CTI Pet Method Excellence Leader (m/f/d)

As the CTI Pet Method Excellence Leader, you will determine how we measure and characterize the pet responses to our products across both Mars Pet Nutrition and Royal Canin. In this strategic and technical leadership role, you will bridge methodology development, predictive analytics, digital transformation, and operational viability across our global Pet Centres and R&D ecosystem.

What will be your key responsibilities?

• Governance & Standards: Establish and enforce rigorous validation standards and acceptance criteria for all new pet-evaluation methods.
• Project Portfolio Management: Manage and execute up to five high-impact pet capability-building initiatives simultaneously, ensuring timely and robust delivery.
• Predictive Sampling Frameworks: Lead the standardisation and governance of fit-for-purpose pet sampling methodologies to fuel predictive modelling across Pet Nutrition and Royal Canin, ensuring statistical rigor, reproducibility, and high-fidelity model inputs.
• Data Science & ML Partnership: Collaborate closely with data scientists, digital product teams, and statisticians to set methodology requirements powering scalable predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI-enabled insights.

Expert Leadership & Ecosystem Collaboration

• Global Task Force Leadership: Lead a multi-disciplinary, cross-segment global task force of method experts across Pet Nutrition and Royal Canin to deploy capabilities and establish best-in-class test selection guidelines.
• Strategic Alignment: Partner with senior R&D leaders, product innovation teams, and pet harmonisation champions to embed consistent testing principles and leverage shared ecosystem synergies.
• Thought Leadership: Serve as a subject-matter authority, challenging conventional thinking and inspiring new paradigms in how we evaluate the pet experience.
• Pet Centre Integration: Maintain a direct connection with Pet Centre operations and operational leads to ensure novel methods are safe, humane, operationally viable, and scalable.
• ** holistic Experience Link:** Work within the broader CTI team to link pet metrics back to the holistic pet parent user journey.

Digital Integration

• R&D Digitalisation: Partner with digital teams and product owners to champion the adoption of next-generation digital tools, automated data capture, and integrated sensors/platforms to advance our R&D digital transformation.
• Data Integrity: Maximize data comparability and quality across testing sites to enable unified reporting and seamless analytics ingestion.

Talent Development & Upskilling

• Education & Training: Design and deliver global training programs and practical toolkits to upskill R&D associates in pet methodology selection, execution, and interpretation.
• Translational Insights: Coach associates on how pet-centric metrics connect to and drive pet parent perceptions, satisfaction, and loyalty.

What are we looking for?

• Education: Bachelors Degree in Animal Science, Sensory/Consumer Science, Ethology/Animal Behaviour, Food Science, Biostatistics, or a closely related scientific field or similar.
• Experience:Proven track record in methodology development, sensory/behavioral measurement, or technical consumer insights within pet care, human food, animal health, or FMCG.Demonstrated experience working with complex sampling designs, statistical modeling, or collaborating closely with data science and machine learning teams.Experience leading cross-functional or cross-regional technical task forces and capability-building programs.
• Leadership & Influence: Outstanding stakeholder management skills with the ability to bridge scientific rigor, operational practicalities, and commercial innovation pipelines.
• Mindset: A curious, digital-first mindset with a relentless passion for improving the lives and experiences of dogs and cats globally.

About Us