Regional Food Safety & Quality by Design Manager AMEA

This role is responsible for deploying and embedding Food Safety and Quality by Design (FSQR) across the regional cocoa, chocolate, compound, and chocolate alternatives portfolio. It ensures that all new product developments, product and process changes are designed, risk-assessed, validated, and implemented in line with global standards, regulatory requirements, and customer expectations.

Operating with high autonomy, the role translates global strategy into robust regional execution, ensuring FSQR principles are fully understood and applied by RD, Commercial and Operations, while driving a strong First Time Right culture. The role is a key technical partner in NPI/stage-gate governance and change management, influencing decisions in a complex matrix environment

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES SCOPE

Strategy Deployment Regional Leadership

• Implement the global Food Safety and Quality by Design strategy within the region, ensuring alignment with regional business and customer needs.

• Act as the regional FSQR by Design expert for cocoa/chocolate/compound categories, providing practical and technical guidance across projects.

• Deploy Quality by Design tools, methodologies and frameworks consistently across the product lifecycle.

• Drive First Time Right execution by embedding preventive, risk-based thinking into design and development

• AMEA specific: Quality by design role to be back up for Customer Value and vice versa

New Product Development (NPD) Stage-Gate Leadership

• Represent FSQR as a core decision-maker in regional NPI and stage-gate meetings.

• Ensure FSQR requirements (food safety, quality, regulatory, customer) are clearly defined, understood and embedded from the concept stage.

• Challenge and guide RD and Commercial teams to ensure feasible, compliant and customer-fit solutions.

• Ensure all projects are supported by robust risk assessments, validation plans, and post-launch reviews.

Change Management Excellence

• Lead FSQR input into product and process change management, ensuring structured Quality by design application.

• Ensure all changes are assessed using a risk-based approach, with clear documentation, validation, and governance.

• Drive cross-functional alignment to manage impacts on manufacturing, raw materials, customer specifications, and regulatory compliance.

• Support high-impact or complex changes with clear risk mitigation and escalation where needed.

Stakeholder Management Cross-Functional Influence

• Strongly influence and align stakeholders across RD, Commercial, Operations and FSQR.

• Translate FSQR requirements into clear, actionable guidance for RD and Commercial teams to enable effective decision-making.

• Act as a bridge between technical and commercial functions, ensuring risks, constraints and trade-offs are well understood.

• Build strong regional partnerships and ensure consistent communication across stakeholders.

Customer Category Focus

• Ensure a deep understanding of customer requirements, specifications and application needs.