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Building Regional R&D Leadership for a Food & Beverage Business Scaling Across APAC
A multinational food and beverage business needed R&D leadership in Asia-Pacific that matched the scale of its ambitions for the region
THE CHALLENGE
This was a high-priority, confidential search for an APAC R&D Director, and the brief carried weight beyond the usual regional leadership hire. The business needed someone with genuine product development, innovation and leadership experience operating at a fully regional level.
The technical bar was narrow and specific: candidates needed niche expertise but that on its own wasn't enough. The client also needed strong commercial acumen and a real, demonstrable interest in connecting with consumers through product development, rather than R&D experience that stayed purely technical. Layered on top of that was a longer-term consideration given the ambitious growth plans for the region, the client was thinking about succession and growth mindset as much as immediate capability.
The regional complexity of APAC added a further test. Whoever took the role needed to navigate significant variation across the region while staying comfortable liaising with global stakeholders, at a moment when the business itself was mid-transformation and expectations of the R&D function, globally, were already high.
THE SOLUTION
Miramar drew on local, regional and global networks, running a highly targeted headhunting approach designed specifically to reach candidates with the right technical niche.
The technical knowledge itself was the more contained challenge to confirm; candidates with genuine expertise in this category were identifiable fairly quickly, even though the category itself made the pool small. However, establishing genuine alignment (making sure a candidate's own view of what R&D should be doing matched what the business was actually trying to build) required the expertise and judgement of the search Partner leading the process, who has spent over 15 years as an executive search and advisory partner within the Food & Beverage industry.
Miramar and the client both worked from an agreed position that candidates at this level are assessing the opportunity as much as being assessed for it, and time was given on both sides to properly understand the other's needs. That took longer than a faster process would have allowed, but the client was clear that getting the direction of the search right was more critical than moving quickly, and the outcome depended on the eventual candidate genuinely understanding the challenges and opportunities of stepping into the role.
THE RESULT
Five candidates were shortlisted, with two presented to the client as finalists. The search ran across roughly sixteen weeks and completed in May 2026.
The preferred candidate was offered the role and accepted. The second finalist is someone the client is likely to come back to for future opportunities within the region.
The impact
The client secured a strong candidate based locally in the first choice location, even though the search itself ran at a genuinely regional and global level to get there. This resulted in the client building a much clearer picture of market dynamics within this specific category across APAC, and identified other candidates worth keeping in mind for future roles in the region.
The successful candidate brings a career built specifically within global food and ingredients innovation, with senior regional experience across Asia-Pacific and a strong technical grounding in food science and product development. The blend of category depth and commercial fluency alongside the succession and growth-mindset qualities the client desired in the successful candidate has strongly positioned them to capitalise on the growth opportunities in the region.
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