Division Operations Leader, R&D

Job Description:

Division Operations Leader, R&D

Collaborate with Innovative 3Mers Around the World

Choosing where to start and grow your career has a major impact on your professional and personal life, so it’s equally important you know that the company that you choose to work at, and its leaders, will support and guide you. With a wide variety of people, global locations, technologies and products, 3M is a place where you can collaborate with other curious, creative 3Mers.

This position provides an opportunity to transition from other private, public, government or military environments to a 3M career.

The Impact You’ll Make in this Role

As the R&D Division Operations Leader, you will help translate strategy into disciplined execution across the function. Reporting to the Vice President of R&D, you will partner with R&D functional leaders, business leaders, Human Resources, Finance, Communications, and the Division PMO to align priorities, strengthen operating practices, guide organization evolution, and improve visibility to performance, resources, and risks.

Here, you will make an impact by:

• Lead R&D strategy deployment: Partner with the R&D leader and functional heads to synthesize business and technology priorities, facilitate strategic choices, and translate direction into clear functional objectives, roadmaps, measures, and actions.
• Drive operating discipline: Establish and reinforce agreed functional standard work, review adoption with functional leaders, identify gaps, and coordinate corrective actions.
• Strengthen resource planning: Maintain current functional resource plans, improve resource-planning practices, and connect R&D resource information to division portfolio and capacity-planning processes.
• Lead the R&D operating rhythm: Facilitate leadership and organization meeting cadences, including priorities, agendas, decisions, action ownership, communications, closure, and escalation.
• Develop and execute performance measures: Work with functional owners to define KPIs, targets, governance, and review cadences; monitor performance and drive agreed actions to closure or escalation.
• Guide organization evolution: Coordinate operating-model, capability, role, and organizational changes with the R&D leader, functional heads, and Human Resources; translate decisions into implementation plans and monitor adoption.
• Improve portfolio insight: Develop models and decision-support approaches that improve program and project portfolio performance, scenario planning, and leadership decision-making.
• Enable leadership effectiveness: Surface cross-functional risks, dependencies, and decisions early; provide clear options and recommendations; and maintain follow-through on leadership commitments.

Your Skills and Expertise 

To set you up for success in this role from day one, 3M requires (at a minimum) the following qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in science, engineering, business or operations (completed and verified prior to start)
• Five (5) years of commercialization, product development, program management, operations, or related experience, including experience with a stage-gate development process.
• Three (3) years of leadership or management experience in a cross-functional environment.

Additional qualifications that could help you succeed even further in this role include:

• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into priorities, operating plans, measures, and sustained execution.
• Strong business acumen and experience working across R&D, commercial, manufacturing, finance, and human resources organizations.
• Experience leading organizational change, operating-model improvement, or capability-building initiatives.
• Strong facilitation, communication, analytical, and executive-influence skills.
• Ability to work through ambiguity, frame trade-offs, resolve dependencies, and drive accountability without relying solely on direct authority.
• Experience developing KPIs, resource models, portfolio views, and decision-support materials for senior leaders.

Work location:  

• This role follows an on-site working model, requiring the employee to work at least four days a week in Maplewood, MN

Travel:  May include up to 20% domestic/international

Relocation:  May be authorized         

Must be legally authorized to work in country of employment without sponsorship for employment visa status (e.g., H1B status).

Supporting Your Well-being

3M offers many programs to help you live your best life – both physically and financially. To ensure competitive pay and benefits, 3M regularly benchmarks with other companies that are comparable in size and scope.

Chat with Max

For assistance with searching through our current job openings or for more information about all things 3M, visit Max, our virtual recruiting assistant on 3M.com/careers.

Please note: your application may not be considered if you do not provide your education and work history, either by: 1) uploading a resume, or 2) entering the information into the application fields directly.

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