TAPPI Industry Career Center: FPInnovations seeks Member Company Relations Manager.

The Manager, Pulp, Paper and Bioproducts Member Company Relations, reports directly to the Vice-President and is responsible for all aspects of member company relations, with the objective of maintaining member satisfaction and value delivery. The Manager has an active role in the PPBP management team.

To maintain alignment between FPInnovations and its membership, it is essential that we develop our relationships with members at the executive and operating levels, in terms of satisfaction, expectations, priorities and strategic direction. To achieve this, the Manager ensures that the Vice-President meets annually with the corporate level of each member company to review the business relationship, confirm the corporate priorities and evaluate value delivery. The Manager accompanies the Vice-President, and leads the annual production of report cards for every such visit. The Manager also acts as an advocate for the members within the FPInnovations organization: with the management team, in our different advisory mechanisms, and with the Executive team.

The Manager leads the mill liaison representative (FPLR) program and its participants, evaluating and motivating them, and mentoring junior staff entering the FPLR apprentice program. The Manager ensures that each member mill has an appropriate level of activities and receives at least one FPLR visit per year. He accompanies new FPLRs on their first mill visit, and travels with FPLRs to mills where he believes additional support is required, as necessary throughout the year.

The Manager maintains recognition of the vital importance of PPBP member relations within FPI’s daily operations. To accomplish this, he ensures that Research Managers, their staff, and the FPLR teams know the key corporate and mill priorities of each member company, and he oversees the production and execution of annual plans to deliver on these priorities via the following: 

• 25% allocations to the core research program;
• Technology transfer program (Leads and administers the TX15 program);
• Contracts and consulting;
• Maintaining a dashboard and master plan tracking FPLR visits, key priorities, collaborative research projects and TX projects, for the use of the Research Managers, Research Leaders, and the FPLR teams.
• The Manager visits every member mill at least once per year.
• •The Manager is also responsible for the editing of the bi-annual Research Progress Report, and the Research Highlights, the final approval of all conference reports, and oversight of the conference attendance process.

The specific objectives for the first year will be:

• Work with the Vice-President to manage the implementation of the new business model and splitting of the programs, with respect to members’ expectations and priorities
• Complete the implementation of the new FPLR apprentice training program
• Continue to implement procedures to make sure that member priorities and issues are being actively addressed through active use of the dashboard and master plan
• Review strategy for each member company
• Streamline communications with the membership.

Requirements:

• Bachelor degree in science, engineering or technology; a post-graduate degree is an asset
• Experience working with R&D teams
• Minimum 10 year of experience, with strong technical background and extensive experience in pulp, paper and biomaterials operations
• Demonstrated ability to establish and maintain credibility and trust with member company staff in terms of their relationship with FPI
• Good communicator, and comfortable to discuss and exchange ideas at all levels of member companies operations, technical, R&D and corporate
• Bilingual, with good oral and written communication skills, and high standards for quality
• Tactical and strategic thinker to recognize and seize opportunities for continual improvement of the member relations program. Detail-oriented to manage the program for maximum effectiveness
• Available to travel regularly (mostly within Canada) to meet with member company staff, and is located at our Head Office in Pointe-Claire.

About FPInnovations

 

FPInnovations is a not-for-profit world leader that specializes in the creation of scientific solutions in support of the Canadian forest sector’s global competitiveness and responds to the priority needs of its industry members and government partners. It is ideally positioned to perform research, innovate, and deliver state-of-the-art solutions for every area of the sector’s value chain, from forest operations to consumer and industrial products. FPInnovations’ staff numbers more than 525. Its R&D laboratories are located in Québec City, Ottawa, Montréal, Thunder Bay, Hinton and Vancouver, and it has technology transfer offices across Canada

 

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