The Monsanto Vegetable Division Cucurbit Breeding Lead has oversight and accountability to lead our global team of breeders to develop commercial portfolios for all market segments in multiple countries, assuring alignment of breeding, R&D and overall business objectives. 

Key responsibilities include:

• Overall breeding program strategy for the crop
• People leadership for breeding team
• Program management and administrative responsibilities
• Member of the Research Leadership Team

Strategy:

• Lead the long-term breeding strategy for Cucurbits.
  • Create synergies across regions/programs/ breeders
  • Identify and prioritize trends/ opportunities and put adequate resources to investment to ensure success
• Lead, develop and implement technological changes within programs to increase the annual genetic gain, program efficiency and deployment of improved products across key markets.
• Work closely with leads of other functions and other global breeding leads to analyze strategic opportunities including  new market segments, prioritization of  investments and communication of pipeline potential and expectations.

People Manager:

• Provide leadership to ensure delivery of improved commercial products for strategic markets.
• Lead a highly effective team of breeders in global business environment
  • Create collaboration and open communication among breeders to motivate them to work closely together. 
  • Lead breeders to share material/ best practices/ new techniques/ new ideas towards becoming a highly effective breeding team to increase the innovation rate and achieve best in class product pipeline in the industry
  • Develop effective breeding programs  with an R&D approach appropriate to the opportunity size for the specific markets.
• * People management and development.
  • Set goals for team
  • Assess performance and provide coaching and feedback
  • Develop successors and high potential employees by providing opportunities for individuals to increase their knowledge, skills, abilities and leadership experience
• Lead safety/ES&H initiatives across the breeding programs globally

Administration:

• Lead annual breeding program reviews, leveraging multi-function participation.
• Lead IP protection for respective crops and assure that inventions and products are submitted for IP protection by providing supporting information on a timely basis and participating in prioritization of the docket. 
• Interact closely with the global breeding network (all crops) to exploit synergies and maximize breeding efficiencies.
• Participate in respective Global Crop Team(s) and align crop strategy
• Manage the budget for respective global breeding programs (expenses and capital), and meet overall administrative demands (assessments, reviews & presentations).

Member of Research Leadership Team

• Be an active member of the Vegetable Research Leadership team.
• Work to enhance the vegetable business through a team-based approach.  
• Engage in strategic discussions that determine direction and investment of resources to meet the needs of the business in the future.   

Qualifications

Core Business/Functional Skills and Education (critical experiences, skills, education or capabilities).

• Excellent people, managerial and organizational skills.
• PhD in breeding and genetics, or related area of study.
• Minimum of 10 years experience working in breeding/ genetics/ molecular biology.
• R&D  project management experience.
• Seed business experience in functions outside of breeding, coupled with international experience, highly desirable.
• Minimum 10 years experience in people management.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English. 

To apply for this position, copy/paste the following URL into your browser:
http://ars2.equest.com/?response_id=a07fe3add9b9083e254b9aadffde25f1

Reference: 006RV