Product Manager - Personal Care (Core)

Ashland Specialty Ingredients, GP

Are you the kind of person that is always thinking, sketching, seeking, and adjusting? Who needs to understand how things work and then figure out how they can work better? Are you a passionate, tenacious, solver who loves to work with others who share your drive? Are you positive, constructive, and ingenious?

Are you always solving?

Then we’d like to meet you and bet you’d like to meet us.

Ashland has an exciting opportunity as Product Manager in our Personal Care Business. This position is located in Bridgewater NJ, or one of our Ashland US locations,  and is part of a team managing the Core Products withing the Personal Care Business. This is a high visibility, significant role within Ashland.  This position will report to the Core products Product Management Leader.

Third party recruiters and agencies (“Agency”) should not contact employees of Ashland or its subsidiaries directly. Any resumes sent by an Agency to a hiring manager, recruiter or submitted to Ashland’s career portal are considered unsolicited and property of Ashland. Ashland will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume, unless the Agency has a signed contract with Ashland’s Human Resources/Procurement department in advance of submitting a candidate for consideration. Verbal and written approvals will not be considered a valid contract for service. 

The responsibilities of the position include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Collaborate with global and regional marketing, operations, supply chain, procurement, regulatory, and commercial teams to achieve profit goals.
• Support annual business planning process, review and advise the marketing and sales teams on volume, costs, and capacity.
• Partner with global and regional marketing on portfolio optimization, NPI, product lifecycle SKU rationalization
• Allocation of material & production prioritization on constrained assets (Controlled Distribution)
• Conduct capacity studies and portfolio optimization actions (streamlining of products, specification changes, etc.)
• Manage tolling relationships.
• Liaison with supply chain, manufacturing, and regulatory to manage daily S&OP activities (i.e. forecast validation)
• Ownership and understanding of VCER and advising on the needs of the commercial side and the likelihood of approval.
• Manage customer communications regarding packaging changes, obsoleting, and supply issues (for example, force majeure, asset optimization, etc.)
• Management of portfolio product lifecycle including SMOG materials

In order to be qualified for this role, you must possess the following:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a technical discipline or equivalent experience in a technical field (5 years minimum)
• 5 years experience in a product management role or related industry experience
• Strong influence management skills
• Industry background in batch and continuous chemical process manufacturing
• Demonstrated ability to analyze market trends, usage data, and customer feedback to develop and communicate strategic vision for products
• Excellent time management skills with a proven ability to meet deadlines
• Thorough understanding of or the ability to quickly learn about the project or product being developed
• Build strong relationships with both internal and external customers and colleagues
• Strong verbal communication skills to speak to customers and delivery team members daily as well as good written communication skills
• Ability to develop and maintain collaborative relationships with peers and colleagues across the organization, as well as, internal and external clients
• Ability to work well autonomously and within a team in a fast-paced and deadline-oriented environment.
• Ability to travel 30% of the time.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite or related software.

The following skill sets are preferred by the business unit:

• Experience working in Personal Care or Chemical industry
• Experience working in a manufacturing or supply chain role

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