Manager, Product Stewardship Customer Assurance

Manager, Product Stewardship Customer Assurance

The Manager, Product Stewardship Customer Assurance (PSCA) leads Vantage's global customer response operation for product stewardship-related inquiries, serving as the central coordination point for customer requests involving regulatory, quality, technical service, product safety, and compliance documentation. This role reports to the Director of Global Product Stewardship & Regulatory Affairs.

The primary purpose of this role is to deliver a seamless and world-class customer experience by ensuring customer inquiries are appropriately routed, coordinated, and resolved through timely, accurate, and consistent responses. The Manager oversees the end-to-end CRM caseload management process, ensuring inquiries are prioritized, assigned, tracked, and closed in accordance with established service levels.

Leading a team of Product Stewardship Customer Assurance specialists, the Manager drives operational excellence in customer response management while coordinating integrated responses across Regulatory, Quality, Technical Service, Product Stewardship, R&D, Commercial, and Supply Chain functions. The role is accountable for ensuring customers receive complete and coordinated information, monitoring response performance, and continuously improving processes that enhance responsiveness, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

This is a global manager-level role responsible for leading the Product Stewardship Customer Assurance function and managing the end-to-end customer response operation for product stewardship-related inquiries. The role includes direct team leadership, CRM caseload oversight, cross-functional response coordination, stakeholder engagement, performance tracking, and continuous improvement of customer assurance processes across regions.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

Customer Response Operations

• Lead the global Product Stewardship Customer Assurance (PSCA) function for customer inquiries related to regulatory, quality, technical, product safety, and compliance matters.
• Own the end-to-end customer response process, ensuring inquiries are efficiently routed, managed, and resolved from receipt through closure.
• Ensure customers receive accurate, complete, and timely responses that meet defined service levels, expectations, and follow-up needs.
• Serve as the escalation point for complex or urgent inquiries while driving a customer-centric operating model focused on responsiveness, accountability, and service excellence.

CRM Caseload Management

• Own the global CRM caseload for PSCA inquiries, ensuring cases are prioritized, assigned, tracked, and closed effectively.
• Balance team workload to ensure efficient case progression, coverage, and achievement of response targets.
• Monitor volumes, aging, response times, backlog, and service levels to ensure performance objectives are met.
• Maintain CRM discipline, controls, and visibility into case status, priorities, workload distribution, timelines, documentation, and closure.

Cross-Functional Response Coordination

• Coordinate integrated customer responses by engaging subject matter experts across Regulatory, Product Stewardship, Technical Service, Quality, R&D, Commercial, Supply Chain, and other functions.
• Drive timely information gathering, stakeholder alignment, and consistent responses that meet customer commitments.
• Serve as the central coordination point between internal experts and customer-facing teams, removing barriers and ensuring follow-up through completion.

Team Leadership

• Lead, coach, and develop PSCA specialists responsible for customer inquiry management and documentation support.
• Set team priorities, performance expectations, service standards, and capability-building plans.
• Build a culture of ownership, responsiveness, collaboration, customer focus, and effective cross-functional coordination.

Performance Management & Continuous Improvement

• Establish and monitor KPIs for response and resolution times, SLA attainment, backlog, customer satisfaction, and case quality.
• Analyze trends to improve responsiveness, workflow efficiency, resource utilization, and customer experience.
• Lead initiatives to streamline processes, standardize responses, and scale service delivery.
• Maintain dashboards and reporting that provide visibility into operational effectiveness and customer service outcomes.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with Commercial, Regulatory, Quality, Product Stewardship, R&D, and other functions to align priorities and improve customer support processes.
• Represent the voice of the customer by identifying recurring inquiry trends and opportunities to improve processes, documentation, and service delivery.
• Support strategic initiatives that enhance customer experience, operational scalability, and performance.

Success Measures

• Achievement of CRM response and resolution SLAs, with reduced backlog and case aging.
• Improved customer satisfaction, responsiveness, and response quality.
• Effective coordination and closure of cross-functional inquiries.
• Operational efficiency, productivity, team engagement, and performance against service goals.

Education & Experience

Education: Bachelor's degree in biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Pharmaceutical Science, or a related technical discipline.

Experience:

Eight (8) or more years of experience in product stewardship, regulatory affairs, quality, R&D, technical service, or related functions.

Two (2) or more years of people leadership in a customer-facing technical or compliance environment.

Experience in chemical, specialty ingredients, consumer products, life sciences, or related industries.

Demonstrated experience managing customer inquiries through CRM systems and service management processes.

Knowledge, Skills, & Talents

• Strong understanding of customer documentation requirements related to product stewardship, regulatory compliance, and quality management system obligations.
• Proficiency with CRM platforms, reporting tools, and KPI management; experience with MS Dynamics 365 and Power BI strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with global regulatory frameworks, third-party certifications, and evolving customer compliance expectations.
• Proven ability to lead, coach, and develop teams while managing priorities, projects, and organizational needs as an individual contributor.
• Strong customer service mindset with excellent problem-solving, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Ability to influence stakeholders, foster collaboration, and drive alignment across functions and regions.

Working Conditions

Office-based role with regular use of CRM platforms, reporting tools, and standard business applications. The role requires frequent collaboration across global and regional stakeholders and may require flexibility to support urgent customer inquiries, escalations, and business priorities across time zones.

Pay and Benefits

The estimated base pay range for this position is: 133,000 - $199,000 annually. Actual pay will be determined based on education, certifications, experience, qualifications, skills and geographic location. This position is eligible to participate in a short-term incentive program.

Vantage offers a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees, including:

• Medical, HSA, dental, vision
• FSA (limited purpose, dependent care, and commuter/parking)
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Accident, hospital indemnity and critical illness insurance
• Short- and long-term disability
• EAP, identity theft protection
• Paid time off, Parental Leave
• 401(k) with company match

Equal Employment Opportunity

Vantage is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or any other protected category.

About Vantage

Vantage provides natural solutions to our customers' technical performance and marketing needs through a unique combination of chemistry, application expertise and service. Underpinned by our broad portfolio of formulations, ingredients and actives that are built on a backbone of sustainable oils, fats and their derivatives, Vantage targets selected markets and applications including personal care, food, surface treatment, agriculture, pharma, and consumer and industrial performance. Vantage is headquartered in Deerfield, IL., operates in 11 countries worldwide and employs more than 1,000 talented professionals focused on delivering exceptional customer experiences with every interaction.