Global Agronomy Head

Role purpose

The Global Agronomy Head will develop and implement successful practices and methodologies to leverage the impact of soil types, water requirements, farming practices and inputs on crop performance for successful trials or seed production operations across regions and crops.
 

Accountabilities

•    Ensure we have the Right Seed Quantity & Quality, at the Right Place, and Right Time. 
•    Demonstrates expert knowledge of the primary agronomic cropping systems in all regions where Syngenta operates including corn, soy, sunflower, rice, and cereals.
•    Serves as domain specialist to all regional SD teams in areas such as fertilization and soil management, pest and disease management, planting density, irrigation, optimization of crop inputs, digital agriculture, and alternative rotational crops.
•    Recognizes specific interactions between cultivation environment and farming practices and inputs on crop performance and applies this understanding to local climate conditions to produce high quality seeds and data.
•    Partner with regional Agronomy Leads to drive execution, strategy, priorities, and actions for SD to achieve and maintain leadership in data-driven decisions enabling development, delivery, and commercial launch success of superior seeds products.
•    Drive and champion standardization and global best practices, protocols, and methodologies for optimal pipeline delivery.
•    Bring balance between improvements in efficiency and effectiveness of operations
•    Provide input and drive implementation of our sustainability strategy and regenerative agriculture programs
•    Build effective partnerships with all Regional and Global platform stakeholders, crop subject matter experts, and external experts to deliver a robust product pipeline.
•    Promote a safe work environment and a strong safety culture.
•    Maintain a culture of operational excellence and continuous improvement
•    Responsible for monitoring progress against milestones and resource use and driving metric-based project decision processes across our Seeds portfolio.
•    Develop and deliver regular updates to internal SYT stakeholders and governance bodies regarding status and progress of our Agronomy platforms.
•    Ensures identification, assessment, and management of key risks in our production environments
•    Maintain effective communication and interaction with collaboration partners, to ensure execution of short-term plans and to support alignment of long-term strategy for our collaborations.
 

Knowledge, experience & capabilities

Critical Knowledge: 

•    Technical knowledge in overall cropping system, agronomy, seed production and data generation for field crops
•    The candidate needs to have a proven-track record of demonstrating the business impact of improvements to agronomic practices.
•    Technical knowledge of R&D product pipelines and portfolios in Agriculture is required
•    Understanding of people leadership and development for large and globally diverse teams
•    Project and portfolio management knowledge in the context of a matrixed, cross-disciplinary organization
•    Knowledge of and experience in R&D and business organizations and processes
•    Project, program and portfolio management knowledge to deliver goals in a complex organization (cross functional, cross-sites) and technical environment

Critical Skills: 

•    Digital fluency is required
•    Ability to work effectively across disciplines and cultures and across geographies
•    Strong stakeholder management, communication, networking and influencing skills
•    Strategic thinking and the tactical implementation of strategic initiatives
•    Must be able to deal effectively with organizational complexity and ambiguity
•    Agile mind set to react efficiently and appropriately to rapidly changing business environment
•    Excellent networking skills and ability to influence people without line management responsibility
•    Appropriate balance between management and leadership styles
•    Excellent communication skills
•    Skilled in seeking business input (strategic imperative and prioritization) and translation into implementable Research direction
•    Drives critical decisions in program and its projects

Critical Experience:

•    Experience in managing intensively managed field nursery operations is key
•    Experience in managing all agronomic aspects of seed production

Critical technical, professional, and personal capabilities 

•    More than 10 years’ experience in seed production and agronomy
•    Minimum of 10 years’ experience working in seed/biotech industry
•    PhD in Agronomy or related field with field crops experience required
•    Experience working successfully in international and multidisciplinary project team environment
•    Track record of influencing/developing talent 
•    Experience in the development, utilization and enabling technologies in the life sciences
•    Experience in managing a high-performing and highly technical seeds product development team
•    Demonstrated ability to successfully influence colleagues across functional boundaries
•    Effective time management, with the ability to successfully plan and control activities over several months or years
•    Management of high business impact projects/teams

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Syngenta Seeds is one of the world's largest seed developers and producers for farmers, commercial growers, retailers and small seed companies. Syngenta seeds improve crop quality and yield. High quality seeds ensure better and more productive crops, which is why farmers invest in them. Advanced seeds help mitigate risks such as disease and drought and allow farmers to grow food using less land, less water and fewer inputs.

Syngenta Seeds brings growers more vigorous, strong and resilient plants, including innovative hybrid varieties and biotech crops that can thrive even in challenging growing conditions.

Syngenta Seeds is based in the United States.