Lab Director-Industrial Segment

Mission

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To lead a group of laboratory teams in delivering innovation through formulation, training commercial and technical colleagues, and providing samples of new formulations for use by the sales team.

This position provides technical guidance to several labs across a large region or across different market segments, and liaises closely with the global lab organization.

The Laboratory Director works closely with lab managers and commercial colleagues in identifying and selecting projects with both technical feasibility and tangible commercial opportunity.

This position typically requires a combination of deep technical understanding of the technology in at least one market segment and broad understanding of the different ways the labs can contribute to the success of Azelis in different market segments.

This position must influence colleagues to think beyond current industry offerings, to position Azelis as the leading innovation services provider among peer distributors.

Main Accountabilities

• Day to Day responsibility for the laboratory team
• Line management and supervisory responsibility
• Strategically recruiting and training future talent for future roles in the larger organization
• Implement digital tools for effective use in lab functions
• Customer formulations
• Lead team members to listen to customer requests, document them in clear objective terms, and identify possible ways to technically fulfill them.
• Lead team members to identify opportunities to not just match competitive technology but to advance beyond competitive technology and promote our portfolio in alignment with the business.
• With commercial leaders, identify the opportunities with best prospects for technical and commercial success.
• Drive lighthouse projects and the adoption of benchmarking work.
• Lead teams to communicate findings in a clear and compelling manner to all stakeholders internally and externally.
• Training
• Identifying and carrying out training to support the growth of the lab team members for business needs including cross training where applicable
• Provide technical training for our commercial and technical colleagues in our lateral value chain of products and in formulations based on them
• Assist commercial colleagues in seeing how they can use the Azelis labs to achieve competitive advantage
• Assist with organizing site visits in collaboration with the lab team
• Health and Safety
• Responsibility for all health and safety procedures in the laboratory
• Continuous improvement of health and safety procedures
• Ensure all team members follow health and safety procedures
• Provide training to team members where required
• Lead contact for ISO audits where appropriate
• Liaison between lab and SHEQ for sustainability in the lab and in regard to formulation solutions to our stakeholders
• Business Leadership
• Serves as part of the Business management team to ensure lab strategy development and lab alignment with Goals, Key Initiatives, and in supporting principals and customers to meet business objectives.
• Work closely with the industrial leaders to drive productivity through measurable outputs to demonstrate progress towards business goals and objectives.
• Monitor KPIs and share with the business leadership to provide insight on development areas, productivity, and alignment with product goals.
• Provide analytics to the business for such things as Principal reviews.
• Lead regular lab queue discussions with the market segment to update project status and drive increased success rates and output.
• Plan for new market needs / development areas (prepare with personnel and collaboration with Principals).
• Be the key contact for business needs of the laboratory.
• Communication
• Work with the communications / marketing team to communicate project success to be used broadly beyond one customer request and promote the capabilities of the innovation labs to support further adoption and growth with the sales team and customers.
• Lead tradeshow and marketing activities that deliver lab impact to the activity.
• Lead collaboration with other global labs for start-up assistance and collaboration.
• Leader for assisting with community of practice discussions in the relevant market areas.
• Represent the lab externally to customers or Principals.
• Budget
• Coordinate with relevant parties for approval on activities
• Make recommendations for Capital expenditures based on business needs and project demands

Experience, Skills & Education

• Bachelors degree minimum in relevant field; MS or PhD degrees typically preferred
• Record of consistently guiding multifunctional technical / commercial teams to technical innovation
• Operational experience in laboratory management
• Change leadership experience and orientation
• Ability to influence and achieve results through others.
• Excellent listening skills. Clear and persuasive writing and speaking skills.
• Ability to liaise with people at all levels across multiple corporate functions both internally and externally
• Ability to coach, train, and mentor others to grow their capabilities
• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines
• Analytical skills
• IT literacy

Reporting line and organisational level

Regional Innovation Director, Market Segment Director or Technical Director

Internal and external stakeholders of the role

• Internal : Business Manager, Sales Managers, Laboratory Managers and Chemists
• External : Customers, Principals

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