Senior Director, R&D Chief of Staff and Capabilities

Senior Director, R&D Chief of Staff and Capabilities

Job Description

About Us

Kleenex®. Cottonelle®. Scott®. Huggies®. Kotex®. Poise®. Depend®. Kimberly-Clark Professional®. You already know our legendary brands—and so does the rest of the world. In fact, millions of people use Kimberly-Clark products every day. We know these amazing Kimberly-Clark products wouldn’t exist without talented professionals, like you.

At Kimberly-Clark, you’ll be part of the best team committed to driving innovation, growth and impact. We’re founded on more than 150 years of market leadership, and we’re always looking for new and better ways to perform – so there’s your open door of opportunity. It’s all here for you at Kimberly-Clark.

Led by Purpose. Driven by You.

We’re out to create Better Care for a Better World, and that takes leaders and teams who care about making a difference. In the Senior Director, R&D Chief of Staff and Capabilities role, you’ll apply your professional expertise, talent, and drive to building and managing our portfolio of iconic, ground-breaking brands to help us deliver better care for billions of people around the world. It starts with YOU.

What You’ll Do (Role Purpose)

The Senior Director, R&D Chief of Staff and Capabilities (Chief of Staff) serves as a strategic partner to the Chief Research & Development Officer, driving operational excellence, cross-functional alignment, and execution of key initiatives across the global R&D organization. This role acts as a force multiplier for R&D leadership, enabling focus on innovation, talent development, and long-term growth by managing strategic planning, communications, governance, and special projects.
 

The Chief of Staff will lead and coordinate high-impact programs, facilitate decision-making processes, and ensure seamless collaboration across R&D, Global Growth Organization and Corporate functions. This individual will also serve as a trusted advisor, helping to shape the R&D agenda, monitor progress against strategic goals, and foster a culture of accountability, agility, and innovation. The role is also responsible for developing capability and talent development strategy and initiatives, like digitization of work, technical Learning & Development within R&E University, and more.
 

More specifically, the Chief of Staff will:

• Global R&D Budget Planning and Governance: Lead the coordination and oversight of the global R&D budget planning process, ensuring financial discipline, transparency, and alignment with strategic priorities. Partner with Finance and R&D leaders to manage budget governance and optimize resource allocation.

• Innovation KPIs and Impact Measurement: Develop and maintain innovation performance metrics and impact tools to assess R&D effectiveness across the portfolio. Enable data-driven decision-making and storytelling around innovation outcomes and value creation.

• Long-Term Research Pipeline Tracking and Reporting: Collaborate with the Central R&D team to ensure the long-term research pipeline is robust and aligned with the Enterprise growth agenda. Oversee governance, tracking, and reporting of long-term research initiatives to the R&D Leadership Team (RDLT).

• Capital Planning: Manage capital planning processes for R&D, including investment prioritization, governance frameworks, and alignment with strategic growth initiatives. Ensure capital deployment supports innovation and infrastructure needs.

• Strategy & Transformation Office Interface: Serve as the primary liaison between R&D and the Strategy & Transformation Office, supporting strategic planning cycles, enterprise initiatives, and executive-level deliverables (e.g., Board of Directors presentations, major cross-functional projects).

• RDLT Meetings, Town Halls, and Communications: Lead the planning and execution of R&D Leadership Team meetings, global town halls, and internal communications. Ensure consistent messaging, effective engagement, and alignment across the R&D organization.

• R&D Communications: Drive a unified and compelling R&D narrative across segments and sectors, showcasing the value delivered from early-stage innovation (e.g., Moonshots, Technology Platforms) through to lifecycle management (LCM). Partner with Communications to amplify R&D impact internally and externally.

• Functional Strategic Plan Governance and Reporting: Oversee governance and reporting of the R&D functional strategic plan, ensuring alignment with enterprise goals, visibility of progress, and accountability across teams