Processing Program and Portfolio Lead

Bedrijf: Bayer AG

Join our team at Vegetable Seed Production Innovation unit as a Program Manager, where you will own and steer an integrated portfolio of applied research, readiness, and innovation initiatives for our VSPS Seed Processing units.

Are you passionate about driving innovation and delivering measurable business outcomes?

Processing Program and Portfolio Lead

Your New Role

In this pivotal role, you will be at the heart of translating strategic business needs into prioritized programs, ensuring that technical execution teams are perfectly aligned with the overarching business priorities. Your influence will extend across a global landscape, encompassing multi-crop and multi-site operations along with quality testing labs.

As you navigate this complex environment, you will face the challenge of balancing competing priorities, constraints, and stakeholders. This complexity will require not only your expertise but also your ability to think critically and creatively. You will enjoy a high level of autonomy, operating with a broad mandate that empowers you to align execution with desired business outcomes. Your leadership will guide the way, making a tangible impact on our seed processing initiatives and driving innovation forward.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Translation: Translate business priorities and operational needs into clear program objectives, outcomes, and success metrics.
• Portfolio Management: Own and manage a diverse portfolio of cross-functional projects focused on applied research, innovation, and readiness to achieve defined business outcomes for seed production and processing.
• Prioritization and Resourcing: Drive and support the prioritization, sequencing, and resource allocation of initiatives across multiple technical teams and disciplines.
• Stakeholder Interface: Serve as the primary point of contact, ensuring alignment between VSPS Processing units, working teams (inside and outside SPI), and operational functions.
• Lifecycle Guidance: Guide projects through the full lifecycle from concept and prioritization to validation, deployment preparation, and implementation.
• Portfolio Oversight: Provide oversight on progress, risks, dependencies, and return on investment at the portfolio level.
• Collaboration Enablement: Foster effective collaboration across research, within broader SPI, as well as PS, including for example engineering, quality, production, and processing functions to remove barriers to execution.
• Budget Support: Assist in annual budget and resource planning for programs within scope (OPEX/CAPEX).
• Quality Assurance: Ensure programs adhere to relevant quality, safety, and governance frameworks.

In this role, you will support broader SPI in building a prioritized and balanced program and project portfolio that serves as the foundation of our initiatives. You’ll establish clear program objectives, milestones, and success metrics, forming a roadmap that guides the entire team toward shared goals.

How to Succeed

To thrive in this role, you should possess:

• Ability to travel globally up to 15%.
• Current residency in the Netherlands and fluent in English, Dutch is a plus.
• 10+ years in portfolio & program management, business translation & outcome definition, and cross-functional stakeholder management, ideally in seed production and product supply.
• Ability to translate strategic priorities into executable programs.
• Solid understanding of product supply, production, processing, and applied innovation contexts.
• Expertise in prioritization & trade-off decision-making, resource & budget planning (OPEX/CAPEX), and delivery governance & readiness oversight.

Benefits of working at Bayer

As a modern employer we prioritize the well-being of our employees, helping them achieve a balance between career development and personal life. We offer a range of career prospects in an innovative working environment, along with competitive compensation to grow both professionally and personally.

You benefit from great employment conditions, such as:

• Annual bonus based on company performance.
• 8,33% holiday allowance.
• 25 days of leave, with the option to buy up to 10 additional days.
• Attractive pension scheme.

Divisie: Crop Science