Manager, Functional Application

Manager, Functional Ingredient Research, Application, and Ingredient Delivery

About the Research Team:

The Research to Experimentation (RtE) function in TI&SC delivers scalable and impactful innovations in the areas of ingredients, packaging, and dispensing (package-less) that grow, sustain, and protect our business. The Flavor and Ingredients Research Application (FIRA) team is part of RtE and creates a compelling consumer holistic experience through flavor & ingredients.

Our Functional ingredient Research, Application and Ingredient Delivery team is researching, developing, and validating the edge creation functional ingredient solutions for beverage application in order to address consumer wellness and functional benefit need.

Job Description Summary:

The Manager of Functional Ingredient Research & Application will explore, identify and translate the relevant science in wellness and health for functional beverage innovation and ingredient solution development. This role has a global scope, and we are looking for a thought leader with technical subject matter expertise and influencing skills. The ideal candidate will have a strong track record in combining deep scientific and academic expertise with hands-on experience in application or ingredient industry and will bring leadership acumen to develop and execute a robust research pipeline across short, mid, and long-term horizons. The individual will play a pivotal role in facilitating innovation in functional ingredients while collaborating across global networks to deliver impactful technical innovation, aligned with The Coca-Cola Company's strategic vision and OU innovation needs.

Key Responsibilities:

• Explore, identify and translate the relevant science in wellness and health for functional beverage innovation and ingredient solution development, through the collaboration with internal and external technical network, including universities, institutes, start-ups, technical providers, and ingredient suppliers.
• Work with appropriate internal and external experts to develop clinical studies and test protocols and experiments to validate efficacy of functional ingredients and technology and enable claim to substantiate with high quality data.
• Stay ahead of cutting-edge developments in functional ingredient science and proactively identify novel technologies, partnerships, or methodologies to maintain competitive advantage.
• Enable innovation solutions with beverage application and global scaling up feasibility to bring value to the system.
• Access and make recommendations for technology investments today that will enable future success.
• Foster an innovation mindset and accountability culture within the team and external collaborations to deliver measurable results.
• Apply functional ingredients in different beverage matrixes to identify technical feasibility and key challenges, and related solutions.

• Advanced degree (Ph.D. must) in Physiology, Biology, Biochemical Engineering, Life science, Biochemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, or a related disciplines.
• A minimum of 3-5 years of related research and application working experience.
• Expertise in key focus areas such as Metabolic physiology, human trial, metabolism regulation, microbiome and metabolism or related areas.
• Strong leadership capability with experience implementing research programs, managing high-impact projects, and innovating new solutions based on science.
• Proven curious and innovative mindset, with the ability to turn scientific insights into actionable, consumer-relevant solutions.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex science to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Proprietary Information: Ability to recognize and protect proprietary information as it relates to formulas and ingredients. Form patent strategy and file patent application to protect proprietary information.
• Endurance: Willingness and ability to occasionally function effectively over extended periods of time. Ability to be flexible and adjust priorities based on business needs.
• Data collection, cleaning, analysis and management skillsets and capability.

• Ingredients: Knowledge of and experience with functional ingredients for efficacy validation and claim enablement.
• Data: Data modeling experience and expertise.