Customer Innovation Manager

Cargill is a family company committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. We sit at the heart of the supply chain, partnering with producers and customers to source, make and deliver products that are vital for living. By providing customers with life's essentials, we enable businesses to grow, communities to prosper, and consumers to live well.

This position is in our Food Enterprise where we are committed to serving food manufacturers, food service customers, and retailers with a complete range of innovative ingredients and branded products. Our portfolio includes poultry, beef, egg, alternative protein, salt, oils, starches, sweeteners, cocoa and chocolate.

Job Purpose and Impact

Location: Cairo, Egypt - This is a permanent full time Monday-Friday position, office based with travel to customers in Egypt and the Middle East.

Customer Innovation Manager role will provide technical advice and support to customers prior, during and after product sales. In this role, you will be the lead contact for customers in the food industry (focus on Dairy and Dairy Alternatives) and you will stay ahead of technology and business practices through workshops, research and professional meetings. The role will bridge Business intend to technical strategies and back to Business results. The position holder will report to the Senior Director R&D.

Key Accountabilities

• Collaborate with Cargill network of technical teams like R&D, Manufacturing and consultants to provide onsite technical support for current customers and prospects.
• Be the owner of creating & executing healthy NBD & NPSS pipelines for their respective regions.
• Collaborate with Product Lines, Food Safety, Quality & Regulatory, Marketing and Sales teams to partner on selecting the right projects to enable the sales in timely manner.
• Provide customer solutions and technical support materials to specific customers.
• Perform complex research for product development to understand product properties and systems Operations according to customer needs & consumer trends.
• Compile and analyze data for project update, working with external suppliers to test new products and technologies to make recommendations on applications.
• Organize project data and conclusions for internal and customer presentations, assist with product demonstrations and service as subject matter guide during meetings with prospective customers.
• Stay ahead of product insight and research to improve value of offerings.
• Keep application and value collection up to date in the systems.
• Independently handle complex issues with minimal supervision, while escalating only the most complex issues to appropriate staff.
• Coordinate with a project manager mindset various tasks/ critical milestones internally and with our customers Ability to translate the 'voice of the customer' internally in order to influence and drive 'win-win' solutions for Cargill and our Strategic customers Track and report on key account metrics, and provide regular feedback to Cargill leadership Ensure good reporting and track customer interactions and activities via our CRM tool Stay ahead of industry trends, emerging technology and competition landscape to provide product insight to improve Cargill's offerings to customers Coordinate internally technical troubleshooting via Cargill's team
• Other duties as assigned

• Experience & know how in Dairy & Dairy Alternatives is a must
• Bachelor's degree in Food Engineering, Food Science, Food Nutrition, Biotechnology, Chemical Engineering. Food industry experience in the R&D, Operations teams for ~10 years

• Master's degree, Doctorate degree in Food related degrees
• Passion for understanding, creating, and communicating value and solutions to team members and customers.
• Business acumen Strong communicator with the ability to maneuver with diverse audience (incl. internal/ customer senior leadership) Proven track record of taking ownership and fostering collaboration Appetite for science backed Solutions
• Fluent in Arabic and in English