Sensory and Consumer Experience Team Lead

Job Description

About Us

Kraft Heinz is a global food company with a delicious heritage. With iconic and emerging food and beverage brands around the world, we deliver the best taste, fun and quality to every meal table we touch. We’re on a mission to disrupt not only our own business, but the global food industry. A consumer obsession and unexpected partnerships fuel our progress as we drive innovation across every part of our company.

What's on the Menu:

We have a fantastic opportunity available for a Dynamic Sensory and Consumer experience Team Lead to make a difference at Kraft Heinz. Heading our Core Product Platforms (Sauces and Meals), you will cover EPDM (Europe Pacific Developed Markets), collaborating with the zone RD leadership team. Reporting to the Emerging and Developed Market Consumer & Culinary Experience Director, you will be managing the Consumer Experience Core Platforms team.

This role is pivotal in ensuring our products resonate with market opportunities and consumer needs. Your primary responsibility will be to drive the organization in transforming insights into actionable products and packaging design principles to elevate market success.

Key Ingredients:

Leadership & Management:

• Lead and mentor a multi-cultural team of Consumer Experience researchers and sensory analysts.

• Manage resources to ensure impactful results, including outstanding strategic & technical mastery of the team.

• Ensure the right project pipeline prioritization and associated budget needs to deliver high impact on strategic projects.

• Foster a high-performance culture within the team, ensuring continuous professional development.

Strategy & Collaboration:

• Lead the Platforms Consumer experience strategy to step change our consumer obsession agenda, connecting the dots across multiple functions.

• Be the voice of the consumer through Sensory and Consumer experience insights, connecting multi-source of information to anticipate future consumer needs.

• Collaborate with R&D, Marketing, and leadership teams to align product development routes and market strategies.

• Supervise the development and execution of the team’s strategic learning plans to enhance our portfolio penetration and develop new innovations to attract new consumers.

Stakeholder Management:

• Build and maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

• Manage external partnerships to ensure consistency, quality, and agility.

• Engage with senior leadership, steering committees, and key company leaders to represent and reflect the voice of the team, ensuring team perspectives are considered in strategic discussions and decision-making.

Learnings, Methodologies and Best Practices:

• Work in close collaboration with the Global Consumer Experience Acceleration Lead to identify capability needs, define and develop new methodologies, and implement standard processes that enable the team to be successful, agile, and future-ready.

• Ensure synergies are created within the EMDM zone with other CX researchers, aligning on best practices, supporting specific needs with guidelines and cascading key insights as well as collecting the ones generated at the local levels.

• Enrich and manage the agency roster, regularly reporting back on partner performance to ensure reliability, consistency, and quality in data collection across studies.

Activity Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of proactive insights, continuous learning plans, and strategic programs that influence category growth and strengthen consumer-led decision-making.

• Guide the team in translating market opportunities and consumer needs into clear product and packaging design principles, leveraging design tools, methodologies, consumer research, and sensory capabilities. Ensure category “where to play” choices are converted into actionable insights that define “how to win”.

• Provide leadership oversight on product development follow-up, ensuring key design principles are embedded and risks are assessed to support informed decisions on product viability.

• Champion design sprint projects in partnership with our innovation coach, enabling the team to shape next-generation product development through strong design challenges.

• Own and steer the implementation of product and pack superiority programs, ensuring the right level of focus, discipline, and business impact.

Recipe for Success: Apply if it sounds like you!

• BSc in Food Science, Engineering or Sensory / Consumer Science or in Marketing or Innovation Studies with 13+ years of experience

• Proven experience in the field of Consumer Technical Insights, Consumer eXperince, Cognitive science, Economical Science and Sensory Science, with an established track record within consumer / FMCG / retail industries on the client side – ideally with food categories experience

• International experience within a matrix organization.

• Strong background in quantitative and qualitative research and experience in workshop facilitations. Display a broad & diverse range of knowledge/application skills across the full range of sensory and consumer research disciplines.

• Knowledge of Design thinking, lean start up and Design Principals methodologies applied to consumer products testing.

What we offer you / You deserve

• A fast career track like only few other companies can match;

• A competitive salary and excellent bonus structure (above market);

• Reimbursement travel expenses;

• Always room for new ideas; if you have a good idea, please let us know, and we can set it in action

Why Us?

We grow our people to grow our business. We champion great people who bring ambition, curiosity, and high performance to the table as the guardians of our beloved and nostalgic brands. Good isn't good enough. We choose greatness every day by challenging the ordinary and making bold decisions. All while celebrating our wins – and our failures – as we work together to lead the future of food.

Challenging the status quo takes talent. We invest in your purpose and potential by developing skills and nurturing strengths that leave a legacy on our business and a lasting impact on your career. Because great people make great companies, and we’re growing something great here at Kraft Heinz.

We hope you find a seat at our table!

Location(s)

Nijmegen

Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer – Underrepresented Ethnic Minority Groups/Women/Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity and other protected classes.