Policy and Issue Management Manager

Role purpose:

• The incumbent will be responsible and accountable for setting and leading the strategy of addressing regulatory specific, as well as generic, policy issues that have the potential to affect critical assets and impact achievement of strategic BCS business objectives in Africa.
• These issues can each represent a threat to the BCS business to a value of several hundreds of million dollars.
• This position will also involve anticipating and pro-actively engaging to influence the development of new regulatory legislation and guidelines which may impact the regional BCS portfolio in order to minimize risks and maximize opportunities to BCS business development.
• The incumbent will externally promote the adoption of science-based, predictable and consistently functioning regulatory systems leveraging BCS knowledge and IP to support our current and future business.
• The incumbent will align local and regional expert functions to provide scientific advocacy and coordinate with BCS Public Affairs & Sustainability to engage external stakeholders (including industry associations, regulators and opinion leaders) to advocate in support of BCS interests.
• The incumbent has responsibility of addressing both critical product specific issues and matters that impact multiple or a broad category of BCS products within the regulatory arena (e.g., Regulatory Intelligence, Policy, Stewardship) which pose a significant risk or opportunity to BCS’ business.

Key responsibilities and tasks:

• Working within the Global, Regional and Local Policy and Issue Management Teams, PASS as well as the legal department, identify critical policy areas for the BCS portfolio (including DF) and ensure that each is adequately supported by strategically aligning experts from the required expert functions.
• Determine which matters can be best addressed by industry initiatives and which require BCS specific efforts.
• Participate on Global and Regional Committees that evaluate and communicate the potential impact of evolving legislation and guidelines relevant to the BCS CP, seeds & traits portfolio.
• Determine which matters can be best addressed by common industry initiatives and collaborative strategies and which require BCS specific efforts.
• Participate in and influence industry efforts while activate senior management to become directly involved in such issues as required.
• Share knowledge and ensure effective communication throughout BCS of the significance of new regulatory developments, with special focus on Regulatory Policy and Intelligence.
• Contribute to skill building in the various BCS teams in a way that maximizes beneficial impacts and adoption of sound policy.
• Promote awareness and access by key BCS business teams to resources, talking points, expert summaries and other tools to speed and achieve success in stakeholder interactions.
• Support evaluation of cross-portfolio issues that fall within an agreed arena.
• Collaborate with other groups to ensure that related matters are given proper attention by aligned expert groups and, where appropriate, activate senior management to become directly involved in such issues.
• Institute effective collaboration with the global and regional communities to create and maintain a regular overview of how BCS competitors are dealing with policy management and lessons that can be learned and applied to BCS benefit.
• Align with those communities on watch/monitor topics and create a network to collect and share relevant information to facilitate mutual success across the technology platforms.
• Develop innovative processes for analyzing internal and external regulatory policy information that will enhance development of product strategies and provide leverage opportunities with relevant stakeholders.
• Work collaboratively across departments to identify the local personnel/groups who may already manage critical stakeholder relationships.
• Support the creation of deeper relationships by developing initiatives to spur regular meaningful interactions with targeted stakeholders.

Key Working Relations:

• Policy and Issue Management Teams
• Public Affairs & Sustainability Teams
• Global Regulatory, Regional and local Policy and Issue Management Teams
• Global and Local Expert Functions (EnSa, HuSa)
• Field Solutions, Legal Teams
• Business & Crop Teams
• Governmental Agencies
• Industry association, external opinion leaders
• Academic community
• Other relevant external stakeholders

Experience, Skills and Qualifications: 

• M.Sc. or PhD degree in life, biological or chemical sciences or Law and at least 7 years’ experience in the field of Regulatory Affairs, Development or PGA within a Crop Science related industry.
• Profound leadership skills, effective communication, persuasiveness and cross-functional team player skills on a high level, as well as an excellent strategic view are required.
• A high level of diplomatic, scientific and technical expertise.
• Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English required and strong negotiating skills.
• Demonstrated successes influencing policy endpoints would be an asset.
• Proven ability to identify opportunities, develop and implement action plans capably, manage issues and lead cross-functional and international teams is essential.
• Demonstrated ability to influence, to build relationships with regulators, work within associations and leverage stakeholders to BCS interests.