Director, Product Safety & Compliance

Director, Product Safety & Compliance (Hybrid in Austin, TX)

The Director, Product Safety & Compliance role is responsible for developing and executing the strategic direction and management of the Product Safety & Compliance program worldwide. This role is crucial to ensuring products meet all applicable consumer product safety and chemical regulations in the US and key international markets, conducting product safety risk assessments, validating new material selection, developing new and improving existing related processes, accessing and analyzing data, conducting applicable testing, systems implementation, and maintenance of records.

Additionally, in this role you will communicate critical product safety program requirements and expectations to leadership and other stakeholders throughout organization, and own goals for continued improvement of the product safety program and related metrics. Attention to detail, strong communication skills, influencing ability, relationship building and bias for action are core requirements of a candidate.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Product Safety & Compliance team
• Create, enact, and continually improve the overall Product Safety & Compliance global strategy
• Develop and implement written procedures for product requirements, consumer escalations, recalls and other product safety & compliance related areas
• Develop and implement process and protocols, raw material and finished goods testing.
• Support packaging, creative, site and marketing teams to ensure content is compliant and accurate based on products intended and foreseeable use
• Acts as a technical resource and consultant of product safety and chemical compliance for the innovation and operations teams providing clear, concise and accurate information related to product safety & compliance requirements.
• Coordinate and assist cross-functional partners with new product development and product launches globally
• Track product safety & compliance regulatory changes and communicate potential impact to the business in a timely and proactive manner
• Provides guidance to senior management regarding best practices on consumer product safety procedures, regulations, and testing methods
• Maintain and update the playbook in coordination with cross-functional partners to determine how and where Product Safety considerations should be taken into account within business processes
• Identify and drive continual process improvement
• Collect, analyze, and present applicable data to help drive decision making as required
• Anticipate bottlenecks and blockers, assess risks, mitigate issues, and troubleshooting as needed
• Interact as needed with the Consumer Product Safety Commission ("CPSC"), Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") and equivalent agencies in other jurisdictions
• Interface with cross functional and global teams, and international vendors
• Drive and/or coordinate large scale, business critical projects from inception through completion
• This position may require limited international travel

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required, preferably in engineering or a relatable scientific field
• MBA or Master's degree preferred
• At least 10 years' experience in a Product Safety compliance role for consumer products with at least 6 years' experience leading people
• In-depth experience with Canada, EU, UK, China, Japan, Australia, and other international jurisdictions strongly preferred
• Experience developing and implementing a product safety strategy and playbook
• Demonstrated collaborative and relationship building skills, ability to work well within a matrixed team
• Experience in partnering with Engineering on new product development projects to ensure Product Safety and Compliance topics are identified and properly addressed
• Exceptional organizational skills and ability to continually meet critical deadlines
• Ability to work independently and autonomously
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Self-motivated with critical attention to detail, deadlines and reporting
• Demonstrated skill and passion for problem solving and operational excellence
• Experience running multiple projects at the same time while maintaining schedules and meeting deadlines
• Knowledge of third-party labs and testing protocols for consumer products
• Experience working in compliance or heavily regulated product industry
• Ability to work under time pressure
• Thorough understanding of CPSC.FDA and other jurisdictional food contact, chemical and product requirements, along with applicable ASTM and ANSI standards