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Nutrition and Scientific Affairs Director – Danone Canada

  • Canada
  • Boucherville, Toronto
  • Hybrid
  • Permanent Full-Time
  • Posted: 20 Mar 2025
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Nutrition and Scientific Affairs Director – Danone Canada

About the job

 
Job Summary:
The Nutrition and Scientific Affairs Director at Danone Canada will leverage global nutrition expertise to support the business, monitor health and nutrition trends, and advocate for Danone’s products. This role involves collaborating with Marketing, Regulatory, and Legal Affairs to develop strategic nutrition communication messages and claims. The Director will act as a spokesperson for Public Relations, manage corporate nutrition initiatives, and facilitate clinical studies. Additionally, the role includes managing the Danone Institute North America, engaging with key opinion leaders, and overseeing budget and team management. The ideal candidate will have advanced scientific knowledge, strong communication skills, and extensive experience in food, health, and nutrition.
 
Job Responsibilities: 
 
Develop and leverage Danone's global specific nutrition expertise
 
• Utilize the extensive health and nutrition network from Group Danone to enhance the company's communication plans.
• Ensure consistent implementation of Danone’s Health & Nutrition guidelines across all platforms.
• Provide regular updates to R&I (Research and Innovation) on significant nutrition congresses and activities in Canada and the US
 
Build Danone Canada competitive nutrition assets
• Serve as the company's scientific expertise to support the entire business as needed.
• Monitor health and nutrition issues and trends, providing risk/opportunity analysis and insights for the business.
• Support Marketing, Regulatory, and Legal Affairs with scientific substantiation and approval of nutrition claims and communication messages in advertising, packaging, promotions, etc.
• Advocate externally to support Danone’s products, ingredients, processes, and their health benefits
 
Support the business on health and nutrition-related initiatives
• Act as a Nutrition spokesperson for Public Relations and Media, outreach to healthcare professionals, conventions, symposiums, and professional exhibits.
• Collaborate with Human Resources to develop and participate in corporate nutrition initiatives targeting employees.
• Contribute to crisis management during crisis periods.
• Play an active role with marketing to integrate the health strategy into Brands' strategy and activation plan.
• Support Marketing and work with R&I in defining the nutrition characteristics of product innovations and renovations.
• Facilitate and promote the implementation of nutrition-related clinical studies in Canada as needed
 
Danone Institute North America (DINA) 
• Understand the functioning of nonprofit organizations and bylaws.
• Manage initiatives sponsored by the local or global Danone Institute.
• Shape the agenda of the local Danone Institute and ensure the evolution of its goals to align with the company's mission and vision.
 
Build Category, Brand and Danone credibility through Health, Nutrition Key Opinion Leaders and healthcare professionals stakeholders' outreach (e.g Nutritionists, Dieticians, Pediatrics, Gastroenterology, Primary Care)
• Ensure health stakeholder mapping meets business priorities and continually updated through collaboration across different functions.
• Develop and implement effective stakeholder engagement plans and innovative strategies to support Danone brands and corporate reputation  
• Initiate and lead consultations with KOLs, top HCPs (health care professionals) and KOF (Key Opinion Formers) for nutrition claims and insights.
• Organize and coordinate expert health and nutrition advisory boards with KOLs on different topics (eg infant nutrition, dairy and plant-based products, probiotics)
• Participate and manage Danone presence at key science, nutrition and medical conferences, including exhibit attendance; interact with HCPs and communicate brand messages.
• Define goals and design content of scientific symposiums and other events. 
• Develop category and branded collateral materials targeting HCPs for credibility building
• Evaluate ROI for different tactics if applicable.
• Select and manage nutrition agencies and freelancers, as necessary 
• Build advocacy in scientific, medical and industry associations
 
Budget and management skills
• Manages budget for the nutrition and scientific affairs team and health and wellness brand activations
• Manage a small team of Dietitians/internal health and nutrition experts if required
 
#LI-NORAM
#LI-HYBRID
 

About you

 
Qualifications and Skills:
 
• Bachelor of Science (BS) required; Master's in Science (MS) and Degree in Nutrition or PhD in Nutrition/Science or Public Health preferred.
• Registered Dietitian (RD) Certification preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years of demonstrated professional experience in food, health, and nutrition.
• Ability to travel up to 30% domestically and internationally for conferences, stakeholder meetings, and overseeing health and nutrition initiatives.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills with Public Relations experience; proficiency in French is an asset.
• Strong project management skills.
• Ability to effectively adapt communication style to convey complex technical information to diverse audiences.
• Experience with various health and nutrition topics, including organic nutrition, children's nutrition, plant-based, conventional dairy, and probiotics.
• Ability to autonomously manage competing stakeholder demands internally and externally.
• Profound understanding of business dynamics, with the ability to anticipate and adjust objectives to meet future needs and align senior leaders to advance nutrition strategy.
• Ability to contribute to the external nutrition science research community and create and implement new programs for long-term performance.
• Profound scientific knowledge to generate systematic reviews, develop guidelines to substantiate claims, and provide insights on health and nutrition topics.
• Advanced understanding of global research activities and the ability to influence senior leaders to invest in nutrition-focused innovation.

 

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About Danone

 

Are you ready to join our incredible team?

 

  • You will work for a certified B Corp company that has been named one of Canada's top 100 Employers for five consecutive years. In other words, you will be immersed in a culture that is rich and engaging, inclusive and human-centric, efficient and eco-responsible.

 

  • You will benefit from our benefits package including collective insurance with a core health plan 100% paid and no waiting period. We also provide flexible credits for a wellness account, a health spending account or an RRSP. Additionally, we offer a competitive group retirement savings plan in which Danone will match your contributions. Our exceptional parental leave policy supports both primary and secondary caregivers. Our employee assistance program and telemedicine service are also available to ensure your well-being.

 

  • You will enjoy our flexible and hybrid guidelines that let you design a work model and schedule that best suits your needs. Our innovative and flexible vacation policy allows you to take as much paid time off as you need. We also offer, among other things, a summer schedule and no-meeting Friday afternoons. Our onsite workplace features include new, dynamic and collaborative working spaces where it is good to work as a team.

 

  • You will have access to various training initiatives, both in-house and online because we value and prioritize your growth and development. We also offer mentoring, leadership development programs and tuition reimbursement to support your career advancement.

 

  • You will have the opportunity to make a difference in the community as we are a founding partner of the Breakfast Club of Canada. For 25 years, we have worked with the organization to provide children with  regular access to a nutritious breakfast in a comfortable environment, helping them reach their full potential.

 

What are you waiting for? Join our team and enjoy these exceptional benefits!

 

 

Danone Canada is a business unit of Danone and operates from headquarter offices in Boucherville, Quebec, and Toronto, Ontario. Danone Canada is the country’s largest consumer-facing B Corporation, demonstrating that the company meets the highest standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. From year to year, Danone is recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers for its forward-thinking work environment and was awarded the Parity Certification Women in Governance for our commitment towards gender equality in the workplace. We have 500+ employees across Canada that are engaged and energized to deliver Danone’s mission: Bringing health through to food to as many people as possible, by working on strong brands such as Activia, Oikos, Danone, Silk, International Delight and many others. Come join our movement for a healthier world: One Planet. One Health BY YOU.

 

Danone Canada doesn’t just welcome what makes you unique, we value it. We’re proud to provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to cultural background, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression or age. Faithful to our values of openness and humanism, all our employees share the commitment to engage one another with dignity and respect.

 

Danone Inc. is committed to complying with its obligations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the Ontario Human Rights Code.  Danone Inc. will make reasonable efforts to provide accommodation throughout its recruitment process, to the point of undue hardship, and will work with applicants requesting accommodation at any stage of this process.  Questions concerning the availability of accommodation in the recruitment process may be forwarded to INFORMATION@danone.com.

 

Please note that this posting has been written in the masculine form solely to shorten the text. We promote diversity and encourage all people with the skills mentioned in this posting to apply for this position.

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Job details

Dedicated to bringing health through food to as many people as possible, we are a leading global food & beverage company built on four businesses: Essential Dairy and Plant-Based Products, Waters, Early Life Nutrition and Medical Nutrition. 

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