Pilot Plant Lead

About the role

The Richmond Pilot Plant is a critical enabler of Haleon's innovation agenda—accelerating the development and delivery of new products while safeguarding continuity at our manufacturing sites. By providing agile, high-quality in-house development and scale-up capability, the pilot plant maximizes the return on our innovation investment and reduces reliance on external partners.

The Lead, Pilot Plant Operations, sets the benchmark for operational excellence across the facility. The Lead cultivates a high-performance culture grounded in GMP and EHS discipline, continuous improvement, and right-first-time execution. They manage and develop a team of scientists and technicians (11), ensuring clear accountability, capability building, and performance excellence. They collaborate with innovation teams, scale-up engineers, and manufacturing sites to anticipate future capability needs and shape the capital investment plan required to deliver them.

The Lead provides leadership and governance for the execution of pilot plant capital projects, ensuring delivery to scope, timeline, cost, and quality. They maximize utilization and asset performance by designing and implementing programs that optimize capacity, efficiency, and throughput across the pilot plant and associated assets. They ensure sustained GMP compliance and inspection readiness in partnership with Site Quality, maintaining audit-ready standards for internal and external inspections.

The Lead drives operational readiness across warehouse, pilot plant, and packaging areas—ensuring on-time availability of qualified equipment, facilities, and trained personnel; ensure facilities and equipment are qualified, maintained, and controlled for GMP use. They recruit, onboard, and capability-build to ensure the team has the skills and expertise required to safely deliver all operational and project demands. They champion EHS excellence, adhering to global standards; act as Duty Holder for Workplace Transport and Warehouse Safety and as SME for machinery and process safety.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end operations across the Richmond GMP warehouse, pilot plant manufacturing, and primary packaging; partner with project teams and Scale-Up engineers to develop and deliver schedules aligned to Haleon innovation priorities.
• Manage and develop a team of scientists and technicians (11), ensuring clear accountability, capability building, and performance excellence.
• Collaborate with innovation teams, scale-up engineers, and manufacturing sites to anticipate future capability needs and shape the capital investment plan required to deliver them.
• Provide leadership and governance for the execution of pilot plant capital projects, ensuring delivery to scope, timeline, cost, and quality.
• Maximize utilization and asset performance by designing and implementing programs that optimize capacity, efficiency, and throughput across the pilot plant and associated assets.
• Ensure sustained GMP compliance and inspection readiness in partnership with Site Quality, maintaining audit-ready standards for internal and external inspections.
• Drive operational readiness across warehouse, pilot plant, and packaging areas—ensuring on-time availability of qualified equipment, facilities, and trained personnel; ensure facilities and equipment are qualified, maintained, and controlled for GMP use.
• Recruit, onboard, and capability-build to ensure the team has the skills and expertise required to safely deliver all operational and project demands.
• Champion EHS excellence, adhering to global standards; act as Duty Holder for Workplace Transport and Warehouse Safety and as SME for machinery and process safety.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of technical experience in formulation, packaging, manufacturing technologies, validation, or technical operations within regulated consumer healthcare, pharmaceutical, FMCG, or related environments.
• Strong end-to-end product lifecycle experience across innovation execution, technical transfer, product maintenance, optimization, simplification, and technical readiness.
• Proven ability to lead teams and technical programs and resolve technical risks.
• Strong matrix leadership and stakeholder influence across Quality, R&D, Manufacturing, Category, and global technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Business, or a related field.
• Operational Excellence, Lean, Six Sigma, or continuous improvement experience.
• Ability to translate Category and OU strategy into prioritization and delivery.
• Experience making sound decisions in regulated environments while balancing speed, compliance, quality, cost, supply resilience, and long-term technical stewardship.

Location

This role is onsite in Richmond, VA.

Pay

The salary range for this role is: $150,463- $206,886 plus a 18% on target bonus.

Benefits

Haleon offers a robust Total Reward package that consists of competitive pay and a comprehensive benefits program. This includes a generous 401(k) plan, tuition reimbursement, and time off programs including 6 months paid parental leave. On day one, you are eligible for benefits, including our healthcare programs where the company pays for the majority of your medical coverage for you and your family. We also offer the opportunity to receive a discretionary bonus based on the achievement of key business performance and other incentive/recognition programs as part of the offering.

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong. During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Job Posting End Date

2026-09-26