Director Global Packaging Development

About the role

The Director Global Packaging Development leads a multi‑disciplinary packaging department, overseeing sub‑teams and ensuring collaboration, performance and delivery against business objectives. The role owns the department budget, provides technical expertise in luxury packaging and filling processes, and drives the feasibility and industrialisation of new products.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and develop the packaging department, including sub‑teams of experts, and ensure capability and capacity align with business needs.
• Steer and track the packaging budget while supporting the VP of R&D on all packaging‑related topics.
• Act as technical expert for luxury packaging materials, technologies and filling processes, collaborating with internal and external networks.
• Monitor new technologies, industrial trends and competitor packaging, proposing innovative luxury packaging concepts.
• Ensure effective packaging, process development and industrialisation on time, in full and with required quality data (SAP, SOPs, tests, regulatory requirements, specifications).
• Assess feasibility of packaging and production improvements, drive optimisation, efficiency and adoption of new technologies.
• Maintain compliance of the packaging portfolio, manage data, and lead long‑term initiatives to support the product pipeline.
• Select and release suppliers based on technical requirements, capabilities and procurement strategy, and manage change of packaging within the supply chain.

Required profile

• Minimum 15 years of experience in luxury packaging development, with at least 5 years leading a team.
• Packaging engineer or equivalent education.
• Strong organisational and leadership skills, with the ability to guide cross‑functional teams (Marketing, Quality, Supply Chain, Suppliers).
• Fluent in English; German language knowledge is beneficial.

Required skills

• Proficiency with SAP for data management.
• Creation and maintenance of SOPs and technical documentation.
• Expertise in luxury packaging materials and filling technologies.
• Mould and tool development, including lifecycle management.
• Risk assessment of packaging and filling activities.
• Regulatory compliance and quality issue resolution.