Regulatory Affairs Assistant Manager at Unilever

Our brands are trusted everywhere and, by listening to the people who buy them, we’ve grown into one of the world’s most successful consumer goods companies.

Look in your fridge, or on the bathroom shelf, and you’re bound to see one of our well-known brands. We create, market and distribute the products that people choose to feed their families and keep themselves and their homes clean and fresh.

People’s lives are changing fast. As the way we all live and work evolves, our needs and tastes change too. At Unilever we aim to help people in their daily lives. So we keep developing new products, improving tried and tested brands and promoting better, more efficient ways of working.

We have a portfolio of brands that are popular across the country. Popular because of our two key strengths:

Strong roots in local markets and first-hand knowledge of the local culture.
World-class business expertise applied internationally to serve consumers everywhere.
Focusing on performance and productivity, we encourage our people to develop new ideas and put fresh approaches into practice. Hand in hand with this is a strong sense of responsibility to the communities we serve. We don’t only measure success in financial terms; how we achieve results is important too. We work hard to conduct our business with integrity – respecting our employees, our consumers and the environment around us.

Unilever is proudly one of the country’s leading suppliers of fast-moving consumer goods in all our three divisions – Foods, home care and personal care.

Foods
We are the largest seller of packet tea with our Lipton brand leading the Foods and Beverages category.
We are the category leader in margarine in the country with the Blueband brand.
In savoury, our Royco and Knorr brands are household names you can’t ignore.
Home & personal care
We are highly visible in the home care market in the country, which includes cleansing and hygiene products.
Our home care products, Omo and Sunlight are household names synonymous with home care.
Within the personal care market, we are very visible with brands like Lux and Pears to help you look and feel good.Job Purpose

Unilever International (UI) is Unilever’s White Space Arm of Unilever – one of the fastest and most profitable business of Unilever.
UI works across the world to fill white spaces for Unilever. As intrapreneurs, we introduce Unilever’s brands into white space geographies like Korea, Pacific Islands, Mongolia, and spearhead launches of iconic household brands like Dove, Lifebuoy, Sunlight, Glow & Lovely, TRESemme into big markets like U.S, China, Western Europe, and SEAA.   
As Unilever’s growth engine, we establish global white space businesses in key channels such as Health & Beauty, Discounters, E-Commerce, and alternate channels such as travel retail, marketing to institutional partners like the United Nations, and seeding Unilever brands to overseas diaspora who crave for a taste of their familiar home brands. Singapore is our global hub leading strategy, marketing thinking, seeding plans, and alignment with the global categories and supply chain. We have global presence and UI hubs all over the world. 
SPEED is the mantra for our resounding success.
To serve the underserved, we embrace a founder’s mentality, explore unchartered territories, redesign end-to-end business models to establish successful businesses.
We make a difference by deeply caring for our consumers, customers and talents, focusing on that really matters, thinking ahead in time and working to win together.
Unilever International (UI) being part of Unilever is fully committed to ensuring that its products are fully compliant with local legislation globally and meet Unilever’s own high internal standards.
This position will play a critical role in ensuring we fulfill this commitment for all 4 business groups in Africa (East and west Africa – primary focus on Francophone Africa) in form product compliance, regulatory change management, all local product registration and certification. 
The role will report to Head of Regulatory Affairs 1UL Malaysia, UI Asia & Africa and will be part of larger 1UL RA team working closely with UI R&D and all the cross functional teams in UI. 
For regulatory advice and expertise, this role will work closely with the larger Unilever RA community as well as with external Regulatory Affairs Experts in all clusters.
UI Regulatory Affairs team leads this mandate and supports the entire Unilever International portfolio across the globe, dealing with a wide variety in compliance activities and interacts with across functions in Unilever. 
This role will manage regulatory & product compliance requirements for UI portfolio and innovation projects in Africa (East and West Africa) cross BGs.
For regulatory advocacy and expertise, this role will work with Unilever Regulatory Affairs community as well as with external Regulatory Experts in all clusters.

Responsibilities

Accountable for and the first point of contact for any regulatory requirement for UI business in East and West Africa and Francophone
Build UI RA expertise on local regulations across East and West African including Francophone continent across Home Care, Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care & Foods
Design and maintain process to support UI business in product compliance assurance
Builds & maintains a strong network of contacts in R&D, Marketing and Supply Chain to facilitate assurance of product compliance for Unilever International (UI)
Working with external experts and creation of an eco-system of RAP (Regulatory Affairs Partner i.e. regulatory consultants)
Evaluate and advise on various planned/ad hoc requirements, e.g., NAFDAC query, for the UI innovation/ renovation project team
Cross-collaborate with BG RA & 1UL RA teams for streamlined way of working
Ensure that existing UI products are evaluated in case of regulatory changes
To be digitally salient to embrace and incorporate digital processes for Regulatory Affairs.

Experiences & Qualifications

Degree or MSc or equivalent, preferably chemicals, food science or related discipline
3-5 years experience in regulatory affairs will be preferred. Experience on handling requirements in East and West African market will be preferable.
Strong ability to design processes and to land best practice
Strong Business acumen, agility & personal mastery.
Independent problem-solving personality, that can delegate up and down and work well with multi-functional teams
Excellent communicator, who can engage senior leaders and enthuse operational teams
Be able to work flexibly and agile
Fluent written and verbal communication in English. Fluency in French is highly desired.

Skills:

Digital Yoda (Digital first) – term used for Digital savvy

Leadership:

You are energized by delivering fantastic results. You are an example to others – both your results and your resilience. You are constantly on the lookout for better ways to do things, engaging and collaborating with others along the way.
As an individual you are the one responsible for your own wellbeing and delivering high standards of work. You must also focus on the Consumer and what they need. You are humble and have your head up, looking around to interpret evidence and data smartly, spot issues and opportunities to make things better.

Critical SOL (Standards of Leadership) Behaviors:

CARE DEEPLY to nurture our tribe and work and win together
FOCUS ON WHAT COUNTS – Consumer and customer obsession
STAY THREE STEPS AHEAD to drive hunger for growth
DRIVE WITH EXCELLENCE & Passion for execution