Category Technical Lead - Oral Health

About this role

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

About the role

The Category Technical Lead – Oral Health is accountable for end‑to‑end technical lifecycle strategy, execution and technical performance across formulation and packaging for the Operating Unit to enable growth, margin, cash and stewardship. The role is mission‑critical in ensuring technical readiness, compliant supply, robust innovation delivery, and sustainable cost competitiveness .

This role acts as the single OU technical integrator , connecting Category strategy, Innovation, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Packaging, Site Technical, and external manufacturing partners (CMOs/CDMOs). It ensures that technical decisions are aligned to business strategy, regulatory requirements (e.g. trusted ingredients, spec management), and long‑term supply resilience , including sourcing decisions while enabling speed to market and margin delivery.

Role responsibilities

End‑to‑End Technical Lifecycle Ownership • Own and execute the OU technical lifecycle plan for OU, covering formulation and packaging across innovation (technical execution), product maintenance, technical transfers, and simplification initiatives. • Ensure technical readiness, aligning design, manufacturing capability, validation, and supply robustness with category and OU priorities. • Accountable for technical execution of complex projects, including innovation launches, value engineering, product maintenance, waste reduction, and process optimization initiatives. • Build highly capable and performing OU and Site Technical Teams ensuring local subject matter expertise, interdependent with global Technical, leveraging global SMEs.

Technical Strategy & Category Enablement • Partner with Category, R&D, Marketing, and Commercial teams to translate category strategy into executable OU technical roadmaps. • Lead product, technology, and competitor benchmarking, driving formulation and packaging simplification in line with Design‑to‑Value principles. • Ensure alignment between Innovation leaders and Category Technical Readiness Leads for disciplined innovation execution and lifecycle management. • Develop and maintain a documented OU Technical strategy, clearly aligned to OU Business Strategy, portfolio and category priorities, supply risk and POS outlook. • Use the strategy to prioritize work, guide stakeholder alignment, and unlock value at pace.

Product Introduction Technical Leadership (Technical Readiness) • Lead OU technical execution for NPIs and geo‑expansion projects, ensuring on‑time, in‑full delivery with scalable and compliant post‑launch supply. • Own technical readiness governance deliverables across innovation stages, ensuring readiness for capital investment, sourcing decisions, and manufacturing scale‑up. • Champion Design‑to‑Value and Design‑for‑Manufacture to deliver robust, cost‑effective formulations and packaging solutions.

Product Lifecycle Management & Technical Stewardship • Oversee technical maintenance activities, including formulation robustness, process optimization (e.g., BCT, ingredient harmonization), validation, and technical transfers. • Lead PLM initiatives focused on complexity reduction (accountable for formulation simplification), margin improvement, and portfolio synergies, ensuring regulatory and quality compliance throughout the product lifecycle. • Drive technical risk management, including troubleshooting, CAPA effectiveness, and continuous improvement embedded in Quality‑by‑Design principles.

Packaging & Sustainability Leadership • Provide OU technical leadership for packaging development, qualification, and validation across internal sites and CMOs. • Drive packaging transformation and sustainability initiatives, including simplification (accountable for pack simplification), efficiency improvements, and delivery of environmental targets. • Lead packaging value engineering programs with Procurement, sites and suppliers to deliver cost, resilience, and performance improvements.

Network, CMO & Site Technical Integration • Ensure strong matrix leadership of Site Technical teams, enabling capability build while keeping sites focused on execution excellence. • Provide technical oversight for CMO/CDMO networks, supporting tiering, technical readiness, and risk mitigation. • Act as the OU escalation point for complex technical issues, ensuring timely resolution and prevention of recurrence.

Financial & Capital Accountability • Execute key projects including selection, equipment installations and commissioning independent. • Accountable for Capex and technical project costs within the region, ensuring value delivery, disciplined investment decisions, and alignment with OU ABP and LRP priorities. • Deliver sustainable technical savings through value engineering, simplification, and manufacturing transformation programs.

Enterprise‑Level Stakeholder Leadership • Actively build, maintain, and leverage trusted relationships with OU Commercial GMs, R&D, Quality, Supply Chain, and Global QSC leaders through regular 1:1 engagement, not transactional communication. Participate and co own the Commercial Cate

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