Associate Director, Global Testing

This position can be anywhere within EMEAI with 50% travel.

Are you a strategic technical leader with a passion for innovation, product qualification, and global certifications? Do you thrive at the intersection of technology, commercialization, and market access?

We are seeking an Associate Director, Global Testing, Certifications & Qualifications to lead and transform our global testing and certification capability across the Protective Coatings business. This highly visible leadership role will establish the strategy, governance, systems, and external partnerships that enable product innovation, accelerate commercialization, strengthen specification positioning, and support long-term portfolio growth.

The initial focus of this role will be our Passive Fire Protection (PFP) portfolio, creating scalable processes and tools that can be leveraged across the broader Protective Coatings business worldwide.

Global Testing, Certifications & Qualifications Strategy

Set the global testing, certification, and qualification strategy for the Protective Coatings Business.

Build testing and qualification roadmaps aligned with portfolio priorities, market needs, customer requirements, and growth opportunities.

Prioritize testing and certification investments based on business value, market access impact, risk, cost, and speed to commercialization.

Improve testing efficiency, reduce cycle time, and increase reuse of existing test data, approvals, and certification assets.

Testing Program Leadership

Own the global portfolio of testing programs supporting product development, certification maintenance, product qualification, portfolio expansion, and market access.

Develop annual testing plans and budgets with R&D, Product Management, Engineering, Commercial, and regional teams.

Manage regional and global testing budgets, including prioritization, cost tracking, spend visibility, and alignment to business priorities.

Coordinate internal and external testing activity to ensure schedule discipline, clear ownership, and consistent execution.

Drive consistent methods, documentation standards, reporting practices, and governance across regions.

Passive Fire Protection Focus Area

Lead testing, certification, approvals, and assessment activities supporting the Passive Fire Protection portfolio.

Manage fire testing programs supporting intumescent coatings and related fire-protection systems.

Maintain, extend, and leverage fire approvals, certifications, test reports, and technical assessments globally.

Partner with Engineering, Product Management, Technical Service, and Commercial teams to translate fire test data into practical technical, customer, and business decisions.

Establish repeatable practices and systems that can be leveraged across additional Protective Coatings technologies.

Product Development & Commercialization Support

Define testing, qualification, certification, and validation requirements early in development programs.

Support product launches, specification approvals, portfolio extensions, and customer qualification needs.

Leverage existing test data, certifications, approvals, and technical assessments to accelerate commercialization.

Reduce time-to-market through disciplined testing strategies, clear requirements, and early alignment with business priorities.

Testing Data & Knowledge Management

Lead development of a centralized global database for testing results, certifications, approvals, assessments, qualifications, and technical validation data.

Partner with R&D, Engineering, Technical Service, Product Management, Digital & IT, regional teams, and external partners to establish a scalable knowledge platform.

Create governance processes to ensure records, reports, approvals, and assessments are consistently captured, maintained, and accessible globally.

Improve visibility and use of historical testing data to reduce duplicate work, accelerate development, support certification extensions, and improve customer responsiveness.

Develop reporting capabilities for certification status, testing schedules, approval coverage, upcoming renewals, testing spend, and strategic certification gaps.

External Testing Organization Management

Develop strong working relationships with external laboratories, certification organizations, testing partners, and assessment bodies.

Coordinate external testing programs, assessments, certification activities, schedules, and execution priorities.

Evaluate testing partners based on quality, responsiveness, technical capability, cost effectiveness, and business value.

Partner with regional leaders and external organization