Consumer Neuroscience Director

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Build the Backbone of a New Science Capability at JTI: Shaping Better Consumer Choices

As JTI accelerates its Reduced Risk Products (RRP) ambition, we are building a bold new science capability at the intersection of product, experience, and human understanding. This shift places science at the core of designing better consumer experiences, creating a unique opportunity to shape a future where science continues to directly inform innovation and supports the transition to less harmful choices – always in a way that’s consistent with our Core Principles.

Delivering on this ambition requires moving beyond traditional scientific approaches. We are combining multiple scientific lenses to more deeply understand how adult consumers perceive, experience, evaluate and adopt products and experiences, and to translate that scientific understanding into meaningful, engaging, and relevant propositions with real-world relevance.

This newly established, forward-looking capability is designed to bring enhanced scientific depth and rigor into how new product and experience concepts are shaped, tested and implemented across JTI.

It draws from and integrates multiple scientific disciplines, including neuroscience, behavioural, sensory perception and experience design sciences to build a coherent, science-led system that enables a robust and defensible understanding of product experience and consumer behaviour. 

It goes beyond surface-level consumer statements to understand the underlying mechanisms that shape attention, perception, emotion, memory, choice, and behaviour. This understanding will enable JTI to make further informed decisions about which products, propositions and experiences are more likely to create meaningful value for adult consumers and in turn realise harm reduction.

Why It Matters

Over time, this capability is intended to help JTI build more fulfilling product experiences and support lasting behaviour change toward less harmful choices. It does that by creating a systematic understanding of the mechanisms behind fulfilment, experience, and behaviour, and by turning that understanding into inputs for product design, validation, communication, and commercial execution across the value chain.

Why Join Now

This is a rare opportunity to build something from the ground up.

You will help define scientific methods, standards, partnerships, and portfolio of strategic projects, while working across functions to shape how science informs product, experience, and commercial decisions across the business through a deeper consumer understanding.

If you are driven by innovation, grounded in science, and motivated to shape the future of our industry, consumer choice and a shift toward a portfolio of less harmful nicotine products, this is where you can make a defining impact.

Consumer Neuroscience Director

The Role

As our global Consumer Neuroscience Director, you will be at the forefront of embedding neuroscience into how JTI understands consumers and make decisions. Your mission, in this newly created role, is to translate cutting edge neuroscience into practical business value, informing how propositions are designed, evaluated, and brought to market across a highly regulated reduced risk product portfolio.

You will define and lead neuroscience as a strategic capability across the global organization, moving beyond what consumers say to uncover how adult consumers perceive, feel, process and respond to reduced risk products and experiences. By integrating neuroscience with behavioural science, product experience science, and broader consumer insights, you will enable a deeper, more accurate understanding of consumer behaviour that strengthens both innovation and execution.

Working across R&D, Innovation, Strategic Insights, Marketing, and Commercial teams, you will act as subject matter expert, translator and delivery leader. You will ensure neuroscience-related understanding is turned into clear, actionable insights that directly inform decisions, from early proposition design through to in-market optimisation.

You will also act as a steward of quality, ethics, and credibility, ensuring neuroscience is applied rigorously and responsibly in an environment where regulatory expectations and consumer trust are critical and non-negotiable.

In this role, you will:

• Define and lead JTI’s new enterprise neuroscience strategy, shaping how attention, emotion, perception, cognitive load, and memory are understood and applied across the business
• Lead and oversee a portfolio of neuroscience projects, including applied projects with immediate business relevance and fundamental projects that deepen category-specific understanding of perception, fulfilment, and behaviour

• Lead the design, execution and application of neuroscience projects to proposition development, innovation and consumer experience design
• Translate complex neuroscience outputs into clear, decision ready insights that directly influence portfolio choices, go or no-go decisions, and optimisation priorities
• Establish and govern best-in-class standards for neuroscience application, ensuring methodological rigor, ethical use, and regulatory alignment
• Build and scale internal capability, including tools, methods, and partnerships with external labs, vendors, and scientific partners
• Act as the functional internal neuroscience subject matter expert, enabling teams to confidently use neuroscience to challenge assumptions and elevate decision quality in support of a shift towards less harmful adult consumer choices

Who You Are

You are a scientifically grounded leader who knows how to turn complexity into clarity and insight into action. You are comfortable operating at the intersection of science, business, and regulation, and you bring both intellectual rigor and pragmatic application.

You are an expert in neuroscience who can work credibly with senior stakeholders, translate complex science and technical evidence into plain business language, and embed practical ways of working across diverse teams.

You are motivated and energised by the opportunity to define, build and embed new science capabilities at scale across a global business, and are comfortable shaping and deploying a clear, forward looking strategic vision. 

You are likely to have:                                       

• 10–12+ years of relevant professional experience

• Postgraduate degree (PhD/MSc) in neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology or a related field

• Deep expertise (theoretical and applied) in neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, experimental psychology, or a related discipline, with strong applied experience in industry or consultancy settings
• A proven ability to translate academic literature and complex scientific evidence into business shaping decisions, not just research outputs
• Experience integrating neuroscience with behavioural science, sensory perception science, and broader consumer technical insights to inform reduced risk innovation and commercial outcomes
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence across scientific, commercial, and innovation communities
• Familiarity with a broad neuroscience toolkit, including implicit and physiological measurement approaches such as EEG, eye tracking, and biometrics
• A high level of intellectual curiosity, combined with a pragmatic mindset focused on impact, decision quality, and scalability
• Previous experience in team leadership and establishing and delivering a strategic team vision

Are you ready to join us? Build your success story at JTI. Apply now!

Next Steps:

After applying, if selected, please anticipate the following within 1-3 weeks of the job posting closure: Phone screening with Talent Advisor > Assessment tests > Interviews > Offer. Each step is eliminatory and may vary by role type.

At JTI, we strive to create a diverse and inclusive work environment. As an equal-opportunity employer, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If you need any specific support, alternative formats, or have other access requirements, please let us know.