- Location
- Wageningen, Netherlands · Wageningen
- Workplace
- Hybrid
- Department
- Education
- Seniority
- Manager
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Education
- Master
Description
Location: Wageningen, Netherlands
Hybrid
About the position
The R&D Portfolio Manager leads the feasibility-based portfolio management process for Flora Professional Europe, covering both the Professional and Industrial channels. The role actively drives cross-functional alignment, represents R&D in regional portfolio governance forums, and ensures that technical feasibility, resource capacity, and evidence-based assessments guide prioritization and sequencing decisions. The Manager partners closely with Product Design teams to ensure technical solutions meet market expectations and influences stakeholders to make realistic, insight-driven portfolio decisions. A core accountability of the role is to translate innovation proposals into clear, decision-ready Product & Pack Briefs that underpin portfolio prioritization, sequencing, and investment decisions.
You will:
- Own the definition, validation, and governance of Product & Pack Briefs for the regional innovation portfolio, ensuring each brief clearly articulates the target consumer benefit, culinary brief, technical feasibility assumptions, validation approach, and cost target before prioritization and stage-gate decisions.
- Lead the intake, consolidation, and validation of Product & Pack Briefs across the region, ensuring assumptions are complete, evidence-based, and consistent, and that proposals entering the portfolio meet the required standards for decision-ready scope, risk, and investment. This requires particularly strong collaboration with the Chefs organisation to ensure that genuine customer application needs are translated into robust product requirements.
- Provide coaching, direction, and quality oversight to Product Developers supporting the region, building capability and ensuring consistent standards for feasibility assessments.
- Drive the early identification of feasibility gaps and ensure cross-functional alignment by leading structured reviews with R&D Product Design teams and regional Commercial partners.
- Oversee the use of advanced feasibility-based analytics, including capacity modelling, risk weighting, and multi-scenario simulations, to support trade-off decisions and optimize portfolio sequencing across the region.
- Strengthen regional portfolio governance by embedding higher evidence standards, enhancing feasibility frameworks, and ensuring stage-gate deliverables consistently meet quality expectations.
- Ensure alignment between Product Design, Commercial, and R&D by leading milestone reviews that validate technical readiness and functional fit before regional deployment.
- Take a hands-on approach by leading, conducting, and reporting competitive benchmarking and culinary scoping activities together with Chefs, the Consumer Experience (CX) team, Product Developers, and Marketing.
- Design and deliver compelling product demonstrations and value propositions for customers and visitors, based on genuine operator insights.
- Support the wider R&D organisation in operational resource management, resource traceability for external reporting, and audit and subsidy management. This includes coordinating and facilitating interactions with Finance, Audit teams, external consultants, and internal R&D teams. This responsibility typically represents approximately 5% of the role, with increased involvement during peak periods.
So what does it take to be successful in this role?
You are an experienced R&D portfolio and innovation leader with 8–12 years of experience in portfolio management, innovation governance, technical project leadership, and hands-on product development. You have successfully led cross-functional teams and owned end-to-end innovation projects within a stage-gate (or equivalent) R&D governance model. You combine strong technical expertise with strategic thinking, enabling you to prioritise portfolios based on feasibility, capacity, risk, and business needs while ensuring high-quality governance and decision-making. You are skilled at translating complex technical insights into clear recommendations, influencing stakeholders across R&D and commercial functions, and driving disciplined portfolio execution. With a Master's degree in Food or Consumer Science, Engineering, Business, Innovation, or a related field, you bring deep knowledge of feasibility-based portfolio management, technical risk assessment, and innovation delivery, while experience with portfolio or project management certifications (PfMP, PMP, or PRINCE2 Practitioner) is considered an advantage
What’s Next?
If this position sounds interesting, please hit the apply button now! The deadline for applying is 6 August.
We understand your resume might not be up to date and recommend that you apply with what you have or your LinkedIn Profile. Flora Food Group is dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workplace, we understand that you might not meet all the requirements stated in the description, but we encourage you to apply anyway. You might be the right candidate for this role or other roles.
Flora Food Group is an employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and equal opportunities for all. We recruit based only on values, qualifications, performance, skills, behaviours, experience, and knowledge. We ensure job advertisements are free from unintentional bias.
No personal characteristics should be a barrier to joining Flora Food Group. We prohibit discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or other personal characteristics.
