Global Head of Digital Technology Solutions

Job Title:  Global Head of Digital Technology Solutions

Schedule: Full-time

Job: Research/Development

Function: Global R&D, Digital & Partnerships R&D (DRD)

Location: Unilever R&D Bangalore

Terms: Local       

Reports to: Global Head of Digital & Partnerships R&D

ABOUT UNILEVER

Established over 100 years ago, we are one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies. We are known for our great brands and our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. We believe that the winning businesses of tomorrow will be those which anticipate and respond to the huge changes shaping people’s lives across the world. Unilever’s global R&D spans six innovation centres and twelve regional hubs, employing over 5,000 experts, including 500+ PhDs. It drives breakthrough science in microbiome research, biotechnology, and sustainable packaging. With 20,000+ patents, Unilever transforms cutting-edge discoveries into scalable innovations that enhance lives and protect the planet

Background & Purpose of the Role

The role sits within the Digital & Partnerships R&D Leadership Team. The team’s mission is to enable the digital transformation of Unilever R&D, resulting in innovation superiority and business value for each Business Group (BG). This is achieved through:

• Acceleration of discovery

• Increased speed of innovation

• Higher operational efficiency 

The key components of deliveries from this team are to agree Investment priorities for cross-Business Group Digital Capex (ITIB), develop and deliver cross-Business Group digital capabilities and ensure adoption across target groups in collaboration with R&D Business Group teams.

The Global Head of Digital Technology Solutions in D&P R&D will play a pivotal role in the digital R&D transformation and will be a critical contributor to Unilever’s wider Digital Transformation ambitions.

The preferred candidate must have a good understanding of R&D business processes: from insight-to-shelf innovation with a particular focus on product design and deployment in the markets.  

The Digital Technology Solutions team is responsible for the core R&D product data processes and the systems that support these. The key accountabilities of the role can be clustered into 3 groups:

1. R&D Product Data Management: R&D product data drives the day-to-day operations at Unilever e.g. Bills of Material for SC planning, manufacturing instructions for make, label data for customers and customer channels, specifications for Procurement. At the heart of this is the Unilever PLM system and its tight integration with Unilever’s business operations.

2. Compliance by Design: Ensuring every product is both, regulatory compliant and guaranteed safe for people and planet by designing and managing the tools required by R&D teams.

3. Cross Functional Integration: R&D Product Data is tightly integrated with Unilever’s business operations, master data management and corporate reporting systems.  As a consequence, the Digital Technology Solutions team in D&P is an essential partner in many of Unilever’s digital transformation programmes.

Key Accountabilities

• Digital Strategy & Roadmap: Define and execute the 3 -year digital roadmap strategy for R&D for core R&D systems that is aligned with both Unilever’s enterprise priorities and the Business Group R&D teams digital innovation needs. Develop the business cases for the programmes and projects that drive the execution.

• Lead the development, release and enhancements of core R&D digital platforms (e.g., PLM, and related core systems), ensuring they are scalable, user-centric, and future-ready.

• Partner with R&D Business Group and Business Unit teams, x-functional process and digital leads to ensure that Core Systems and Compliance programme delivery has maximum positive impact on R&D and beyond. Drive a digital/data-first culture with a clear governance model around core R&D product data processes and standardization.

• Ensure the change management and training programme across R&D core product data processes improves rate of adoption, quality of outcomes and accelerates return on investment 

• Lead, manage and inspire and sustain a diverse R&D Digital Technology team across multiple geographies, instilling a culture of high performance and collaboration

Key Skills & Experience

• Proven experience (10+ years) in digital transformation, product management, or IT leadership roles, preferably in R&D or adjacent function and an FMCG environment.

• Deep understanding of foundational digital technologies (incl. AI) and how they can be leveraged in an R&D context to enable higher levels of operational agility and speed.

• Track record of delivering complex projects underpinned by Digital Technology and an ability to talk confidently with IT and delivery partners.

• Understanding of Product Data management and best practices and downstream value creation.

• Working knowledge of the end-to-end innovation business process for FMCG, with a deeper understanding of the R&D related activities.

Education & Qualifications

• Degree in Science and Engineering, or STEM

Key Interfaces

• Digital & Partnerships Heads

• R&D Business Group Leadership Teams (Business Group and Business Unit)

• R&D functional leaders e.g. Global Processing, CTI, Claims, Packaging development

• R&D Pack Excellence

• Safety, Environmental and Regulatory Science (SERS)

• R&D Global Digital & Technology

• Functional Process Leads: procurement, planning, manufacturing, quality, artwork customer development, master data, and corporate reporting

• Technology partners: e.g. vendor partners such as SAP, Siemens, Veeva, Microsoft etc and integration partners, e.g. Accenture, CapGemini, InfoSys etc

Competencies

• Strategic Thinking: Sees the big picture and connects digital initiatives to long-term business goals.

• Collaboration: Builds strong relationships across functions and geographies.

• Bias for Action: Drives progress with urgency and resilience. Devising solutions with creativity, courage and pragmatism

• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional, cross-cultural teams and manage complex stakeholder landscapes.

• An agile decision maker, with strong storytelling skills, demonstrated influencing, and change management skills.

• Strong business acumen and ability to link digital initiatives to business outcomes.

• Consumer & Customer Focus: Designs solutions with end-user needs at the core.

• Accountability & Ownership: Takes responsibility for outcomes and delivers with excellence.

• Learning Agility: Continuously seeks new knowledge and adapts to change.

Behaviours

• Care Deeply - Has emotional intelligence to challenge with positive tension, yet openness to take feedback, and drive performance with care.  This role is exposed to tremendous and varying pressure as it links directly to human behavioural change, the incumbent has an emotional intelligence and toughness and creates an atmosphere of psychological safety for the challenges to be addresses in a mature and factual way

• Focus on What Counts – Generates intensity and focus to motivate people to deliver fewer, bigger things to conclusion with speed and agility. Prioritize ruthlessly, say ‘No’ as often as ;yes’, own outcomes from the ITIB, without diluting support, be able to triage new asks . Ensure Programme Leads speak with same voice and are empowered to make choices

• Stay Three Steps Ahead – Think Big, simplify and commit to making it happen and leading, shaping and disruptive thinking

• Deliver with Excellence – Takes personal responsibility and accountability for developing breakthrough solutions and pride in execution

What May Be a Typical Day In The Life for a Digital Tech Solutions Look Like?

Your week begins with strategic alignment—reviewing builds and enhancements as per ITIB plans, already synced with global Digital Business Group R&D leads. You often lead or join steering committees, where you evaluate progress on foundational platforms and innovation pipelines in the core systems managed by your team, equally joining steercoms across functions to ensure fidelity of R&D product data required for operations.  Often the week begins with focusing on the high priority programmes, for example, Artwork Automation or Digital Thread. These high priority programmes are cross function, involve complex interfaces and architectures and fragmented processes and ecosystem engagements. The early part of the week always ends with decisions and actions including stoppage of some workstreams

Midweek is a blend of deep dives and decision-making. You might host sessions with product owners and architects to assess solution maturity, prioritize capability builds, or refine the digital thread strategy. You also engage with external partners and vendors, balancing innovation with enterprise readiness. As you are a Change Maker, you are often ready to go the extra mile, to work within various Business Group- Business Units and help drive adoption of digital tools or unearth blockers . As a change maker, emotional toughness is key behavioural trait, and often you need to listen in to sharp criticisms from users. Be a business partner and yet, own your role as a R&D expert. Pragmatic – leverage the data we already have, and yet are not afraid to experiment to try (and yes, fail). Focus on the goal and impact of what you do – not only on process and support your teams. 

By Thursday, your focus shifts to people and performance—mentoring programme leaders, reviewing team structures, and aligning talent with evolving digital needs. You often collaborate with peers to drive cross-functional synergies.

Fridays are for reflection and foresight. You review dashboards, prep for leadership updates, and shape narratives for upcoming forums. You also carve out time to explore the merging space for BG R&D i.e new B&W formats, and imagineering potential Data/Tech/People to deliver these ambitions or explore emerging tech—instrument integrations for Smart Labs, native AI services or new Change organizational constructs.

Some other tasks may be…

Engage with R&D category teams to understand business needs and translate them into digital solutions.

Assess new or novel needs for newly acquired brands

Monitor user adoption, and ROI; continuously improve based on feedback and analytics.

Contribute to the PLM CAB or Design authority meets

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion 

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.