making sure that projects fit into the strategic innovation framework as part of the growth ambition leading with a fewer, bigger and better mindset
- Leading and delivering projects, from idea to prototype to upscaling in the factories, for introduction in various European markets
- Ensuring an efficient stage gate process and governance for innovation and renovation projects across the European organization for branded as well as non-branded business, at local as well as regional level in collaboration with the Global Innovation Centre in Bangkok
- Working closely together with the innovation team, marketing teams, operations and the Global Innovation Centre based in Bangkok
- Driving innovation culture and mindset for change within TUE
- Reporting to the Senior Innovation Director Ambient Seafood.
Profiel
- Academic level, preferably with a MSc degree in Food Technology, Marketing or Supply Chain
- Relevant experience with innovation processes for consumer products in the international FMCG business
- General knowledge of the processes within marketing, innovation, industrial design, production and, supply chain and/or global sales channels
- Excellent project management and interpersonal skills
- Demonstrated leadership in managing projects with cross functional teams involving marketing, sales, purchasing and manufacturing in the development of new products
- Fit with a ‘start-up environment within a multinational’; comfortable working in an international organization with various cultures, able to travel approximately 25% of time
- Effective in communication with excellent stakeholder management skills; be able to coach people in your team
- Good presentation skills and ability to work within set targets and time frames
- Personal skills: self-starting, analytical, keeping overview, well organized, problem solving, takes decisions, results driven, team player and can-do mentality.
