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Job Description:

Job Summary

The ASD India Lab Leader is responsible for driving the strategic, technical, and operational direction of the ASD lab organizations. This role ensures the successful execution of division level deliverables, builds strong technical capabilities, develops talent, and partners closely with global and regional stakeholders. The leader plays an essential role in translating customer insights, market needs, and business priorities into impactful technical solutions and new product introductions for the India market.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership for the ASD R&D organization in India.

• Define clear objectives, priorities, and execution plans aligned with the ASD division’s global and regional strategies.
• Ensure strong collaboration between R&D, AE, marketing, sales, and global partners to meet business goals.

• Lead the Application Engineering (AE) organization using the SIBG global AE playbook.

• Increase the organization’s focus on capturing and translating end‑user insights from the domestic market into actionable technical and commercial outcomes.
• Build application expertise that enhances customer engagement, problem‑solving capability, and solution adoption.
• Drive technical support and customer trials that advance market penetration and help shape the opportunity pipeline.
• Collaborate with sales and marketing leaders and teams to identify, prioritize, and execute commercial opportunities and ensure alignment with division objectives.
• Identify emerging segments, growth markets, and customer needs to support long‑term business expansion.
• Leverage SFDC to drive operational discipline to manage customer opportunities and drive them to closure

• Build, manage, and advance the New Product Introduction (NPI) pipeline for ASD India.

• Generate strong NPI ideation grounded in customer insights, domestic market trends, and unmet application needs.
• Integrate India‑generated NPI concepts into the global ASD portfolio, ensuring alignment with division strategy and market potential.
• Evaluate local technical capabilities and define the required R&D competencies to support product modifications, localization, and new solution development.
• Lead resource planning, project prioritization, and cross‑functional alignment to enable timely and successful NPI commercialization.
• Drive NPI execution with agility, speed, and a strong bias for meeting market‑window opportunities.
• Partner with country, area division leaders and global portfolio leaders to ensure seamless commercial launch and adoption of new products.

• Build and expand technical and R&D capabilities in India.

• Identify capability gaps and create development roadmaps for new technologies, competencies, and infrastructure needed to support business growth.
• Ensure alignment with broader ASD technology strategies.

• Drive a strong ASD culture within the India R&D organization.

• Foster a customer‑centric mindset with continuous engagement, joint problem solving, and technology‑driven value creation.
• Promote rigorous experimentation, data‑driven decision making, and a results‑oriented approach.

• Lead human capital planning and talent development for the India R&D and AE teams.

• Define long‑term talent needs, organizational structure, and capability development plans.
• Oversee hiring, onboarding, coaching, performance management, and succession planning.
• Support career development, retention, and promotion of key talent to build a strong and sustainable technical organization.

Desired Qualifications and Experience for ASD India Lab Leader

Educational Qualifications
• Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Polymer Science, or a related technical field.
• Additional certifications in product development, innovation management, or business leadership are beneficial.

Professional Experience

• 10–15+ years of experience in R&D, Application Engineering, Product Development, or Technical Leadership roles within industrial, materials, or manufacturing sectors.
• Demonstrated experience leading multi‑disciplinary technical teams.
• Strong track record of managing New Product Introduction (NPI) programs from ideation through commercialization.
• Proven experience working directly with customers to translate application needs into technical solutions.
• Prior exposure to global teams and cross‑functional collaboration with marketing, sales, and portfolio leaders.
• Experience developing technical capabilities, building lab infrastructure, or scaling engineering organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex project portfolios and prioritize resources to meet business objectives.
• Experience in driving market‑back innovation, customer trials, and commercial execution.

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