Home Care Category Lead

Job Summary

IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients and health & biosciences. We deliver sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products. Our Scent Business harnesses the full emotional power of scent, driven by pioneering creativity, science, consumer expertise, and a mindful approach to fragrance design.

Scent: Harnessing the full emotional power of scent, driven by pioneering creativity, science, consumer expertise and a mindful approach to fragrance design.​

As IFF’s Home Care Category Lead, you will translate business priorities into category innovation direction, design frameworks and capabilities that enable winning fragrance solutions. You will coordinate the global category innovation portfolio and embed holistic design leadership across consumer, sensory, creative and technical perspectives to customer value and adoption. This role influences through expertise and partnership, while regional teams retain local delivery accountability and end-to-end platform leaders retain technical ownership. The role is based in Holmdel, NJ (hybrid) reporting to IFF’s VP, IC&D, Home Care and will be part of our strategic, collaborative, and innovation‑driven team where together we can achieve greatness and make a real impact.

Where You’ll Make a Difference

• Shape the global Home Care innovation vision by translating business priorities into category strategies, design principles, future-needs outlooks, and differentiated growth opportunities across short, medium, and long-term horizons.
• Partner with regional, commercial, and category stakeholders to identify innovation opportunities, define category needs, and influence platform, technology, and portfolio priorities.
• Lead category design across the 5D innovation model, establishing success criteria, guiding fragrance design methodologies, and integrating consumer, sensory, creative, technical, and sustainability considerations.
• Collaborate with Consumer Fragrance Innovation Platforms and Research & Development to accelerate innovation development, ensuring category needs are reflected while respecting platform technical ownership and regional delivery accountability.
• Translate fragrance technologies and innovations into compelling customer value propositions, supporting opportunity assessment, business cases, commercialization strategies, and customer engagement.
• Advance fragrance engineering capabilities, design models, and innovation frameworks by integrating consumer, sensory, technical, and creative data into actionable category guidance.
• Build global category capabilities through knowledge management, design guidelines, training programs, coaching, and cross-regional best-practice sharing.
• Contribute to intellectual property development by identifying potentially patentable innovations and supporting invention disclosures and patent applications with Intellectual Property, Legal, and technical experts.
• Provide global visibility of the Home Care innovation portfolio, connecting insights, risks, opportunities, and learnings to strengthen prioritization, adoption, and continuous improvement.

What Makes You the Right Fit

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent professional expertise in fragrance, chemistry, consumer science, innovation or a related field.
• Substantial experience in Home Care or an adjacent fragrance category, with demonstrated success coordinating complex, cross-functional innovation in a global or multi-regional environment.
• Strong product-development knowledge spanning concept and briefing, prototype evaluation, validation and launch readiness, including the ability to assess performance under relevant use conditions.
• Ability to connect creative, consumer, sensory and technical perspectives and translate specialist knowledge into practical category frameworks, design guidance and business recommendations.
• Commercial acumen to translate consumer and technical insight into customer value, assess opportunities, contribute to business cases and partner effectively on commercialization.
• Strong planning, prioritization, communication and problem-solving capabilities, with evidence of influencing senior and global stakeholders through credibility rather than formal authority.
• Demonstrated leadership behaviors including strategic mindset, plans and aligns, collaborates, instills trust, ensures accountability and optimizes work through clear ownership, active listening, shared goals and feedback loops.
• Working knowledge of the patent filing process and the ability to identify potentially patentable innovation and support invention disclosures and patent applications with Intellectual Property/Legal and technical experts. undefined

How Would You Stand Out?

• Experience developing fragrance-engineering models, integrated consumer-sensory-technical protocols or digital approaches that improve design decisions.
• A track record of scaling knowledge, tools and adoption across regions while simplifying interfaces and reducing duplication.
• Evidence of taking bold action on new opportunities, making thoughtful decisions with incomplete information and turning learning into stronger category solutions. undefined
  

Why Choose Us?

• Opportunity to shape Home Care category strategy within a world‑class fragrance organization
• High visibility role with meaningful strategic and commercial impact
• Collaborative, inclusive, and innovation‑focused culture
• Hybrid working model supporting flexibility and balance
• Ongoing learning, leadership development, and career growth opportunities
• A company purpose‑driven by creativity, science, and sustainability
• We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy.
• At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.

We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.

Visit IFF.com/careers/workplace-diversity-and-inclusion to learn more

About Us

At IFF, we make joy through science, creativity and heart. As the global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients, health and biosciences, we deliver groundbreaking, sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products – advancing wellness, delighting the senses and enhancing the human experience. We value an inclusive, creative workplace where all individuals can thrive and do their best work. We consider all qualified candidates equally and based on merit, without regard to religion, ethnicity, national origin, race, age, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation or disability.