At Syngenta, our goal is to build the most collaborative and trustworthy team in agriculture, providing top-quality seeds and innovative crop protection solutions that improve farmers' success. To support this mission, Syngenta is seeking a Collaboration & Technology Delivery Lead in Durham, NC. This role will drive operational excellence in R&D collaboration execution and technology deployment across Seeds R&D, ensuring active collaborations meet strategic objectives through rigorous governance, milestone tracking, and cross-functional alignment.
The Collaboration & Technology Delivery Lead will be responsible for maintaining collaboration standards, assessing technology development execution, and facilitating strategic decision frameworks that connect technical plans to pipeline outcomes, serving as a key connection between technical teams and R&D leadership, ensuring cross-functional collaborations and technology deployment strategies remain aligned with Seeds R&D priorities through technical plan quality control and business case evaluation. They will partner closely with the Technology & Collaborations Manager, providing technical assessments, decision support, and execution oversight across the collaboration lifecycle.
Accountabilities:
- Establish governance for Seeds R&D collaborations (stage-gate criteria, milestone acceptance standards, data/reporting quality, and audit-ready documentation).
- Monitor execution vs. timelines/deliverables/budget using portfolio health metrics; partner with project leads, finance/PMO, and licensing to manage risks, dependencies, and compliance.
- Assess development and deployment plans at stage gates (readiness evidence, scalability, robustness/reproducibility, and commercial/regulatory pathway fit).
- Partner with breeding, trait development, regulatory, commercial, and IP/licensing experts to resolve execution gaps, align interfaces, and de-risk delivery.
- Facilitate data-driven stage-gate decisions with domain and R&D leaders, framing options, trade-offs, and recommendations based on evidence.
- Capture decision rationale/assumptions and track follow-through; partner with teams to drive actions, risk mitigations, and timeline adherence.
- Lead diligence on prospective partners/solutions with scouting and domain experts (scientific merit, validation quality, maturity, delivery capability, and key risks).
- Coordinate with IP/legal and regulatory specialists to assess FTO/IP constraints and risk posture; inform valuation, deal structure, and risk allocation.
- Translate Seeds R&D strategy into roadmaps and capability requirements, using execution insights from the collaboration portfolio.
- Partner across functions/geographies to identify gaps or redundancies, harmonize standards/ways of working, and share best practices.