Full Name
Sam Samaras
Job Title
VP Science and Technology
Company
Unilever
Speaker Bio
Sam is Global Vice President for Science and Technology R&D. She is responsible for delivering the innovation pipeline for a 23 Bn Beauty and Personal Care business across 5 categories (Skin Care, Skin Cleansing, Deo, Hair, Oral), with deliverables of technology, external facing scientific authority, insights, claims, and enabling capabilities. She is also Vice President Clinicals, responsible for the clinical testing across the whole of the Beauty and Personal Care business which supports claims, new fundamental understanding, and new technology development. She has ultimate responsibility for a global team of 380 cross-functional scientists and leaders, and co-ordinates across multiple functional groups to drive long term vision and innovation into the categories and brands across Unilever’s Beauty and Personal Care business.
She joined Unilever in 2016 as the Vice President Strategic Science R&D. In that role she led biological research across the 4 categories of Unilever (Personal Care, Homecare, Refreshment and Foods), focused on development of breakthrough new science, new technical insights, and new technologies to transform the innovation pipeline.
Prior to Unilever, Sam spent a decade at Johnson and Johnson leading discovery research in the consumer sector, focused first on the beauty/skin need state, and later leading innovation and claims strategy for the baby needs state, and was instrumental to the science behind the re-focus and re-launch of Johnson’s Baby in 2014. She became a fellow of J&J in 2009, and won the prestigious Johnson’s Medal in 2014. Prior to J&J, Sam spent 11 years at Merck, focusing on infectious disease drug discovery. Focusing first on Malaria and animal health parasitic diseases, then on antibacterial/antifungal natural product drug discovery and was part of the Elitra integration team which brought cutting edge bio-genomics capability to antibacterial drug discovery. She received her MS from Seton Hall University and her PhD from University of Dundee and became a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2016.
She joined Unilever in 2016 as the Vice President Strategic Science R&D. In that role she led biological research across the 4 categories of Unilever (Personal Care, Homecare, Refreshment and Foods), focused on development of breakthrough new science, new technical insights, and new technologies to transform the innovation pipeline.
Prior to Unilever, Sam spent a decade at Johnson and Johnson leading discovery research in the consumer sector, focused first on the beauty/skin need state, and later leading innovation and claims strategy for the baby needs state, and was instrumental to the science behind the re-focus and re-launch of Johnson’s Baby in 2014. She became a fellow of J&J in 2009, and won the prestigious Johnson’s Medal in 2014. Prior to J&J, Sam spent 11 years at Merck, focusing on infectious disease drug discovery. Focusing first on Malaria and animal health parasitic diseases, then on antibacterial/antifungal natural product drug discovery and was part of the Elitra integration team which brought cutting edge bio-genomics capability to antibacterial drug discovery. She received her MS from Seton Hall University and her PhD from University of Dundee and became a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2016.
Speaking At
