Director, Health & Wellness

Sara Lee Corporation is a global manufacturer and marketer of high-quality, brand-name products for consumers throughout the world. The Corporation has operations in 58 countries and markets branded products in nearly 200 nations. Sara Lee Corporation employs 137,000 people worldwide.Each and every day, Sara Lee (NYSE: SLE) delights millions of consumers and customers around the world.  The company has one of the world's best-loved and leading portfolios with its innovative and trusted food, beverage, household and body care brands, including Ambi Pur, Ball Park, Douwe Egberts, Hillshire Farm, Jimmy Dean, Kiwi, Sanex, Sara Lee, and Senseo.  Collectively, these brands generate more than $12 billion in annual net sales covering approximately 200 countries.  The Sara Lee community consists of 52,000 employees worldwide.Position Summary:This position provides leadership in defining, prioritizing, communicating and executing nutrition and wellness strategy and platforms which will create significant, sustainable business growth opportunities. This person will provide direction to both the North America business units for promoting and ensuring the appropriate, accurate use of nutrition and sensory science for developing and positioning good tasting innovative products that fit a balanced mainstream lifestyle for the emotional and physical well being of our customer in product design, use, and advertising and communication campaigns.Essential Duties & Responsibilities:Build and develop a sensory and nutrition staff with the necessary skill sets to be compatible with the corporate strategy of innovation, nutrition and wellness, product understanding, quality and speed to market.Lead the continuous improvement and execution of our current nutrition and wellness strategy, synergizing with sensory science to support the North America vision and DVPs (demand value proposition). Identify, implement, and communicate over-arching corporate nutrition and sensory guiding principles, both internally and externally. Be the driving force to influence, support and defend the corporate decisions with regulatory and scientific authorities regarding nutrition, nutrition safety, sensory and wellness. Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to effectively inform and/or educate the company, consumers, health professional, customers, and the media of overall benefits, nutritional and health-related attributes of Fresh Bakery, Retail and Foodservice products. Assure the  integration of sensory and nutrition with Marketing  and  Research and Development teams to create  good taste and nutrition–driven ideas to grow or protect the brands. Guide Marketing, Research and Development and the Legal/Regulatory teams in identifying. designing and providing scientific substantiation for product benefits to promote health, taste and wellness; assure that Fresh Bakery, Retail and Foodservice products are designed to support this platform. Influence and communicate with external key thought leaders; establish strategic corporate partnerships to support the Sara Lee North America nutrition and wellness platform;  represent the company on nutrition and wellness committees in strategically important professional and trade organizations. Establish an external expert advisory panel reflective of the company objectives; maximize expertise with internal corporate leaders.Align with nutritional experts in other Sara Lee business divisions regarding nutritional policies and everyday issues. Synergize with Sara Lee Foundation activities. MS and/or PhD in nutrition, food science, public health or related field; BS in nutrition, food science or related field required.  Credentials of RD (registered dietitian) a plus 10+ years in technical role in food industry Ability to manage highly technical teams, identify appropriate talent and grow capabilities of staff Demonstrated leadership skills in building and driving sustainable platforms Broad knowledge of nutrition as it relates to healthy lifestyles throughout the lifecycle Understands the role of sensory science relative to product guidance, performance and basic support of the business Experience in providing scientific support for health claims and FDA product  regulations Sensitive to food and nutrition safety and basic dictum to “do no harm” Basic understanding of marketing and product strategies from concept to brand Recognized both internally and externally for nutrition expertise Publications in scientific, peer-reviewed journal desirable Demonstrated ability to network throughout the company to garner enthusiasm and support for concepts Strong strategic thinker Can present accurately and effectively communicate  to internal and external technical and non-technical groupsHas the necessary experience to lead/chair technical committeesAn Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer