Hero Group is a leading international food company with a strong heritage and a clear purpose: to delight consumers by conserving the goodness of nature. Operating across Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia, Hero continuously invests in digital transformation to strengthen efficiency, compliance, and collaboration across its global value chain.

Within this journey, IT plays a key role in enabling scalable, integrated, and future-ready solutions across product development, quality, and manufacturing.

Role overview:
As IT Project Manager - Product & Plant Systems, you drive the successful execution of global IT and digital transformation initiatives across R&D, Quality, and Manufacturing domains.

You lead end‑to‑end projects in areas such as PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and CMMS (Maintenance Management Systems), ensuring alignment with business strategy, IT governance, and Hero's digital roadmap.

Acting as a central interface between business functions, Group IT, and external partners, you ensure the delivery of solutions that are scalable, efficient, and built for long‑term value creation.

End-to-End Project Delivery:

Manage the full lifecycle of IT projects from initiation through hypercare and handover to operations.
Ensure delivery on scope, time, budget, and quality, with clear success criteria and milestones.

Product & Plant Systems Domain Focus:

Lead projects across product development, quality, and plant operation domains, including PLM (specification and recipe management), CMMS, and related manufacturing/shop floor systems.
Translate business requirements into executable project plans and drive standardization and harmonization across sites.

Team Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement:

Lead cross-functional teams including internal staff, competence centers, and external partners.
Ensure effective stakeholder alignment across business and IT.

Methodology, Governance & Reporting:

Apply Hero's project management methodology and ensure governance adherence, documentation completeness, and audit readiness.
Provide regular status updates to steering committees and the PMO.

Financial, Risk & Vendor Management:

Manage project financials (CAPEX/OPEX), vendor performance, and benefits realization.
Proactively manage risks, issues, and dependencies with structured escalation.

Change Management & Adoption:

Drive user readiness, UAT, training, cutover planning, and hypercare in collaboration with business change leads.

Required Qualifications:

University degree (Bachelor's or Master's) in IT, Engineering, Business/IT, or a related field
Minimum 3 years of experience in IT project management, ideally in an international or complex environment
Proven experience delivering IT projects in manufacturing or product-related systems (e.g., PLM, CMMS)
Strong understanding of project delivery methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid)
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills across business and IT
Solid understanding of system integration, enterprise architecture, and data flows
Financial awareness including budgeting, forecasting, and benefits tracking
Fluent in English (written and spoken)

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience in global digital transformation or ERP-related environments (e.g., SAP S/4HANA)
Exposure to manufacturing/shopfloor systems and processes
Experience working in cross-functional and international teams
Knowledge of change management practices and user adoption strategies

Create wow: We dare to do things differently, seek to always win with consumers and customers, and endeavor to be forever relevant and vital to our world. It's about Curiosity, Innovation and Consumer/Customer Focus.
Everyone Hero: We work together in pursuit of our common mission and strategy, strengthening our local businesses by leveraging the power of the collective. It's about Purpose, Performance and Teamwork.
Nourish others: We treat everyone with honesty, care and respect and provide our people, customers and consumers with what they need to thrive. It's about Honesty, Empowerment, Respect and Diversity.
Take responsibility: We make good choices today to build a more sustainable business and environment fit for the needs of tomorrow. It's about Sustainability, Ownership, Heritage and Quality.

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