Sr. Director, R&D - North America Potato

'' • Oakbrook Terrace, IL

4d • $165,000 - $220,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Sr. Director, R&D – North America Potato is accountable for defining and delivering the North America Potato new product development agenda and a three-year (plus) innovation pipeline. This role partners closely with global innovation platform peers and cross-functional stakeholders to enable value creation across the NA Potato portfolio.
The Sr. Director leads and coaches a team of scientists and senior scientists/product developers, translating demand-space insights into differentiated product propositions and solutions. Working alongside specification specialists, regulatory affairs, and packaging engineers, this role plays a critical part in enabling McCain’s NA Potato growth ambitions.
As a strategic R&D leader, the Sr. Director unlocks consumer-centric design thinking and leverages competitor and market insights to define, design, and execute technical solutions that deliver impactful product experiences and transformational innovation. Through robust, iterative design processes, this role ensures products reflect the latest technological advancements and deliver consumer-relevant attributes that can be scaled across the network.
Drawing on deep commercial and category strategy expertise, the Sr. Director ensures all product development delivers competitive, customer-winning solutions. This role is widely recognized for technical leadership that enables successful customer engagements and co-creation initiatives, ensuring McCain’s offerings remain innovative, scalable, and aligned with market and customer needs.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Food Science, Engineering, Business, or a related technical discipline (advanced degree preferred).
• Minimum of 10 years of progressive R&D experience, preferably within food, agri-food, or CPG sectors, with meaningful exposure to potato or adjacent categories.
• Proven success leading transformative initiatives and launching market innovations that deliver strong business results.
• Ability to independently set standards, hold teams accountable, and influence senior stakeholders with confidence and credibility.
• Strong negotiation skills and experience leading complex, cross-functional problem solving across multiple business functions.
• Highly effective communicator with the ability to engage and present at all leadership levels while building relationships beyond core expertise areas.
• Demonstrated commitment to inclusive leadership and talent development.
• Passion for best-in-class innovation practices that drive meaningful business outcomes.
• Deep understanding of regional new product development governance and processes.
• Willingness and ability to travel to sites for meetings and factory trials.

Responsibilities

• Accountable for identifying, developing, and delivering the NA Potato innovation pipeline to support the North America growth agenda.
• Collaborate closely with Marketing, Category, Sales, PMO, and S&OP to ensure portfolio alignment, prioritization, and effective resource deployment.
• Maintain strong, two-way communication with the Global Innovation Platform teams to enable efficient NA adoption of regionally relevant innovations.
• Act as a strategic connector between NA requirements and global programs, including the Technology Roadmap, Good Food commitments, and Global Innovation Platforms.
• Develop and advance a pipeline of early-stage regional concepts and prototypes, translating consumer and market insights into compelling product designs.
• Partner with Marketing, Consumer Insights, Sensory/UX, and Packaging teams to ensure alignment with defined demand spaces.
• Lead iterative prototyping to test and refine hypotheses based on consumer, customer, and competitive insights.
• Direct and coordinate internal and external, multi-disciplinary design and development resources to execute plans effectively.
• Ensure all new products align with Good Food commitments and regulatory requirements.
• Apply established scientific and technical methods—including experimental design, prototyping, validation, and commercialization scale-up—to generate high-quality technical data that supports transparent, informed decision-making across technical and non-technical teams.
• Lead concepts from ideation through commercialization using McCain’s stage-gate process.
• Partner with manufacturing teams, suppliers, and co-manufacturers to execute scale-up and enable consistent production across a broad factory network.
• Build, lead, and coach a high-performing, multi-site team of technicians, scientists, and senior scientists.
• Hire, onboard, and retain a diverse and high-impact team while leveraging shared resources across regulatory, specification management, sensory, and packaging design.
• Oversee the NA R&D NPD budget, providing recommendations and justifications for future planning cycles.
• Apply strong financial acumen to enable cost-effective, value-driven product development.
• Contribute to intellectual property activities and translate learnings into internal best practices.
• Share insights and innovations across McCain’s global R&D network.
• Serve as an active member of the NA Potato R&D Leadership Team (RDLT).
• Foster continuous growth and capability development across NA R&D, proactively identifying synergies and shared ways of working across potato and applications teams.

Benefits

• health coverage (medical, dental, vision, prescription drug)
• retirement savings benefits
• leave support including medical, family and bereavement
• Well-being programs include vacation and holidays, company-supported volunteering time, and mental health resources

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees