Company Overview

Why Choose Us?

Novolex is a leading manufacturer of food, beverage, and specialty packaging that supports multiple industries including foodservice, restaurant delivery and carryout, food processing, grocery and retail, and industrial sectors. Novolex manufacturing and sourcing expertise spans a diverse range of substrates including resin, paper, molded fiber, aluminum and more. We provide customers a broad array of stock and customized solutions with 120 product categories, 250 brands and over 39,000 SKUs.

Our Sustainability Commitment

The Novolex sustainability vision is built upon three pillars: our products, our operations and our people. Each is critically important to our growth and future as a business. These pillars form the foundation of our company-wide commitment to sustainability, helping us achieve our ambitious goals through our wide-ranging initiatives.

Job Description

How You'll Perform The RoleThe Senior Manager, Circularity supports the development and implementation of enterprise standards, tools, and guidance for how Novolex embeds circularity into product strategy, materials, and design. This role sits at the intersection of product engineering and commercial strategy, turning customer sustainability expectations into practical, scalable product solutions. This role contributes to Novolex’s center of excellence for circularity standards, design rules, certifications, data, and claims discipline.

Reporting to the VP, Sustainability, you will partner closely with Product Development, R&D, Commercial, Procurement, and Operations to implement and advance circularity initiatives across the product portfolio and to serve as a technical resource on circularity topics for internal teams, customers, and other partners.

 

Key Responsibilities

Circularity Strategy & Roadmap

• Support the execution and continuous improvement of the company’s circularity roadmap, across product categories, aligned with commercial and innovation priorities.
• Translate circularity principles (recyclability, compostability, reuse, PCR/renewables, recovery pathways) into clear design rules and guardrails for product teams.
• Develop, track and report on circularity KPIs and targets at the enterprise and category levels (e.g., end-of-life classifications, PCR/PIR inputs, renewable content, certification pathways).
• Identify and prioritize “lighthouse” circularity initiatives and customer pilots in partnership that demonstrate impact and are scalable across the portfolio.

 

Product Design, Engineering & Lifecycle Tools

• Partner with Product Development and R&D to embed circularity into stage-gate processes, material selection, specs, and design-for-recycling guidance.
• Execute lifecycle assessment (LCA), focusing on customer sustainable performance needs
• Ensure circularity metrics and claims are supported by structured data within ERP, PIM, MDM, and spec-management systems
• Provide technical leadership on certifications and labeling (e.g., recyclability, compostability, chain-of-custody), ensuring claims are substantiated, defensible and up to date.

 

Customer Collaboration & Commercial Support

• Serve as a key technical partner to strategic customers, helping translate their circularity and sustainability goals into feasible product options and category roadmaps in collaboration with Commercial and Product teams.
• Support strategic customer engagement, innovation days, RFPs, and meetings with clear circularity guidance, technical feasibility assessments, cost, risk, and performance analysis.
• Support development of category roadmaps with customers that link their goals (e.g., recyclability, recycled content, reuse targets, low-carbon solutions) with Novolex capabilities and planned innovations owned by product teams.
• Work with Commercial and Finance to contribute inputs (technical feasibility, assumptions, and tradeoffs) to support business case development.

 

Cross-Functional and External Collaboration

• Partner with Government Affairs to ensure Novolex design and circularity strategies align with policy trends, EPR requirements, labeling laws, and material regulations.
• Collaborate with recyclers, composters, material suppliers, certification bodies, and industry coalitions to shape realistic circularity pathways, new material validation, and infrastructure alignment.

Participate in relevant industry forums and working groups as needed.

 

Governance, Standards & Ways of Working

• Support the development and maintenance of circularity standards, playbooks, and guidance used across business units.
• Support the design and implementation of structured processes for reviewing and validating circularity claims and product decisions.
• Provide cross-functional coordination and subject matter support on circularity-related initiatives. Develop tools and training that enable engineering and commercial teams to apply circularity principles consistently.

 

Qualifications Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Packaging Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or related field; advanced degree a plus.
• –6 - 10+ years of experience in packaging development, materials, or product engineering within foodservice, consumer goods, or industrial packaging.
• Experience in customer-facing technical and/or commercial roles (e.g., technical service, commercial innovation, national account management).
• Understanding of packaging materials, converting processes, and design-performance-cost modeling and tradeoffs to support customer value propositions.
• Familiarity with end-of-life and circularity systems (mechanical and advanced recycling, composting, reuse models, recycled and renewable materials) and the certification, performance, and chain-of-custody requirements associated with each.
• Comfort working within ERPs, product lifecycle management, and specification systems to embed circularity into structured product data.

 

Preferred

• Experience with thermoformed, rigid, flexible, or fiber-based packaging systems.
• Knowledge of U.S. and Canadian infrastructure realities for recycling and composting.
• Experience translating circularity insights into business cases and commercial decisions.

 

Skills & Competencies

• Customer-centric communicator who can translate technical complexity into clear options and trade-offs.
• Strong technical foundation with the ability to challenge and be challenged by product engineering teams.
• Pragmatic problem solver focused on feasibility, scalability, and risk reduction.
• Highly collaborative; excels at leading through influence across innovation, commercial, and operations teams.
• Structured, organized, and comfortable managing multiple concurrent priorities.
• Clear communicator with strong written and verbal storytelling.

 

 

A reasonable estimate of the current range is $126,400- $155,000 + bonus + benefits. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. At Novolex, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.

 

The benefits for this role include 401(k) plan with company match, comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, flexible spending and health savings accounts, paid vacation, and sick days, paid parental leave, paid holidays and wellness program.

 

 

#LI-Remote

 

Company Benefits

What You'll Get From Us

Benefits

With safety as our top priority and a commitment to employee well-being an important focus, we offer comprehensive and competitive benefits that include medical, dental and vision insurance as well as a variety of other well-being resources focused on mental, physical and financial health. Specific benefits and well-being programs may vary depending on where you work.

Community Engagement

At Novolex, giving back to the local communities that support us is important. Our Focused Giving Program prioritizes support for organizations whose missions promote sustainability initiatives or address food and hunger needs. We also encourage facility level support of activities in the communities where our employees live and work.

Training and Development

We offer constant opportunities for advancement. From skills development to advanced education programs, training and development programs and courses are available through MyLearning. Programs include company and industry training curricula, support for formal education through the Tuition Reimbursement Program (Non-Union), and a Learning Management System that supports and enhances employee skills at all levels of the organization.

 

Novolex is committed to providing equal employment opportunity in all employment practices, including but not limited to selection, hiring, promotion, transfer, and compensation to all qualified applicants and employees without regard to age, race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, handicap or disability, genetics, citizenship status, service member or veteran status, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local law. Any individual who, because of his or her disability, needs an accommodation in connection with an aspect of the Company's application process should contact myHRservices@novolex.com.

 

Formerly Pactiv Evergreen