Global Culinary Innovation Senior Manager

The Kraft Heinz Company; Nijmegen; On-site; EUR 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

The Kraft Heinz Company in Nijmegen seeks a Global Culinary Innovation Senior Manager to lead a high-performing team of chefs and translate consumer insights into scalable culinary concepts across regions.

You will drive long-range innovation, coach chefs, and partner with R&D, Marketing, and external partners to land technologies and menus that support sustainable growth.

This leadership role requires 15+ years of experience, executive communication, and willingness to travel across time zones.

Qualifications

• Formal culinary education and extensive leadership in FMCG or food innovation.
• 15+ years in culinary leadership, including restaurant/facility experience.
• Proven ability to translate trends into scalable concepts and customer solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead global culinary team and set strategic direction.
• Translate trends into prototypes, menus and applications across regions.
• Collaborate with R&D, Marketing, Insights, Sales, Nutrition, Technology and external partners.
• Develop capabilities, playbooks and regional pilots to scale culinary ideas.

Skills

Leadership

Culinary foresight

Technology application

Strategic portfolio management

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Formal culinary education

Job description

Job Description

About the role

We are looking for a Global Culinary Innovation Senior Manager to lead a high-performing team of chefs and make culinary expertise a visible, credible and influential growth engine across the company. This is a leadership role for an accomplished culinary professional who has moved beyond day-to-day kitchen operations and can connect restaurant craft, consumer understanding and FMCG innovation at global scale.

You will set the direction for global culinary innovation, manage and develop a team of chefs, and build the capabilities, partnerships and ways of working needed to anticipate three- to ten-year business opportunities. You will translate emerging food trends, eating occasions and technologies into tangible prototypes, menus, applications and compelling stories that regions can adopt and scale.

What you will lead

• Global culinary team leadership: Lead, coach and develop a diverse team of chefs; create clarity on priorities, accountabilities and standards; build an inclusive community in which culinary talent can grow and deliver its best work.
• Culinary foresight: Translate emerging food trends and evolving eating occasions into tested recipe, menu and product prototypes that make future opportunities tangible.
• Technology application and landing: Bring early technologies to life through culinary techniques, prove performance in real dishes and eating contexts, and provide practical application guidelines and regional pilots.
• Global culinary capabilities: Build proprietary methods, quality standards, playbooks, knowledge, data and digital tools once, then scale them across regions.
• Talent and community development: Shape the culinary competency framework, strengthen the Culinary Academy and orchestrate the global Chef Network to share expertise and accelerate adoption.
• Strategic initiatives: Mobilise culinary expertise for enterprise priorities, including food obsession, culinary activation, global away-from-home customers, brand culinary identity, portfolio strategy and nutrition.

Key accountabilities

• Own the global culinary innovation roadmap and portfolio, ensuring strategic coherence across mid- and long-term projects.
• Set team priorities, allocate resources and budgets, remove barriers and ensure strong delivery across multiple global programs
• Establish clear culinary quality standards and decision principles for concepts, prototypes, applications, menus and stories.
• Partner with regional culinary and R&D teams so global work reflects market needs, lands locally and avoids duplication.
• Act as a senior strategic partner to R&D, Marketing, Insights, Sales, Nutrition, Technology and external customers.
• Increase culinary impact and credibility by bringing a clear culinary point of view to senior decisions and by demonstrating measurable business value.
• Build an external ecosystem of chef associations, universities, agencies, customers and technology partners to access breakthrough expertise.
• Champion best-in-class storytelling and experiences that make complex consumer, culinary and technical opportunities easy to understand and act upon.
• Represent the culinary function with senior leadership and externally as a credible ambassador for food, innovation and the company.

What you bring

• Formal culinary education, apprenticeship or equivalent professional chef qualification.
• Significant leadership experience gained across FMCG, food manufacturing or corporate innovation environment, meaning 15+years including past restaurant/Food service experiences.
• A strong track record of managing, coaching and developing chefs or culinary professionals across locations, cultures or regions.
• Demonstrated success leading complex innovation portfolios and multidisciplinary teams from early exploration through prototype validation and regional adoption.
• Deep understanding of food, ingredients, techniques, menus, eating occasions and the realities of scaling culinary ideas into commercial products and customer solutions.
• Ability to turn trends and technologies into compelling, technically credible and scalable culinary applications.
• Strong business acumen, portfolio judgement and confidence making prioritisation, resource and scope trade-offs.
• Executive-level communication, facilitation, storytelling and influencing skills, with the credibility to challenge and inspire senior stakeholders.
• Experience building external partnerships and professional networks; international experience is strongly preferred.
• Fluent English and willingness to work across time zones and travel internationally as required.

Your leadership profile

• People developer: You create high standards and psychological safety, give clear feedback and actively grow the next generation of culinary leaders.
• Strategic chef: You combine culinary instinct with consumer, technical and commercial thinking and are as comfortable shaping a roadmap as tasting a prototype.
• Connector: You build trust across global and regional teams, clarify decision rights and turn diverse expertise into one coherent direction.
• Influencer: You raise the voice of culinary through evidence, experiences and stories that change decisions and unlock action.
• Future focused: You are curious about culture, technology and behaviour and can turn ambiguity into focused experimentation.
• Owner: You make thoughtful trade-offs, follow through on commitments and measure success through adoption, capability growth and business impact.

Why join us?

This is an opportunity to shape how culinary expertise creates competitive advantage across a global business. You will lead talented chefs, influence the future innovation pipeline and build a connected culinary community that turns food insight, craft and technology into distinctive experiences and sustainable growth.

Location(s)

Nijmegen

Kraft Heinz is an Equal Opportunity Employer – Underrepresented Ethnic Minority Groups/Women/Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity and other protected classes.