Product Development & Tooling Manager

Asr Group - Boca Raton, FL

Full-time - Mid Level

Boca Raton, FL

Personal and Laundry Services

About the position

The Product Development & Tooling Manager at Tellus Products, LLC is a leadership role focused on developing new products in molded fiber. This position requires extensive experience in product development, strong technical expertise, and the ability to lead a team effectively. The manager will be responsible for executing the product strategy, ensuring product safety and compliance, and fostering positive relationships with both internal teams and external customers. The role demands a deep understanding of market trends, consumer insights, and the ability to drive innovation within the organization.

Responsibilities

• Develops and executes Tellus NPD molded fiber product strategy
• Allocates product development resources effectively through improved processes and systems
• Communicates project progress, barriers, and potential risks to leadership
• Ensures all products are safe, profitable, competitive, legal, and meet brand requirements
• Manages projects and leads team through technical aspects of significant launches or larger business-scale projects
• Knows essential materials, supply chains, and manufacturing processes and can provide training
• Understands consumer and customer habits, practices, usage, needs, and preference drivers within the category
• Predicts and reacts to the cost/value equation and challenges business cases not aligned with overall business strategies
• Identifies and champions technology/ingredient development leading to competitive advantage and margin enhancement
• Regularly reviews competitor products and proposes routes for maintaining competitive advantage
• Acts as an influential player in a multifunctional team, driving appropriate change and timely decision-making
• Leads and partners with Sales-Marketing to provide technical support for customer discussions and leads customer interactions, identifies and develops opportunities for new product claims, and trade/consumer stories
• Creates business cases for stage gate process that leverages Tellus NPD capabilities
• Manages a team of CAD Designers - Material Scientists, Process Engineers, and Laboratory Technicians
• Embraces company values, drives culture change, promotes positive challenge, and develops vital talent within the team
• Provides insights to customers for new products and technologies that drive product portfolio and strategic vision
• Represents Tellus NPD on cross-functional teams through project meetings, providing technical direction and identifying solutions
• Effectively uses technical and business acumen to explain concepts and risks to diverse audiences
• Deals with ambiguity and complexity, assessing risk before making decisions when not all information is provided

Requirements

• Engineering degree or proven experience in a similar environment
• 7-10 years of experience working directly with fiber development
• A proven track record of product launches
• Commercial acumen to include consumer understanding
• Leadership of a small team
• Extensive knowledge of a broad range of food ingredients & process science
• Product design & development (advanced) - demonstrated by the successful launch of the package to the market
• Understanding of consumer & customer requirements
• Pulp Fiber understanding
• Sensory & consumer testing understanding - qualitative & quantitative
• Local labeling regulations (basic understanding)
• Operational and Supply Chain understanding
• Project management skills: demonstrated ability to manage & deliver against multiple objectives
• Ability to successfully execute problem-solving abilities and exhibit sound judgment and decision-making skills supported by technical justification
• Effective verbal and written proficiency in English at all organizational levels; the ability to be conversant in another language, such as Spanish or Portuguese, is preferred
• Ability to utilize Microsoft Office Suite, specifically Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and laboratory software such as ilabber and CAD (Solidworks and autodesk fusion 360)

Nice-to-haves

• Conversant in another language, such as Spanish or Portuguese