About this role
Responsibilities
- Play a role to drive Innovation & Growth strategy, identifying new application opportunities, new technology projects, involve in developing multi-generation technology platform to support regional growth.
- Rapidly learn and break down unfamiliar industries and applications. Develop a practical understanding of the customer’s product, unmet needs, manufacturing process, end-use environment, competitive landscape.
- Establish a structured approach for converting ideas into actionable technical and business requirements, including defining addressable market size, providing technical solutions and assessing technical feasibility, determining fitness-for-use criteria for specific applications through a combination of empirical, experimental and modeling methods, translating the fitness-for-use criteria to fundamental polymer characteristics using knowledge of polymer structure-property-performance relationships, identifying required resources, setting milestones, and establishing clear success criteria.
- Apply stage-gate thinking to exploration projects. Define appropriate go/no-go criteria, manage project risks, identify when additional investment is justified, and recommend stopping or redirecting projects when the opportunity is not attractive or technically viable.
- Lead technical projects through effective design of experiments; coordinate activities within technology, marketing and sales for project planning, milestone and deliverables.
- Support market-segment strategy development by connecting customer needs, technology trends, application opportunities, and project insights to broader business priorities.
- Articulate Eastman product value propositions and communicate technical insights through internal and external technical conference, customer presentation.
- Participate in trade shows / industrial conferences to gain insights on market trends and establish/strengthen industry connection.
Qualifications
- PhD degree in Polymer/Chemistry/Material Science, minimum 10 years of working experience.
- The candidate should understand the fundamentals of material modification, injection molding, extrusion, film processing, etc.
- Experience in application development, technical development, technical marketing, new business development, or innovation project management within the polymer, plastics, chemicals, materials, or related industries.
- Experience for managing early-stage, exploratory, or new-business projects where the customer need, technical solutions, or commercial models were not fully defined at the beginning.
- Willingness and ability to learn unfamiliar applications and industries quickly rather than relying only on deep experience in one specific market.
- Strong customer interface and communication skills in discovering customer needs and translating customer requirements into application specifications.
- Experience in leading technical projects involving multiple functions, customers, external partners, and cross-region teams.
- Fluent English writing and speaking