Senior Regulatory Affairs Specialist

About the position  

Location:  Hackensack, NJ- Hybrid 2/3 days in Office- Shuttle offered from NYC

Salary :105K-135K

  Role Summary

The Regulatory Affairs Specialist independently manages complex regulatory topics and supports regulatory strategy execution across markets. The role acts as a senior subject‑matter expert, ensuring product compliance, enabling innovation and renovation, and providing authoritative regulatory guidance to cross‑functional teams. Operating with high autonomy, the role translates regulatory requirements into clear business guidance and mitigates regulatory risk across the product lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

Impact

• Act as regulatory subject‑matter expert for assigned product categories (particularly within dairy), markets or regulatory domains.
• Interpret and apply food legislation, labelling, claims and ingredient requirements to product development and renovation projects.
• Provide proactive regulatory guidance to R&D, Marketing, Quality and Supply Chain to ensure compliant product design and communication.
• Lead regulatory assessments for complex or high‑risk projects, identifying constraints, risks and mitigation options.
• Support market submissions, regulatory notifications and interactions with authorities through accurate and timely input.

Innovation

• Anticipate regulatory changes and assess their impact on portfolio, innovation pipelines and claims.
• Translate complex regulatory developments into practical, business‑relevant guidance and decision options.
• Contribute to the development and continuous improvement of internal regulatory standards, tools and ways of working.
• Support portfolio compliance monitoring and horizon scanning activities.

Communication

• Act as trusted regulatory advisor within multidisciplinary project teams.
• Communicate regulatory risks, trade‑offs and recommendations clearly to non‑regulatory stakeholders.
• Review and approve product labels, claims and regulatory documentation within defined authority.
• Guide junior specialists through review, coaching and quality oversight.

Career Path

• Feeder roles: Regulatory Affairs Specialist.
• Potential next career steps: Regulatory Affairs Manager, Senior Nutrition Specialist.

Experience / Competencies

Functional/ technical competencies:

• Advanced knowledge of North American food legislation, labelling and claims frameworks. Previous experience within a dairy category would be ideal. 
• Proven experience supporting product development, renovation and market execution from a regulatory perspective.
• Strong capability to interpret legislation and translate requirements into compliant product and communication solutions.
• Experience managing regulatory risk, trade‑offs and complex stakeholder discussions.

Behavioural/ leadership competencies:

• Works independently with limited supervision.
• Influences through expertise, credibility and clear argumentation.
• Structured, detail‑oriented and quality‑
• Proactive in identifying risks and improvement opportunities.

Qualifications / Education

• Required: Master's degree in food science, Food Law, Regulatory Affairs or a related field.
• Preferred: At least 5–8 years' experience in Regulatory Affairs within FMCG or food industry.

Knowledge

• Advanced knowledge of food regulations, claims, labelling, packaging and regulatory change processes.
• Strong understanding of product lifecycle management and innovation pipelines.
• Awareness of current regulatory & nutrition topics such as UPF, GLP-1 and Clean Label.

Travel Requirements

Occasional

What's next 

If this position sounds interesting, please hit the apply button now!