Director of Technology

Director of Technology – Beachwood, Ohio

About Us:

Master Builders Solutions is a global brand of advanced chemical solutions for construction. Our comprehensive portfolio includes sustainable concrete admixtures and underground construction solutions. We constantly strive to solve tomorrow’s challenges through our talented people, sound science, innovation, and communication with our global partners. We provide new solutions to satisfy industry demand for specific structure strengths while understanding the need for sustainability and environmental consciousness.

Role Overview:

The Director of Technology will lead the development, evaluation and acquisition of products and technologies to ensure the competitive and innovative position of the Master Builders Solutions (MBS) organization in the Americas.  This includes management of personnel to develop products in line with the requests of the Sales and Marketing departments, as guided by the Stage-Gate process and the Segment Portfolio Teams.  This also includes ensuring appropriate protection of know how via proprietary approaches or via securing intellectual property rights.  The job is also tasked with developing Quality Control parameters and Product Manufacturing Requirements to ensure that high quality products and technologies can be produced on a consistent and repeatable basis at our plants and/or tolling partners. 

Another purpose of the job is to evaluate new and competitive technologies.  This includes making proposals on acquiring third party technologies, licensing them or establishing partnerships via joint developments or other approaches to leverage this know-how to the company’s benefit.  It is also expected that the candidate for this role will maintain a current overview on state of art and competitive technologies to be an internal resource on these matters.

Additionally, the role will be responsible for the laboratory Technical Services team, including Engineering and Analytical Services, to ensure efficient and timely responses to requests from the field and the product development team.  Development and maintenance of an effective Work Order system will be a requirement to provide a customer service experience commensurate with the MBS brand.

Requirements

Responsibilities:
•          Ensure a safe working environment for the entire team and promote safe work in the lab, in the office, and at home.

•          Lead the function to drive business success, as measured by the performance of the products and solutions delivered,
speed of execution to delivery, successful market acceptance, meeting cost objectives, and other appropriate metrics.

•          Ensure high quality data delivery and credibility of the lab, both internally and externally.

•          Participate in industry forums and associations to understand trends, promote the MBS brand and innovation strength,
shape future methods and solutions, etc.

•          Establish strong and effective communications lines with all the key stakeholders, namely sales managers, marketing,
operations, and global counterparts.

•          Drive creative solutions for new products and solutions, as well as laboratory methods and organizational efficiencies.

•          Pursue and understand new technologies and solutions, market technology trends, and generally have a finger on the pulse of the technological aspects of the industry.

•          Serve as a member of the MBS Extended Leadership Team, which sets the direction of the business and supports profitable growth.

•          Participate in the RDMC and related global technology forums.

•          Support the yearly budgeting process and the strategic direction of the business.

•          Demonstrate strong leadership skills, including hiring evaluations, time management, conflict resolution and performance management.

•          Mentor staff towards leadership positions and support succession planning for this function.

Position Requirements:

•          Ph.D. in a scientific or engineering field desired; B.S. at minimum

•          10+ years of experience working in the construction sector, ideally in the admixture portion of the construction chemicals sector

•          7+ years of experience managing a technical team

•          Good understanding of our product portfolio, key performance attributes, applications and chemistries.

•          Previous experience dealing with the interface between sales, marketing and manufacturing, with particular focus on customer experience.

•          Previous experience in a customer relationship business, where timeliness of delivery and intimacy with the customer is k