Manager, R&D

At Corbion, we exist to champion preservation in all its forms, preserving food and food production, health, and our planet.

Corbion is seeking a proactive RD&A Manager to lead a team of bakery and food scientists. This role serves as a critical business partner to Sales, Marketing, Product Management, and Procurement while driving the execution of innovation, customer, and renovation initiatives to support our bakery business strategy.

The RD&A Manager is based in the Lenexa, KS North American corporate office and reports to the Director of RD&A.  In this position you will lead a team which supports Corbion's baking business through the development, validation, and commercialization of bakery ingredient solutions. You will coordinate, prioritize and deliver strategic and customer projects while collaborating with internal and external customers. You will be a key representative of the Corbion NAM RD&A group to external customers.

The ideal candidate will be a food scientist with experiences relevant to bakery applications, ingredient functionality, project management, and team leadership.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Lead and develop a team of scientists and technologists to deliver innovation, customer, and renovation projects, ensuring the timely execution of product development activities and the generation of accurate, high-quality results
• Manage resource allocation across project portfolios to ensure efficient utilization
• Lead ingredient and bakery application product development
• Ensure effective project scoping, resource planning, risk management, and stakeholder communication.
• Lead complex projects independently including but not limited to ingredient research, product optimization projects, and new product development
• Actively build open and collaborative teamwork between global RDA teams
• Flag priority clashes on time for decision within leadership team
• Secure data reporting and management of application knowledge, provide written reports for use by internal teams and customers
• Ability to build trusted relationships with customers and internal business partners as an expert in the field

Personnel Management:

• Cultivate a team atmosphere with peer groups and upper management
• Manage, motivate and develop laboratory staff
• Work collaboratively across the research and application department to assess and prioritize needs of the broader RDA team
• Communicates with clients regularly to understand needs, as well as answer questions and provide information on product functionality and troubleshooting
• Maintain project timelines and prioritize daily work
• Oversee all people management for the designated team including hours' management, hiring, personnel development, performance evaluation and training
• Assist in maintaining a lab environment that is clean, organized, and work ready

Project leader or member of application/innovation projects:

• Contribute to ideation, review and identification of new projects, developing and executing technical plans, collecting and analyzing data, communicating results and project status, generating reports, and making presentations
• Participate effectively on cross functional project teams, which may include colleagues from RDA, Sales, Technical Services, Business, Marketing, Operations, etc. as the needs of the projects dictate
• Utilize strong project management skills to develop and execute project plans, develop value propositions, and commercial launch packages
• Provide technical training on new technology and solutions
• Possess problem solving skills, understanding of experimental design, and statistical analysis

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Food Science or related scientific field. Master's Degree can substitute portion of required work experience
• 5+ years of experience as broadly trained food/bakery scientist with experience related to new product development and ingredient functionality
• Deep knowledge of bakery processing and formulations of various bakery products (bread, buns, bagels, tortillas, cake, donuts, etc.)
• Experience leading a team of food scientist or technologists, with proven track record of project management and delivery
• Strong people skills related to leading a team, working with peers, and upper management.  Open and easy communicator
• Internal customer focus, drive for results, and can-do mentality.  Works with high motivation and passion to deliver results
• Self-management and team management, handling multiple tasks and requests
• Team-player: Builds on expertise of others, and is able to connect the dots to drive for optimal results for Corbion
• Manage change and ambiguity
• Problem solving skills
• External network: Able to build and maintain a professional network including suppliers, external labs, consultants, Universities, and/or Research Institutes

About Corbion

Corbion is a sustainable ingredients company dedicated to preserving what matters, including food and food production, health, and the planet. We specialize in lactic acid, lactic acid derivatives, food preservation solutions, functional blends, and algae ingredients, using our deep application and product knowledge to propel nature's ingenuity through science. With more than a century of experience, we continue working side-by-side with our customers to make our cutting-edge technologies work for them. Leveraging our advanced capabilities in fermentation and preservation technology, we help customers differentiate their products in diverse markets ranging from food and animal nutrition to home & personal care, pharmaceuticals, electronics, medical devices, and bioplastics. In 2025, Corbion generated annual sales of € 1,267.4 million with a workforce of 2,408 FTEs. Corbion is listed on Euronext Amsterdam. For more information: www.corbion.com

Corbion is an equal opportunity employer and committed to a diverse workplace. All applicants will be considered equally without regard to race, color, ethnicity, veteran status, religion, national origin, marital status, political affiliation, age, sex, sexual orientation, handicapping condition, membership in an organization or any other non-merit factors.

Corbion provides reasonable accommodation to applicants.

EOE/M/F/Vet/Disabled

Corbion does not accept unsolicited resumes from individual recruiters or third party recruiting agencies in response to job postings. No fee will be paid to third parties who submit unsolicited candidates directly to our hiring managers. All candidates must be submitted by approved Corbion vendors who have been expressly requested to make a submission by our Talent Acquisition team for a specific job opening. No placement fees will be paid to any firm unless such a request has been made by the Corbion Talent Acquisition team and such candidate was submitted to the Corbion Talent Acquisition Team.