Associate Fellow, Platform, Scale & Innovation, Fragrance

Description: The Associate Fellow, Platform, Scale & Innovation Packaging is a senior technical leader responsible for identifying, developing, connecting, and scaling packaging technologies and capabilities that enable innovation across The Estée Lauder Companies. Operating across brands, categories, suppliers, Research & Innovation (R&I), the Packaging Inspiration Lab, Technical Centers, and Manufacturing sites, this role connects consumer desire, emerging trends, technical capability, and enterprise scale to create packaging solutions that can be leveraged broadly across ELC. The Associate Fellow serves as a technical authority and innovation catalyst, translating emerging consumer needs, technologies, supplier capabilities, and internal engineering expertise into product-and-package systems, packaging platforms, technology engines, menu/stock packaging solutions, and shared cross-brand capabilities. A critical responsibility of this role is connecting innovation across the organization. The Associate Fellow maintains a strong understanding of technical work, equipment, engineering capability, pilots, trials, materials, manufacturing technologies, and emerging solutions within the Melville Technical Center and ELC manufacturing sites, identifying opportunities to connect these capabilities to current and future brand needs. The role also champions new digital and AI-enabled ways of working, applying artificial intelligence to technical simulations, concept development, engineering problem-solving, knowledge management, and the automation or simplification of historically time-intensive packaging development activities.

Leadership Mindset: Connect. Invent. Scale. Associate Fellows create impact through deep technical expertise, enterprise thinking, curiosity, and influence. They look beyond individual brand programs to identify technologies and capabilities that can solve broader business needs. They connect consumer and market insights with R&I, Packaging Development, suppliers, engineering, manufacturing, and technical capabilities to accelerate the development of meaningful packaging innovation. They are recognized as technical thought leaders who anticipate where packaging is going, identify opportunities before they become immediate business needs, and translate emerging capabilities into practical solutions that can be commercialized and scaled across ELC.Their success is measured not simply by the programs they support, but by the technologies, platforms, systems, capabilities, and new ways of working they create and enable for the broader organization.

Consumer-Led Innovation & R&I Partnership: Partner closely with R&I and the Packaging Inspiration Lab to identify emerging consumer needs and translate them into innovative product-and-package systems. Explore packaging not as an isolated component, but as part of the complete product + formula + delivery system + consumer experience. Connect consumer insights, emerging trends, competitive activity, materials, formats, dispensing technologies, application experiences, and product science to inspire new packaging solutions. Collaborate with R&I, Product Development, Design, Packaging Development, Marketing, Consumer Insights, and other partners to translate early-stage ideas into technically viable concepts. Identify emerging technologies and packaging experiences that may create future opportunities across prestige beauty categories. Assist in building a forward-looking pipeline of packaging concepts, technologies, and systems that can support future brand innovation. Bring external inspiration into ELC while connecting it to internal technical capabilities and business opportunities.

Packaging Platforms, Technology Engines & Scale: Develop and advance packaging technology engines that create reusable technical foundations for future product launches. Identify opportunities to create shared packaging solutions across brands, while allowing appropriate differentiation in design, decoration, materials, consumer experience, and brand expression. Evolve ELC menu and stock packaging solutions that provide brands with technically proven, commercially viable options for accelerated development. Establish scalable packaging architectures that can support multiple brands, categories, product forms, fill volumes, markets, or manufacturing locations. Identify opportunities to leverage common components, technologies, tooling strategies, manufacturing processes, and engineering knowledge across the enterprise. Create technical frameworks that allow Packaging Development teams to start from proven solutions rather than repeatedly developing similar technologies from the ground up. Balance platform scale with consumer experience, aesthetics, sustainability, technical performance, manufacturability, cost, and brand equity. Partner with Brand Packaging teams to transition platform technologies into brand-specific applications and commercial programs. Maintain a pipeline of scalable technologies at varying levels of technical readiness to support both immediate and future business needs.

Technical Solutions & Engineering Leadership: Support Packaging Development teams in solving complex technical and engineering challenges. Provide technical consultation on packaging architecture, materials, dispensing systems, component design, manufacturing technologies, assembly, decoration, testing, and commercialization. Lead or support advanced technical investigations where traditional development approaches have not produced an effective solution. Apply engineering principles, modeling, simulation, prototyping, testing, and experimentation to accelerate technical learning and decision-making. Identify opportunities to simplify packaging systems while improving robustness, consumer experience, manufacturability, sustainability, cost, and speed. Partner with Package Testing, Material Science, Quality, Manufacturing, R&I, suppliers, and other technical experts to develop and validate solutions. Develop technical knowledge, methodologies, design principles, and engineering guidance that can be leveraged by Packaging Development teams across ELC.Serve as a technical advisor and thought partner for high-complexity or high-value packaging initiatives.

Supplier-Led Innovation: Partner with Global Supplier Management and key suppliers to develop a robust pipeline of supplier-led packaging innovation. Establish strong technical relationships with strategic suppliers, converters, equipment manufacturers, material innovators, startups, and technology partners. Maintain visibility to supplier technology roadmaps, new manufacturing capabilities, emerging materials, dispensing technologies, decoration processes, and packaging formats. Challenge suppliers to bring forward technologies and capabilities aligned with ELC consumer, category, sustainability, and business priorities. Evaluate supplier innovations for technical readiness, differentiation, scalability, intellectual property considerations, manufacturing feasibility, and potential cross-brand application. Connect promising supplier innovations with appropriate ELC brands, R&I teams, Packaging Development teams, and business opportunities. Where appropriate, collaborate with suppliers to further develop or customize technologies to create differentiated or proprietary ELC capabilities. In partnership with GSM, create mechanisms for sharing supplier innovation across the Packaging Development organization so opportunities are visible beyond individual brand teams.

Technical Center & Manufacturing Capability Connectivity: Maintain a strong understanding of current and emerging technical capabilities within the Melville Technical Center, including equipment, laboratories, pilot capabilities, prototyping, testing, engineering expertise, and ongoing technical initiatives. Develop strong connectivity with ELC manufacturing sites to understand existing and emerging filling, assembly, decoration, automation