AgScience Variety Trialing and Deployment Lead

AgScience Variety Trialing and Deployment Lead

Overview

PepsiCo is a major food enterprise sourcing a variety of plant raw materials, including potato, small grains, corn, and various fruit and vegetable crops. An experienced variety and agronomic assessment scientist is required to develop and manage PepsiCo’s variety development efforts in potato, including recommendations for best agronomic and agritech packages high performing and quality potatoes for supply chain continuity. Through internal research projects and external partnerships, this person will deliver knowledge and insights on target best varieties to support PepsiCo’s sustainable agriculture goals and address business challenges in productivity, raw material quality, food safety, and supply chain resilience. They will work in a multi-disciplinary team complementing PepsiCo’s genetics, breeding, systems biology, agronomy, and sustainability activities. 

This position sits in the Ag Science Division of the Research and Development.  

You will be part of a team responsible for the yield/phenotyping organization for the European R&D Ag Science Variety Trialing organization.  The trialing scientist will lead  identification of new varieties, commercial variety advancement and development as it aligns with the business trait and germplasm priorities. Collaborate closely with  internal and external potato Breeders to develop and select varieties. You will support development and implementation of performance and quality testing programs to capture environmental data, phenotype data and define experimental designs that support robust decisions, strengthen go to market message and inform breeding models. Collaborate across senior business leaders in commercial, supply chain, procurement, processing, R&D quality, and consumer insights to understand needs, develop strategies and work with breeding and crop technology teams to ensure a pipeline of business relevant solutions. Additionally, this role will have global responsibility for the creation and maintenance of variety catalog which captures all performance data generated in countries for potato varieties. This be the single source of truth for countries to refer to for the identification of new varieties to bring into country for validation testing to meet growth, quality and or supply continuity needs. In this role, you will also be the point of contact for all global sectors to help understand varieties and dela with unexpected performance or quality issues.

As the European Variety Trialing and Development Scientist, you deliver smiles with every bite by ………

Responsibilities

• Leading the North American R&D testing organization to develop and select varieties that meet the business defined product profiles. Creating a phenotyping and yield trial program that supports commercial decisions, delivers data to the global breeder center, and facilitates go to market value propositions, delivering on sustainability and consumer targets.
• Developing collaborative relationships with internal partners including the breeding team, trait discovery team, and variety specific agronomy crop technology team. Supporting the development of product profiles with input from the processing, quality, sensory, business, supply chain, and procurement teams.
• Collaborate with R&D sector leads, business unit GMs, supply chain VPs/directors, and R&D research teams to understand regions specific needs/opportunities both short- and long-term. Develop strategic plans to fill short-term variety pipeline gaps/needs and provide variety profile needs to breeding and crop technology teams forecasting future needs/solutions.
• Engaging staff in their personal  development and fulfillment/goals, ensuring each has the skills needed for success in their roles and continued growth, while continuously evaluating their fit in their position, their desire and training to accomplish tasks safely, and the resources required to help them achieve beyond their goals.
• Leading process improvements, that work to achieve more with less, or more expeditiously and generating optimum processes that enable team/business needs. Developing a culture of safe practices and full implementation of safety guidelines/training.
• Align and track resources, people, and work objectives, that stretch goals to always achieve more, while creating value and future growth of team members.
• Achieving successful outcomes and timelines, while consistently following guidelines, rules, standards, and compliance. Monitoring, tracking, and maintaining desired outcomes and objectives preparing for future challenges.

Qualifications

• Have a PhD (with >5 years experience in an Ag Seed and Chemical Company) with plot trial experience, crop trait valuation, strategic needs assessment, triat/variety portfolio management, commercial agronomy and/or technology development of new variety solutions
• Previous experience leading a team of scientists executing/managing trials working to support development and implementation of performance and quality testing programs to capture environmental data, phenotype data and define experimental designs that support robust decisions, strengthen go to market message and inform breeding models. 
• Possess relevant experience in crop yield trialing, high throughput phenotyping, crop modelling, crop management and experimental designs
• Strategy develop of regions specific product needs for new variety and agronomic solutions to deliver product specifications
• Have 5+ years in agricultural seed and chemical industry and variety characterization positions with related experiences variety development, potato/vegetable yield trialing, managing sites and people.
• Have knowledge in leadership and understanding of brand management, sales and market analysis.
• Have specialized knowledge of variety testing, statistical experimental design, field plot technique, statistical data analysis and interpretation, plus reporting is required.
• Have experience in budget and personnel management required.
• Posses excellent communication skills, verbal and written; ability to productively interact with people at all levels across the organization.
• Ability to day travel ~20% of the time domestically