Materials Innovation & Technology Manager

Job Description

Sealed Air’s Innovation & Sustainability Organization is seeking a driven leader to lead a team focused on developing new products for the packaging industry with the ability to understand packaging materials’ interaction with the customer’s packaging equipment and the packaged product. In addition to the development of new product solutions, this role is tasked with supporting our front end of innovation initiatives and being an advocate for Sealed Air’s leadership position in sustainable solutions.  This individual will manage direct reports, develop improved processes for flawless project execution, prioritize projects and workload for direct reports, and oversee the execution of innovation solutions to meet our customer’s critical packaging needs.   

Responsibilities

• Develop employee’s technical and professional skills in the areas of packaging materials (plastic films, urethane foams, low density polyethylene foams, biopolymers, paper, etc.), food science, packaging engineering, and packaging equipment.
• Lead teams to provide technical solutions to customers, external vendors, field representatives, and the broader Innovation & Development organization. 
• Implement strategy to develop, design, and run trials that validate the reliability of the equipment, materials, and their interactions in order to provide the most robust solution to our customers.
• Lead the creation of value-propositions and competitive intelligence for Sealed Air’s developmental solutions driving credible project definition and scoping documents.
• Develop and lead front end intelligence gathering on the customer critical packaging challenges to build the funnel of the next innovations for Sealed Air.
• Provide strategic ideas that drive the enhancement of current product lines or the development of new product lines to expedite increased profitability.
• Partner with the Materials & Process Engineering Team and the Applications Team accelerate innovations to funnel the Innovation Pipeline, regionally and globally. 
• Provide thought leadership as leader focused on innovative solutions that allow Sealed Air to come up with the next break through innovations in packaging.
• Prioritize tasks and motivate employees to accomplish objectives timely with high quality.
• Interview, hire, coach, and develop direct reports.
• Work effectively within a matrix managed organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science Degree in a science, engineering or packaging discipline
• Master’s degree in a technical disciple is preferred
• Minimum of seven years professional experience
• Flexible travel domestically and internationally, at least 20%
• Excellent people management/development skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Experience creating data-driven reports to communicate technical ideas 
• Ability to effectively present concepts and ideas to non-technical audiences
• Experience managing multiple tasks, often with competing deadlines
• Professional, highly-motivated, reliable, and solutions-orientated
• Must possess strong interpersonal skills and a work ethic that corresponds with Sealed Air’s core values
• Proven track record of opportunity identification and translating ideas into significant commercial success
• Proven business acumen facilitating collaboration across functions, regions, and business segments