Manager Food Advisory

This role provides strategic and commercial leadership for the EU Technical Services team, overseeing business planning, financial forecasting, and budgeting to ensure profitable, sustainable growth. The position drives performance by defining and achieving revenue, margin, and operational KPIs, while continuously improving systems, processes, and content to enhance efficiency and scalability. The role ensures resources, structure, and priorities align with organizational objectives and customer expectations, delegating effectively to support high‑quality delivery. As the senior point of contact for major clients, the role leads proposal development, strengthens key customer relationships, identifies new business opportunities, and ensures successful end‑to‑end project delivery that meets scope, timeline, and budget commitments. The position also monitors market trends to inform strategic decision‑making and enable value‑added client conversations. Through proactive communication, rigorous project oversight, and commercially aware issue management, this role safeguards customer satisfaction, drives repeat business, and contributes significantly to the organization’s growth objectives. Responsibilities
• Responsible for business planning, forecasting, and budgeting for the EU Technical Services team (circa $4M). Working with the Account Manager, lead the development of annual and multi‑year business plans that align with organizational growth objectives. Prepares accurate revenue forecasts, resource plans, and departmental budgets, ensuring alignment with market demand, operational capacity, and strategic priorities. Monitor financial performance throughout the year, identify variances, and implements corrective actions to keep the department on track to meet commercial targets.
• Accountable for creating and achieving KPIs related to revenue growth, profitability, and operational efficiency. Define measurable performance indicators that reflect both financial goals (e.g., revenue, margin, utilization) and operational excellence (e.g., turnaround times, quality metrics, customer satisfaction). Drives accountability within the team to ensure KPIs are met or exceeded, using data-driven decision‑making to optimize performance and ensure sustainable, profitable growth.
• Oversee continuous improvement of systems, processes, and content while ensuring commercial agility and consistency. Evaluate and enhance internal workflows, delivery models, and knowledge assets to improve efficiency, scalability, and speed to market. Ensures that operational improvements enhance cost-effectiveness, reduce waste, and support margin expansion.
• Ensure the team is structured, resourced, and supported to deliver high-quality work while meeting commercial and operational targets. Offers strategic direction, sets team priorities, and ensures alignment with broader business objectives. Creates a culture of accountability, collaboration, and customer-centric delivery.
• Delegates tasks and responsibilities to appropriate personnel to meet customer expectations and commercial commitments
• Develops and delivers progress reports, proposals, documentation, and presentations for internal and external stakeholders
• Serve as the primary point of contact for major clients, contributing directly to business development objectives.
• Work with the account manager to ensure clear communication, strategic alignment, and delivery excellence. Leads the development of high‑quality, commercially compelling proposals for major customers—often involving cross‑functional coordination—to support revenue growth, account expansion, and multi‑market opportunities. Proactively identifies upsell and cross‑sell opportunities by understanding client needs, anticipating industry shifts, and aligning solutions with business objectives.
• Build, develop, and strengthen business relationships critical to project success and new commercial opportunities.
• Cultivates strong, trust-based relationships with clients, partners, stakeholders, and internal teams.
• Oversee major projects end‑to‑end to ensure quality delivery, financial performance, and customer satisfaction
• Independently manages complex, high-value projects from initiation to close‑out, ensuring delivery on time, within scope, and within budget. Approves project scope, goals, timelines, and deliverables that support commercial and strategic business priorities. Drives project profitability, effective risk mitigation, and repeat business through outstanding delivery.
• Manage a large EU team supported by operational team leaders
• Provides robust governance across all project deliverables by conducting systematic quality checks, validating accuracy of technical outputs, and ensuring work performed by both internal staff and third‑party partners meets regulatory, scientific, and organizational standards. Establishes clear expectations, monitors performance, and intervenes proactively when quality risks arise.
• Coaches, mentors, trains, and motivates direct reports, fostering accountability and performance excellence. Provides regular guidance and personalized development support to team members, including structured coaching, technical mentoring, and skills training. Encourages accountability by setting clear expectations empowering team members to take ownership of their work. Creates an environment that drives engagement, confidence, and continuous learning.
• Assigns annual goals to each team member and evaluates their progression throughout the year. Develops goal frameworks aligned with team and organizational strategy. Conducts periodic check‑ins, provides constructive feedback, and executes mid‑year and year‑end reviews to assess performance.
• Identifies potential crises and develops contingency plans; resolves issues and conflicts within the team. Monitors operational and project risk indicators to anticipate potential disruptions, creating actionable contingency or escalation plans as needed. Leads conflict‑resolution discussions, facilitates constructive dialogue, and ensures alignment across geographically dispersed teams. Maintains team cohesion and productivity even in complex or high‑pressure situations.
• Oversees continuous improvement of systems, processes, and content using project management principles. Champions ongoing optimization of workflows by applying structured project management methodologies. Evaluates current processes, identifies inefficiencies or gaps, and implements improvements that enhance accuracy, efficiency, and consistency. Ensures documentation, tools, and templates evolve in line with industry best practices and organizational needs.
• Work collaboratively with the Sales team to identify and develop new opportunities. Attend client meetings and support the creation of client proposals. T
• Supports HR and Talent Acquisition with recruitment, onboarding, and initial training of key personnel. Ensures early‑stage capability development is aligned with organizational goals. Qualifications
• Degree in Food Science or related scientific discipline
• French and English Speaking (Dutch knowledge is plus)
• Strong proficiency in client relationship management
• Strong proficiency in proposal and report writing, project management, and document control
• Proven leadership, communication, and teamwork skills
• People management experience, including coaching for performance and sustaining team engagement
• Excellent analytical and problem‑solving abilities
• Skilled communicator across multiple channels
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision
• Travel may be required as part of this role and will vary from project to project. The core of accomplishing our mission is building a thriving, high-purpose and high-performance culture and ensuring the well-being of our team. Every aspect of our business, including client focus and growth, stems from this fundamental commitment. Our culture is rooted in four central values: Doing the Right Thing, Treating People Well, Relentlessly Pursuing Excellence, and Embracing Unity Within NSF. These principles drive all our actions. Notice to Agency and Search Firm Representatives: Please note that NSF is not accepting unsolicited resumes from agencies and search firms for this role. Resumes submitted to an NSF employee by a third-party agency without a valid written and signed search agreement between NSF and said third-party agency will become the sole property of NSF. No fee will be paid if a candidate is hired as a result of an unsolicited agency or search firm referral. Thank you. #LI-CC1