Summary

This position provides technical leadership in relation to technical service for the Americas. The role is responsible for management of customer technical relationships and monitoring the competitiveness of Tronox TiO2 in terms of product performance. The position interacts heavily internally with multiple functions, including marketing, sales, manufacturing, customer service, supply-chain and R&D. Regular interactions with customers both remotely and in person (when possible) are critical to continue building upon existing and developing new relationships. The successful candidate will be the first point of contact for complex technical, quality, and supply issues within a subset of Tronox customers (internal & external). Specifically, the role requires a person with a background in the coatings industry, outstanding communications skills, exceptional detail orientation, B2B customer/supplier facing experience, and the ability to effectively manage through challenging customer issues. It will be critical to rapidly build a network across functions internally and to leverage and develop technical credibility with customers externally.

Primary Responsibilities

• Ensures safety through leadership and executing tasks in a safe manner
• Responsible for first level of technical support for customer
• Shows an understanding of coatings formulation, application, and testing
• Responsible for providing technical support to regional commercial teams and customers
• Responsible for product qualifications at new customers and for supporting customer trials of new products
• Manages customer specifications interacting with both manufacturing and the customer
• Assists R&D scientists and lab technical specialists when evaluating TiO2 products or investigating customer complaints
• Accountable for resolving customer performance complaints
• Supports product stewardship as needed

Sr. Scientist Additional Responsibilities:

• Responsible for demonstrating site safety leadership
• Coatings formulation, application, and testing Subject Matter Expert
• Responsible for developing test strategy for new product / product improvement projects
• Responsible for giving direction to R&D scientists and lab technical specialists when evaluating TiO2 products or investigating customer complaints
• Responsible for compiling and reporting on customer complaints, including facilitating root cause analysis, and creating plans to implement corrective actions
• Responsible for supporting the On Time Delivery (OTD) organization with allocation of products
• Accountable for global coordination and regional management of Off-spec inventory moves and “soft” allocation outside of SAP
• May be designated to represent the company at Industry Associations and Regulatory bodies

Knowledge and Experience

• Position requires a bachelor’s degree in a relevant scientific area (usually chemistry or chemical engineering) with 5 years of relevant experience or an advanced degree with 1 year of relevant experience (coatings formulation and manufacturing)
• Must have excellent verbal and written communication skills
• SAP, Salesforce, DOE and Minitab knowledge are a plus
• Regular application of CRM principles
• Proficient on Microsoft systems (Words, Excel, PowerPoint).
• Adaptable and open to learning new Software applications and platforms

Sr. Scientist Experience:

• Position requires a bachelor’s degree in a relevant scientific area (usually chemistry or chemical engineering) and 15 years of relevant experience (coatings formulation and manufacturing), a master’s degree with 10 years of experience or a Ph.D. with 5 years of experience.