Head of Laboratory Technologies

About the Role 

The Head of Laboratory Technologies​ is responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of all technology functions supporting Haleon’s research laboratory network across all innovation categories and geographies with key hubs in Richmond, VA, Weybridge, UK, Slovakia, China and India. Reporting directly to Head of R&D Digital and Tech, this role will drive the vision, execution, and continuous improvement of lab technology platforms, product management, investment roadmaps, and operational excellence to enable the cutting-edge innovation fully leveraging digital, data and AI technologies. The role will lead and collaborate with cross-functional teams, manage large-scale technology investments, and ensure alignment with Haleon’s innovation and growth objectives. Haleon has embarked upon modernization and digitization of its R&D sites including a new HQ based Oral health site. This role will directly support and lead Digital and technology aspects of the multi-year R&D lab transformation programs. 

Key Responsibilities: 

R&D Lab Operations & Digital technology Leadership 

• Provides leadership and oversight of all digital investments in support of global Stability operations, formulations, Laboratory information management systems (LIMS), Electronic Lab notebooks (ELN), and end to end PLM capabilities ensuring facilities and analytical capabilities support across product portfolio. 

• Implement programs focused on digitization of Lab data, business processes, AI-powered insights, and advance business informatics to optimize lab workflows and accelerate innovation growth. 

• Leads site based and global teams engaged in day-to-day operational support and collaborate with business leadership across categories to digitally enable processes standardization across all R&D labs enabling consistency, compliance, speed, and operational efficiencies.  

Strategic Visioning and thought Leadership 

• Collaborate with research and category leadership team to establish the vision and strategy for technology, data and AI inspiring cross-functional teams to enable advanced predictive modeling techniques in pursuit of breakthrough innovations ensuring alignment with Haleon’s R&D innovation growth goals and objectives.  

• Lead the creation and delivery of a multi-year digital technology investment roadmap and provide digital thought leadership to strategically guide prioritization of initiatives that enable growth pipeline including but not limited to operational technologies, claims, smart labs, tech transfers, formulation and stability modeling.  

• Advocate for technologies that keep us at the forefront of trusted science and enable rapid scaling of data driven business insights. Advocate and partner with R&D and central data teams to ensure data governance and quality for research data assets, and promote best practices in data science, reproducibility, and knowledge sharing across the organization. 

Cross-functional Collaboration and Technical Delivery 

• Serves in the capacity of Digital business partner, advisor, and bridge between the scientific and digital and data teams working closely with site leaderships, research scientists, analytical and medicinal chemist, formulators, packaging, consumer sensory and sentiments research teams by communicating digital opportunities in clear, compelling ways to senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams.  

• Deliver on portfolio of technology solutions and services to ensure day-to-day operations and make data and insights available for decision making at all stages of product innovations including integration and interoperability across supply chain and marketing functions.  

• Oversee a portfolio of analytics projects and platforms, annual and long -range budget management prioritizing initiatives that deliver high innovation impact, lower cost and accelerate growth pipeline across categories. Ensure efficient allocation of resources and drive accountability for delivering results.  

Why You?

Qualifications and Experience 

• Master's degree level or equivalent in relevant technology or scientific fields (e.g. Computer Science, MBA, computational sciences), with a deep understanding of research and development processes.  

• Proven R&D Analytics Leadership: 12+ years of experience in the CPG, consumer healthcare, biopharmaceutical, technology, or biotechnology industry, with a minimum 5+ years in senior leadership roles and strong track record in delivering results through analytics, data science or related functions in IT and R&D groups.  

• Bold thinker with the ability to envision the future of data-driven innovation insights and set a compelling strategy. Proven experience in transforming organizations or strategies - for example, Experience leading digital transformation and advanced analytics in R&D environments, leading technology innovation at scale, establishing new technology capabilities, or driving business outcomes. 

• Demonstrated experience managing large, global teams (combination of internal, external FTE and outsourced) and multimillion-dollar annual operational and project budgets. Exceptional people leadership skills - able to inspire a shared purpose, cultivate talent, and build diverse, high-performing teams across different cultures and geographies.  

• Proven expertise in Research Labs site and technology transformation, experience supporting systems like LIMS, ELN, Empower, Formulation management, PLM, predictive modeling, digital twin /smart lab technologies. 

• Deep knowledge of modern data science, AI/ML, and analytics tools relevant to consumer/CPG/Healthcare/biopharma research. Familiarity with areas such as predictive modeling, computational chemistry/biology, bioinformatics, statistics, and AI-driven consumer and sensory insights. Ability to guide teams in selecting and applying the right technologies and approaches to complex scientific problems. 

• Deep passion for innovation with a demonstrated ability to translate new ideas into action. Ability to set high ambitions, start small, and scale fast in a growth environment, has introduced new technologies or approaches that delivered tangible business outcomes.  

• Brings broad view of external perspective includ