Product Trialing Manager

Role purpose
Lead the planning, execution and delivery of vegetable-seed trials (includes PLC 6.1, agronomy trials, satellite demos, demo day fields) across India to generate robust, high-quality data that supports product advancement, positioning and successful commercial launch. The role connects breeding, product specialists, agronomy and commercial teams, ensuring trials reflect diverse Indian growing environments and customer needs.
Key responsibilities
Develop and execute annual trialing plans for assigned vegetable crops, including varietal evaluation, product placement and agronomic practices
Identify and manage trial locations across key agro-climatic zones, ensuring representative testing for season, disease pressure, soil type and grower practice.
Lead trial protocol development & execution, plot design, data standards and timely execution through internal teams, external partners and contract growers.
Ensure accurate collection, validation and analysis of trial data covering yield, quality, maturity, disease tolerance, plant habit, shelf life and marketable traits as per the product profile. Effective use of the internal tools like Ez Capture
Translate trial results into clear recommendations on advancement, positioning, target geographies and product claims.
Work closely with Product specialist, Breeding & TPP teams to support pipeline decisions and hybrid advancement with trial execution, PAT execution, data collection and data consolidation for proposal to the product meetings
Partner with commercial, Product specialist, customer experience teams to establish satellite demo & demo days field demonstrations and build compelling evidence for launches and demand generation activities around CPIs with CX and Commercial team
Manage trialing budgets, seasonal resource plans, vendors and compliance requirements.
Lead, coach and develop the trialing team, setting clear objectives, managing performance, building technical and operational capability, and ensuring effective deployment of people and resources across trial locations and seasons.
Ensure adherence to company stewardship, safety, quality, phytosanitary and data-integrity standards.
Support to the commercial team for the mass scale customer complaints validation and RCA process
Qualifications and experience
Master’s degree in Agriculture, Horticulture, Plant Breeding, Agronomy or a related discipline
Around 15 years of relevant experience in vegetable-seed trialing, product development, agronomy or field trial management
Demonstrated experience managing multi-location trials in India, preferably across multiple vegetable crops and seasons.
Strong understanding of vegetable production systems, crop agronomy, hybrid evaluation and market requirements.
Experience in experimental design, statistical analysis and digital trial-data systems.
Proven ability to lead field teams and external partners across geographically dispersed locations.
Fluency in English; working proficiency in Hindi and/or regional languages is preferred.
Willingness to travel extensively within India during key trialing periods.
Key competencies
Strong scientific and agronomic judgement
Rigorous data quality and attention to detail
Planning and execution discipline
Stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration
Commercial awareness and customer orientation
People leadership and capability building
Clear, evidence-based communication
Success measures
Timely completion and quality of planned trials
Reliable, decision-ready data for pipeline and launch decisions
Effective product recommendations by crop and region
Trial budget and resource efficiency
Strong adoption of trialing standards, stewardship and data governance
Successful support for priority product launches in India

Employment type
Full-time

Work arrangement
No