R&D Director, Global Dairy Ingredients

Land O’Lakes is seeking a R&D Director, Global Dairy Ingredients (GDI) to set technical strategy and lead product development across our dairy-based seasonings and ingredients, dairy protein platforms, and commodity dairy ingredients. As a customer-facing leader on the R&D leadership team, you will translate customer, commercial, and manufacturing needs into scalable solutions, build technical capability and talent, and position R&D to deliver on current commitments and future growth in high-value dairy ingredients.

Key Responsibilities

Customer-Facing Product Development & Commercialization

• Lead end-to-end B2B product development across dairy-based seasonings and ingredients, dairy protein powders, and GDI commodity ingredients.

• Represent R&D as the senior technical partner in strategic customer engagements, co-development sessions, product demonstrations, qualification reviews, and issue resolution.

• Ensure technical solutions are scalable, manufacturable, repeatable, compliant, and aligned with customer expectations, product specifications, and business value.

Portfolio Strategy, Prioritization & Capability Roadmaps

• Own the GDI product development strategy and roadmap, translating commercial strategy, customer segmentation, and manufacturing realities into clearly prioritized technical work.

• Make resource and priority tradeoffs visible; balance urgent customer needs with foundational learning and longer-term capability building.

• Build technical roadmaps for high-value dairy proteins, commodity ingredient optimization, dairy-based seasoning systems, and emerging customer applications.

People Leadership, Talent Development & Succession

• Lead, coach, and develop managers, scientists, technologists, and technical contributors; set clear expectations for technical rigor, customer responsiveness, and execution discipline.

• Create role clarity, decision rights, development plans, and succession plans to build leadership depth and technical bench strength for the GDI platform.

• Foster a culture of ownership, collaboration, inclusion, continuous improvement, learning, and disciplined documentation.

Cross-Functional Integration & Technical Sales Support

• Partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Strategic Operations, Manufacturing, Quality, Regulatory, Procurement, Finance, and Supply Chain to enable faster decisions and better handoffs from concept to launch.

• Support technical selling by translating product functionality, application performance, processing constraints, and customer value into clear messages for technical and non-technical audiences.

• Serve as the escalation point for technical risk, prioritization, customer-impacting issues, and commercialization tradeoffs.

External Partnerships, Market Foresight & Continuous Improvement

• Maintain awareness of customer, market, competitive, regulatory, and technology trends relevant to B2B dairy ingredients and dairy proteins.

• Develop external partnerships with suppliers, universities, co-manufacturers, engineering firms, application labs, and technology providers to accelerate capability building and close technical gaps.

• Champion improved tools, templates, data practices, stage-gate discipline, and knowledge capture to increase speed, consistency, and R&D effectiveness.

Qualifications

• M.S. in Food Science, Dairy Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or related field required; Ph.D. and/or MBA preferred.

• 15+ years of progressive R&D, product development, and technical leadership experience in food, dairy, or ingredients.

• Direct experience with dairy proteins, spray drying, and membrane filtration strongly preferred.

• Proven people leadership, strong B2B customer presence, and the ability to translate complex technical concepts into business value.

• Demonstrated ability to manage complex portfolios, lead cross-functional teams, prioritize competing work, and make sound decisions under time pressure.

Work Environment

• Arden Hills, MN, four days per week in office when not traveling; office, lab, pilot plant, and manufacturing environments. Travel estimated at 10–35%.

The salary range for this role is $188,080 - $282,120. In most cases, candidates offered employment can expect to be hired at a pay rate near the middle of our salary ranges.

Land O'Lakes does not use Automated Decision-Making Technology, as defined by California law, to substantially replace human decision-making or make significant decisions about applications for employment or contracting opportunities. 

#LI-KJ1

About Land O'Lakes, Inc.

Join us and be part of a Fortune 250, farmer- and member-owned cooperative that is reimagining the business of food. We have been named a Top Workplace by Indeed and LinkedIn, and to the TIME 100 Most Influential Companies list.

We provide a broad portfolio of benefits to keep you and your family at your best. Land O'Lakes is Where Your Future Takes Root.

Land O’Lakes and our global entities support diversity in employment practices.

Neither Land O’Lakes, nor its affiliates or search firms, will ever contact you and ask for confidential information over the phone or in email. If you receive a call or email like this, please do not provide the information being requested.    

If you need to submit a reasonable accommodation request to complete the employment application process, please call the HR Solution Center at 844-LOL-HR4U (844-565-4748) M-F 8:00am-4:30pm CT.