Regulatory Affairs Manager

Sumitomo Chemical is one of the world’s leading chemical manufacturers, conducting business in five sectors – essential chemicals & plastics, energy & functional materials, IT-related chemicals, health & crop sciences, and pharmaceuticals.

Through the global network of around 35.000 employees, the company provides worldwide support to a wide variety of industries. Sumitomo Chemical Europe has its headquarters in Machelen (Belgium), and markets a variety of chemicals throughout Europe.

Sumitomo Chemical refers to Responsible Care as the voluntary initiatives taken with the goals of ensuring safety, health and the environment throughout the life cycle of chemical products. From development through to the manufacture, sales, use, and disposal after final consumption, maintaining and improving the quality of those products.

The Sumitomo Chemical Group has positioned Responsible Care activities as one of its most important management pillars. Based on the core principle of “Making safety our first priority,” the Group has set goals for each of the following fields: Occupational safety and health, industrial safety and disaster prevention, environmental protection, addressing climate change, product stewardship, product safety, and quality assurance, Responsible Care audits and logistics.

To meet their further ambitions within the Responsible Care department, we are currently recruiting a Regulatory Affairs Manager.

As part of the Responsible Care team, you will be responsible and accountable for the management of SCE’s regulatory affairs programs. This includes overseeing substance and product registrations/notifications and ensuring compliance with relevant legislation. It is your responsibility to ensure that all products imported and distributed in the EMEA market meet the necessary legal requirements.

• You will assess and evaluate the existing chemical portfolio and possible new product families to ensure compliance with chemical regulations in Europe, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and EAEU countries.
• You assure continuity of market access to SCE’s products by proactively identifying potential forthcoming regulatory challenges.
• You keep abreast on chemical and product legislation and assess the impact of new and emerging legislation on SCE’s activities.
• You will regularly perform Product Risk Assessments to make sure that new product data is available and reviewed, allowing a safe and compliant market introduction of these new products in SCE’s supply chain.
• You secure solid interaction with internal and external stakeholders, and support chemical regulatory inspections /audits.
• In collaboration with the Manager of the Responsible Care team, you will assess and improve existing internal procedures in terms of content, user friendliness and accessibility.
• You will organize internal workshops and presentations for Regulatory Affairs training and education.
• You will act as a back-up in issuing and maintaining Product stewardship compliance statements and Safety Data Sheets according to applicable regulations.
• You will report to the Manager of the Responsible Care team - EHSS & Sustainability, Regulatory & Compliance.

• You obtained a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Environmental Engineering, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Science or a comparable technical field.
• You gained a solid working experience (min. 3 – 8 years) in an international Regulatory Affairs role within the Chemical, Pharmaceutical, Food or Feed Industry.
• You have a deep understanding of the European Chemical regulations (REACH, CLP, GHS, KKDIK, …).
• You are analytical, accurate, highly organized, result-oriented and easily adapt to change.
• You are proactive, hands-on and possess great problem-solving skills.
• You are an excellent relationship builder with a customer-oriented attitude.
• Your strong interpersonal skillset allows you to easily secure buy-in from in- and external stakeholders. Additionally, you are open to other cultural mindsets. Experience with the Japanese culture is considered a plus.
• You are fluent in Dutch and English, other languages are considered an asset.
• You will work at the HQ of SCE in Machelen, combined with a flexible homeworking policy. 

Sumitomo Chemical Europe offers you the chance to work in a world leading and stable company with international exposure and a high quality product range. A professional organization where autonomy, initiative and adaptability are recognized and stimulated.

Sumitomo offers a state of the art salary package including company car, extra-legal benefits, bonus and a solid work-life balance. Additionally, for this specific role, SCE has foreseen internal growth opportunities towards sustainability and/or Product Stewardship, depending on your experience, ambitions and the company needs.