Sr. Director, R&D - North America Potato

Position Title: Sr. Director, R&D - North America Potato - US Applicants
Position Type: Regular - Full-Time
Requisition ID: 41653
In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and passionate about creating exceptional work experiences - together. With a customer-first mindset, we make doing business with McCain easy.
About the role.
The Sr. Director, R&D - North America Potato is accountable for defining and delivering the North America Potato new product development agenda and a three-year (plus) innovation pipeline. This role partners closely with global innovation platform peers and cross-functional stakeholders to enable value creation across the NA Potato portfolio.
The Sr. Director leads and coaches a team of scientists and senior scientists/product developers, translating demand-space insights into differentiated product propositions and solutions. Working alongside specification specialists, regulatory affairs, and packaging engineers, this role plays a critical part in enabling McCain's NA Potato growth ambitions.
As a strategic R&D leader, the Sr. Director unlocks consumer-centric design thinking and leverages competitor and market insights to define, design, and execute technical solutions that deliver impactful product experiences and transformational innovation. Through robust, iterative design processes, this role ensures products reflect the latest technological advancements and deliver consumer-relevant attributes that can be scaled across the network.
Drawing on deep commercial and category strategy expertise, the Sr. Director ensures all product development delivers competitive, customer-winning solutions. This role is widely recognized for technical leadership that enables successful customer engagements and co-creation initiatives, ensuring McCain's offerings remain innovative, scalable, and aligned with market and customer needs.
Location: This role has the flexibility to be based in either Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada (with significant travel to our office in Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois) or in our Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois, corporate office.
What you'll be doing.
Innovation Pipeline Management

• Accountable for identifying, developing, and delivering the NA Potato innovation pipeline to support the North America growth agenda.
• Collaborate closely with Marketing, Category, Sales, PMO, and S&OP to ensure portfolio alignment, prioritization, and effective resource deployment.

Global and Regional Collaboration

• Maintain strong, two-way communication with the Global Innovation Platform teams to enable efficient NA adoption of regionally relevant innovations.
• Act as a strategic connector between NA requirements and global programs, including the Technology Roadmap, Good Food commitments, and Global Innovation Platforms.

Product Concept Development

• Develop and advance a pipeline of early-stage regional concepts and prototypes, translating consumer and market insights into compelling product designs.
• Partner with Marketing, Consumer Insights, Sensory/UX, and Packaging teams to ensure alignment with defined demand spaces.

Iterative Prototyping and Design Excellence

• Lead iterative prototyping to test and refine hypotheses based on consumer, customer, and competitive insights.
• Direct and coordinate internal and external, multi-disciplinary design and development resources to execute plans effectively.

Technical Rigor and Compliance

• Ensure all new products align with Good Food commitments and regulatory requirements.
• Apply established scientific and technical methods-including experimental design, prototyping, validation, and commercialization scale-up-to generate high-quality technical data that supports transparent, informed decision-making across technical and non-technical teams.

Stage-Gate Commercialization

• Lead concepts from ideation through commercialization using McCain's stage-gate process.
• Partner with manufacturing teams, suppliers, and co-manufacturers to execute scale-up and enable consistent production across a broad factory network.

Team Leadership and Talent Development

• Build, lead, and coach a high-performing, multi-site team of technicians, scientists, and senior scientists.
• Hire, onboard, and retain a diverse and high-impact team while leveraging shared resources across regulatory, specification management, sensory, and packaging design.

Budget and Financial Stewardship

• Oversee the NA R&D NPD budget, providing recommendations and justifications for future planning cycles.
• Apply strong financial acumen to enable cost-effective, value-driven product development.

Best Practices and Intellectual Property

• Contribute to intellectual property activities and translate learnings into internal best practices.
• Share insights and innovations across McCain's global R&D network.

Active R&D Leadership and Cross-Team Collaboration

• Serve as an active member of the NA Potato R&D Leadership Team (RDLT).
• Foster continuous growth and capability development across NA R&D, proactively identifying synergies and shared ways of working across potato and applications teams.

What you'll need to be successful.

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Food Science, Engineering, Business, or a related technical discipline (advanced degree preferred).
• Experience: Minimum of 10 years of progressive R&D experience, preferably within food, agri-food, or CPG sectors, with meaningful exposure to potato or adjacent categories.
• Innovation Leadership: Proven success leading transformative initiatives and launching market innovations that deliver strong business results.
• Accountability & Influence: Ability to independently set standards, hold teams accountable, and influence senior stakeholders with confidence and credibility.
• Negotiation & Problem Solving: Strong negotiation skills and experience leading complex, cross-functional problem solving across multiple business functions.
• Engagement & Relationship Building: Highly effective communicator with the ability to engage and present at all leadership levels while building relationships beyond core expertise areas.
• Inclusive Team Leadership: Demonstrated commitment to inclusive leadership and talent development.
• Entrepreneurial Mindset: Passion for best-in-class innovation practices that drive meaningful business outcomes.
• NPD Expertise: Deep understanding of regional new product development governance and processes.
• Mobility: Willingness and ability to travel to sites for meetings and factory trials.

About the team.
This role requires strong people leadership, innovation management, product design expertise, and a deep understanding of consumer research. The Sr. Director collaborates with a global network of R&D peers to share best practices, adapt innovative ideas, develop talent, and solve technical challenges for North America-and where relevant, globally.
The role partners closely with regional leaders in Marketing, Sales, Consumer Insights, Culinary, Procurement, Quality Assurance, Technical Services, and Manufacturing to provide technical leadership and guidance throughout the stage-gate process.
This position leads a team of approximately 10 R&D associates and is hands-on, action-oriented, and results-driven-combining strong intellectual rigor with exceptional communication and leadership capabilities. This is an existing vacancy for McCain which is actively seeking to be hired.
About McCain.
Click Here to learn more about McCain and how we provide you with opportunities to make an impact that matters .
Leadership principles.
At McCain, our leadership principles guide how we engage with customers, collaborate as a team, and achieve success. We focus on understanding customer needs, driving innovation, empowering people, and taking ownership to clear obstacles and deliver results.
The McCain experience.
We are McCain. This statement is a testament to our collective strength and our individual value. Your contributions play a vital role in our success. Our winning culture is rooted in authenticity and trust, empowering us to bring out the best in one another. Here, you'll find opportunities to learn, grow, and thrive. Join us and experience why we're better together.
Compensation Package : $165,000.00 - $220,000.00 . USD annually + Bonus eligibility + Long-term incentive eligibility
The above reflects the target compensation range for the position at the time of posting. Hiring compensation will be determined based on experience, skill set, education and training, and other organizational needs. This posting is for an existing vacancy.
Benefits: At McCain, we're on a mission to create a winning culture that puts employee safety and well-being at the heart of what we do, every day. We understand and appreciate that each person's needs are unique and ensure our benefits & well-being programs reflect that. Employees are eligible for the following benefits: health coverage (medical, dental, vision, prescription drug), retirement savings benefits, and leave support including medical, family and bereavement. Well-being programs include vacation and holidays, company-supported volunteering time, and mental health resources. Coverages are aligned with country, provincial and state governing plans and can vary by work level, location and nature of the role. Additional benefit detail available during the application process.
Your well-being matters to us, and we're here to provide you with the necessary resources to support you in being your best self at work - and at home.
McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. As a global family-owned company, we strive to be the employer of choice in the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that inclusion drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to find appropriate solutions.
Your privacy is important to us. By submitting personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with McCain's Global Privacy Policy and Global Employee Privacy Policy, as applicable. McCain leverages AI in the hiring process, though all final decisions are made by humans. You can understand our approach to AI and how your personal information is being handled here.
Job Family: Research & Development
Location(s): US - United States of America : Illinois : Oakbrook Terrace
Company: McCain Foods USA, Inc.