Product development Associate

Job Position: Product development Associate
Location: Mumbai HURC

Business Context and Main Purpose of the Job
This is an opportunity to work as an R&D Associate with Glow & Lovely (previously Fair & Lovely), the biggest skin care brand in India based in Mumbai. With this opportunity, as you work to make a real impact on business and the world, we’ll work to help you become a better you!

About Glow & Lovely
Glow & Lovely is a leading skin care brand which serves millions of people around the world by offering safe, effective and affordable products which deliver glowing, even toned and radiant skin. Previously called Fair & Lovely, we changed our brand name to Glow & Lovely to embrace a more inclusive vision of beauty. The new name reflects the progressive changes we have been making to the brand over the years and our ongoing evolution to celebrate the diversity of beauty in India and other countries.

The Glow and Lovely’s, Global Product Design team (located at Mumbai) is a highly ambitious team works on the development of high impact brand innovations for our global markets across South Asia, Southeast Asia, NAMET, Africa, etc. covering 32 countries. We encompass expertise on a large range of products across the benefits platforms like Skin Brightening, Even Tone Management, Healthy Resilient Skin and Moisturisation, Face Cleansing, Protection through innovative formats and technologies benchmarked to international brands and compete them in Global marketplace.
We offer an agile and open-minded environment with strong, proactive, passionate thinkers who are constantly seeking to independently work to deliver innovative technologies for business growth.

In this role, you will have an opportunity to work as formulation workstream Lead, extending the end-to-end experience to design the formula and craft the product story and claims.

Deliverables
The incumbent would be responsible for Product Design and Development for Global Glow & Lovely R&D in skincare. S(he) would be working on various global & regional projects. The job needs continuous interaction with Global & regional R&D teams, Marketing teams, Legal, Regulatory teams as well as external agencies as part of innovative product developments. It is expected that the incumbent, during the course of his/her work, will need to achieve the following key goals:
• Understand the consumer habits & needs and translate to develop formulations and product solutions as needed by the business project briefs.
• Deliver to new product development briefs by designing experiments, prototyping and lab experiments, and delivering finished product.
• Formulation design to fit insight, meet benchmarks, sensory, assess product stability, efficacy, formulation interaction with packaging and scale up for manufacturing.
• Design of stability testing and monitoring, interfacing with analytical laboratory, execution of basic analytical tests, in line with the global stability protocol
• Write formulation and process specifications and support the Technology Roll-out to the Sourcing Units.
• Preparation of product technology dockets and development reports.
• Operational interactions with Factories/Suppliers, Global R&D teams, etc.
• Generate product/raw material specifications in PLM/Interspec.
• Monitor competitor activity in terms of product quality and composition and make technical recommendations to counter competitive threats.
• Contributes to patents and publications as per the need of the work/research.
• Contribute proactively to identifying & supporting value improvement opportunities for portfolio of products.
• Ensuring compliance with Internal Unilever protocols while developing product solutions with respect to commitment to safety, environment, claim support, specification management etc.
• Work on raw material resilience initiatives.

Relevant Experience
post-graduate with knowledge of chemistry (preferably Pharmaceuticals/chemical engineering) with 2-4 years’ experience, preferably on Skin care/ Personal care product development.
• Well versed with the Product Development Principles – Formulation science, material science, claims, consumer testing.
• Well versed with R & D Processes and Protocols - stability protocols and formulation assessments with basic laboratory tools, analytical tests and instrumentation.
• Tech Savvy - Well versed with handling digital tools and platforms.

Required Professional skills
• Good knowledge of Biology, experience in formulation design. Claims/CTI experience for personal care products would be an added advantage.
• Digital Savviness and the data driven approach would be essential.
• Basic understanding of analytical methods and microbiology.
• Excellent spoken English & presentation skills a must.
• Good interpersonal skills and a team player,
• Agile, proactive and enthusiastic working style
• Design thinking & Creativity

Critical SOL (Standards of Leadership) Behaviors

• PERSONAL MASTERY: Sets high standards for themselves. Has emotional intelligence to take feedback, manage mood and motivations, and build empathy for others.

• PASSION FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE: Generates intensity and focus to motivate people to deliver results at speed. Takes personal responsibility and accountability for execution and results.

• TALENT CATALYST: Invests in people – coaches individuals and teams to realize their full potential. Creates an inclusive climate, empowering everyone to be at their best.

• PURPOSE & SERVICE: Has humility, understanding that leadership is service to others, inside and outside Unilever.

• CONSUMER LOVE: Invests time inside and outside to understand the needs of consumers.

• BUSINESS ACUMEN: Creates sustainable growth with purpose, engaging different partners across the system for change.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion 

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.