Sensory Design Manager

Research & Innovation

Join our Specialized Nutrition User Experience (UX) team as a Sensory & User Experience Design Manager and help shape product experiences that make a real difference in the lives of consumers, caregivers, and patients around the world.

About the Role

As Sensory Design Manager at Danone Global Research & Innovation Center – Utrecht, you will build new insights, connecting the dots across sensory and consumer studies to find category trends and build engaging stories. Your work will directly impact future renovations and innovations by building competitive intelligence and therefore guiding product, packaging, and preparation design across global markets. You will be part of Danone’s worldwide UX community; 90+ specialists working together to bring the user voice into every stage of innovation.

In this role, you will translate insights into strategic recommendations, and partner with cross‑functional teams to build product experiences that people love and adopt. Your work will directly support category growth and the performance of Specialized Nutrition brands across all life stages, from pregnancy and early life to medical nutrition.

Main Responsibilities

• Build a roadmap for category insights building, identifying data to analyse on a larger scale, focusing also on competitive landscapes.
• Translate insights into actionable recommendations that guide formulation decisions, strengthen product performance, and shape the sensory signature of our brands.
• Lead engaging storytelling to communicate findings to a diverse set of stakeholders, from R&I teams to marketing and category leads.
• Drive competitiveness by connecting the dots across several studies and data types to enable competitive landscaping and identification of opportunities to increase competitiveness.
• Drive design excellence by staying up to date with sensory & consumer scientific and industry developments and bringing new approaches, methodologies, and tools into the organization.
• Design and manage sensory & consumer research across product, packaging, and preparation touchpoints, selecting or developing fit‑for‑purpose methodologies for team assessments, trained panels and/or consumers.
• Strengthen product culture across R&I by championing sensory evaluation and guiding teams on how to assess products using our established best practices.

Meet your future manager! You will report to Chantalle GROENESCHILD, Team Leader Sensory Design & Capabilities.

About you

You are an enthusiastic storyteller who combines fact-based big picture insights with creativity and curiosity. You constantly search to find insights and stories which have true impact and actionability. You enjoy working in a fast‑paced, collaborative environment and feel confident managing your own projects while engaging a wide network of internal and external partners.

You also bring:

• A master’s degree or university of applied sciences qualification in Sensory Science or a closely related field.
• 5+ years of experience in sensory and/or consumer science within industry or agency.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to create impact through clear storytelling.
• Strong interpersonal skills to build productive relationships with UX colleagues & stakeholders at different levels.
• A proactive, solution‑oriented mindset and comfort working under time pressure and navigating ambiguity with agility.

About Danone

At Danone we are committed to our mission “bringing health, through food to as many people as possible”. We are working together to make sure that our brands, like Nutricia and Nutrilon, create real benefits for people, communities and the planet. You will be part of one of the largest Certified B Corps™ in the world. Being B Corp means to be part of a select movement of companies verified to be meeting the highest standards of social and environmental criteria and using business as a force for good.

Our state-of-the-art research and innovation center builds bridges between food and science and is global in reach, founded on over 125 years of experience in life & food science, technology and user experience and is at the forefront of pioneering advances in specialized nutrition.

We offer:

All Danoners receive a complete package of benefits. This includes a competitive salary and yearly bonus, a premium free pension, 30 days of annual leave (with the opportunity to purchase more) and you will receive a monthly health care allowance. In addition, you can get discount on your gym membership, and we offer initiatives focused on nutrition, physical, and mental health. We provide continuous learning opportunities through workshops, online courses and training sessions.