Brand Manager

Job Summary: The Brand Manager owns the financial and strategic performance of an assigned category or product portfolio within the Food Service or Retail Business Unit. This role is accountable for P&L results, pricing, and category growth, while leading cross-functional teams to optimize market share, brand performance, and innovation execution. This role requires an advanced understanding of operational capabilities, capacity constraints, cost structures, and supply risks to drive informed decision-making, mitigate exposure, and achieve profit and volume objectives. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: Develop business objectives and marketing plans for assigned brands, categories, or channels, aligning to enterprise goals while delivering against volume, financial, margin, and share objectives Monitor business performance, customer activity, forecast accuracy, and marketplace dynamics to ensure plans are tracking against goals; recommend and implement corrective actions as needed Own full P&L responsibility for assigned category. Manage category budgets and financial performance to meet or exceed AOP objectives. Analyze financial performance drivers and implement corrective actions as needed. Translate strategic priorities into executable business plans with clear financial outcomes. Lead pricing strategy and evaluate pricing performance, margin outcomes, and competitive positioning. Ensure pricing decisions align with cost structures, customer strategies, and profitability targets. Lead marketing strategies that position the Brand and products as operator-focused solutions across priority channels, customer segments, and sales platforms Partner with internal marketing, agency, digital, culinary, and sales enablement teams to convert strategy into customer-facing tools, operator content, channel activation, and selling materials Lead innovation and product commercialization plans from concept through business case, feasibility validation, product and packaging development, customer sell-in, launch execution, and in-market performance tracking Build strong relationships with cross-functional partners to remove barriers, align priorities, and help bring new products, customer programs, and growth initiatives to life across the enterprise Work closely with field sales, customer teams, distributors, and operators to understand business needs, support customer meetings, strengthen sell-in stories, and integrate customer strategy into brand and business plans Manage volume forecasts for assigned brands, categories, or channels by coordinating with demand planning, supply planning, sales, and business teams to improve forecast accuracy and service execution Proactively partner with Sales Strategy and Planning to identify opportunities, develop action plans, support field execution, and deliver against business objectives Manage brand, channel, and customer support budgets, including sales materials, operator activations, samples, innovation support, and marketing investment tied to assigned responsibilities Requirements:

Bachelors, Masters Degree, or significant amount of relevant experience; MBA or related Master's Degree Preferred Experience:  5+ years of relevant and practical experience; Prior experience with food manufacturing or CPG marketing preferred. Special Job Competencies: • Advanced P&L and budget management expertise. Deep understanding of supply chain, cost structures, marketing strategy, and operational trade-offs • Strong project leadership and decision-making skills • Leads and influences senior cross-functional stakeholders. • Communicates complex financial and strategic concepts clearly to leadership audiences. • Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook • Strong working knowledge of Power BI, pricing, and/or inventory management systems Supervisory: May directly supervise 1-2 team members. Travel: 15–20% Position Specific Requirements: