Position Title: Director, Category Planning

Position Type: Regular - Full-Time

Position Location: Oakbrook Terrace

Grade: Grade 07

Requisition ID: 20405

Company Background/Culture:

In 1957, the McCain brothers founded McCain in their hometown of Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada. Pioneers of the frozen French fry industry, McCain grew rapidly into the world’s largest manufacturer of frozen potato products.

Today McCain is still family owned, with a turnover of over CDN$10 billion, employing approximately 22,000 people and operating 53 production facilities on six continents. McCain, an international leader in the frozen food industry, produces and markets prepared potato and appetizer products across the range of retail, foodservice and quick service restaurant channels. The company’s products can be found in restaurants and retail stores in over 160 countries around the world.

McCain also owns the Day & Ross Transportation Group – based in Hartland, New Brunswick – one of the largest transportation companies in Canada.

McCain Foods Canada, the Canadian division of McCain Foods Limited, is made up of retail, foodservice and QSR. While primarily a potato manufacturer, this division also produces other quality products such as appetizers, ethnic foods, and desserts. McCain in Canada has seven production facilities, employs 3,000 nationally, and achieves approximately $800 million in annual revenues. The facilities produce for their own markets, but also manufacture for export to Latin America and Asia markets. The Canadian organization is evenly balanced between the two channels.

What is our Secret Ingredient? Our People. Our culture is a key differentiating factor that cannot be replicated. From the remote partner farms and villages in India, coastal towns of South Africa and bustling metropolitans of the Americas; here at McCain, we're surrounded by good people doing great things.

We're proud of where we've come from and are excited about where we're going. We believe people should be rewarded for generating unprecedented results and we’re focused on creating a culture of performance, diversity and engagement.

Grounded by our family values and commitment to ethical and sustainable business, we strive for a fun and entrepreneurial environment where our people are empowered to solve problems and encouraged to bring forth fresh ideas.

Purpose:

Translate brand marketing plans for the appetizer category into an integrated Go to Market strategy across North America. This individual will serve as the critical link between brand marketing and sales.

Key Responsibilities:

Reporting to the Vice President, Customer Leadership this role will communicate marketing plans for the appetizer category into actionable sales deliverables while ensuring cross functional aligment.

The successful applicant will serve as a key conduit across stakeholder teams and be tasked with driving alignment, creating common tools and language, and purpose between peer groups. Both directly and via influencing tactics the role will shape a communication program that provides greater transparency in terms of key performance metrics for the category for all teams that are working with the customer and the channel at any level. The mandate will be successful by delivering a cohesive strategy which acts as the Voice of the Customer for the business and can be easily translated across the category.

Translate Appetizer Marketing plans to actionable Sales plans and ensure cross-functional alignment

• Break silos and collaborate across functions for integrated business planning (e.g., close collaboration with VP, Marketing and VP, Finance).
• Provide holistic view of brand and product performance across geographies and proactively develop strategies to improve performance and/or drive efficiency (e.g., Portfolio optimization).
• Make sure brand marketing plans are in line with G2M Strategy (e.g., on right channel for each segment / customer).
• Responsible for delivering comms messaging across the business unit to Sales, ensuring a consistent approach.
• Take pivotal role in cross-functional Potato/Appetizers and Sales topics (e.g., identify underperforming SKUs)

Provides guidance leveraging common tools & templates to drive consistency across brands

• Oversee management of all course-corrections required in-year to annual plans based on real-time market developments and manage commercial plan changes accordingly.
• Exhibit judgement to customize as needed to support brand strategy & deployment needs.

Acts as the “Voice of the Customer / Channel” through the entire life of a product innovation launch

• Validate distribution and velocity assumptions from the customer / channel perspective.
• Advise on national, channel-launch tactics, including the development of channel-specific offerings.
• Advise on go-to-market feasibility through regional / consumer / channel lens.
• Responsible for new item launch activities and supporting deliverables for Sales and facilitates category and brand selling story (in partnership with Category Development, Innovation, Brand).

Professional Experience/Qualifications:

• 
  Demonstrated leadership skills with the ability to inspire and lead a team/matrix organization, develop talent/capabilities, and engage associates in order to deliver consistently strong performance.
• Significant experience partnering across the organization to analyse a range of internal & external data sources, drawing out key insights and forming recommendations based on solid commercial knowledge and strong linkage to business strategy.
• A strong track record of successfully translating strategies into action, delivering results and engaging a wide range of colleagues behind a common goal/vision; ability to simplify complex concepts and strategies for others with pragmatic solutions encompassing multiple stakeholders.
• Proven functional/technical understanding and know-how across several revenue management areas: Sales, Pricing, Trade Investment & Mix.
• Astute commercial and financial skills with excellent organization agility, understanding the impacts of decisions on the P&L, with the ability to identify opportunities for continuous improvement to deliver sustainable profitable growth for the customer and the organization.
• Bachelor’s degree
• This position requires domestic (US and Canada) and some global travel

McCain Foods is an equal opportunity employer. We see value in ensuring we have a diverse, antiracist, inclusive, merit-based, and equitable workplace. As a global family-owned company we are proud to reflect the diverse communities around the world in which we live and work. We recognize that diversity drives our creativity, resilience, and success and makes our business stronger.

McCain is an accessible employer. If you require an accommodation throughout the recruitment process (including alternate formats of materials or accessible meeting rooms), please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.

Your privacy is important to us. By submitting personal data or information to us, you agree this will be handled in accordance with the Global Employee Privacy Policy

Job Family: Sales
Division: NA Sales
Department: Sales Strategy & Category Development
Location(s): US - United States of America : Illinois : Oakbrook Terrace || US - United States of America : Illinois : Chicago

Company: McCain Foods USA, Inc.