Director, Digital Partner - R&D at Wella Company – London, England

Position Title: Director, Digital Partner - R&D

Function: Technology

Location: London, UKM, GB

Work Arrangement: Hybrid

Description:Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Enterprise Architect within the Supply Chain & R&D domains to shape and evolve the technology strategy and roadmap. This role plays a critical bridge between business strategy and technology execution, ensuring architecture decisions accelerate business outcomes, reduce complexity, and enable scalable, future‑ready platforms.

You will partner closely with senior business and IT leaders, guide investment decisions, and provide architectural leadership across transformation initiatives in a global, fast‑moving CPG environment.

What You’ll Be Responsible ForStrategic Architecture & Business Alignment

• Drive enterprise architecture with a business‑outcome lens across Supply Chain and R&D.
• Define and evolve the business technology strategy and multi‑year roadmaps, covering applications, data, analytics, and integration.
• Translate business strategy into target‑state architectures, capability models, and investment priorities.
• Proactively identify opportunities to digitize, modernize, and simplify business processes.

Architecture Governance & Portfolio Management

• Lead architecture governance, reference architecture development, and technology standards.
• Establish and mature application and technology portfolio management to increase transparency and reduce technical debt.
• Assess solution designs across business, data, application, and technology layers to identify optionality, risks and trade‑offs.
• Accountable for High Level Designs across Supply Chain and R&D projects; ensuring solutions are fit‑for‑purpose and aligned with enterprise architecture principles.

Delivery Enablement & Technical Leadership

• Provide architectural leadership across the full SDLC, supporting both project‑centric and product‑centric operating models.
• Serve as architecture lead on complex initiatives, shaping solution design and ecosystem integration.
• Partner with delivery teams to guide design decisions and ensure architectural quality.
• Support build‑vs‑buy decisions and vendor evaluations; leading on software vendor selection exercises (RFPs).

Stakeholder Partnership & Influence

• Build strong relationships with business executives, product leaders, and technology partners.
• Communicate architecture direction and roadmaps in clear, compelling, executive‑ready language.
• Act as a trusted advisor, able to challenge constructively and influence without authority.

Practice & Capability Development

• Mentor and coach architects, product teams, and stakeholders to instill strong architectural thinking.
• Contribute to the evolution of the Enterprise Architecture practice, operating model, and ways of working.
• Continuously monitor technology trends and disruptions relevant to Supply Chain, R&D, cloud, and data platforms.

Domain Expertise You Bring

• Strong functional knowledge of Supply Chain (e.g., IBP, Logistics, Warehousing).
• Solid understanding of R&D processes within a CPG environment.
• Hands‑on experience architecting complex, integrated Supply Chain solutions.
• Deep familiarity with cloud and hybrid‑cloud platforms, integration patterns, and modern application architectures.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5–7 years of experience as an Enterprise Architect focused on Supply Chain.
• 4–6 years of prior experience in solution architecture or related technical roles.
• Demonstrated experience defining enterprise roadmaps and guiding large‑scale transformations.

Core Competencies

• Systems thinking with the ability to balance long‑term strategy and near‑term delivery.
• Strong analytical skills with comfort assessing cost, risk, and value trade‑offs.
• Executive‑level communication and storytelling skills.
• Consulting mindset: collaborative, structured, and outcome‑oriented.
• Ability to operate effectively in complex, federated, and politically nuanced environments.

Technical & Professional Skills

• Expertise in modern enterprise architecture concepts: SaaS, APIs, microservices, event‑driven architectures, and analytics.
• Strong knowledge of domain/industry related technology landscape, accelerators and opportunities
• Experience in using AI solutions to bring business value in SC and R&D domains
• Strong understanding of operating models, financial management, and investment planning.
• Familiarity with EA frameworks, modeling tools, Agile and scaled Agile approaches.
• Proven leadership, facilitation, and stakeholder‑management skills.

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