Brand Manager

This role is responsible for driving profitable brand and business growth in current and new Krusteaz CPG categories. Translating company growth priorities into actionable brand strategies, the Brand Manager will champion brand initiatives and lead execution of resultant initiatives with excellence to deliver results. A successful candidate will be a change agent – challenging the status quo while possessing the creativity and collaborative spirit to drive change in the organization - leading with the brand and consumer.

Essential Functions: Other duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or be assigned at any time.

• Be a champion for the consumer: use marketplace data, trends, and consumer insights to bring the consumer front and center to all initiatives, champion the consumer across the organization. Lead development of learning plans to ensure ongoing evolution of The Krusteaz Company’s understanding of the consumer and audiences.
• Be an advocate of the brand internally and externally. Ensure brand guardrails are understood, facilitate the evaluation of branded touchpoints to ensure a consistent experience, recommend necessary evolution in communication or positioning to connect and remain relevant with the consumer. Support development of brand strategy and positioning for new or existing brands within The Krusteaz Company portfolio.
• Lead day to day business for a new or existing brand segment, delivering business results including P&L targets and brand equity objectives. May perform in-depth marketplace analysis of certain brand or competitive platforms, making recommendations that will address marketplace trends. Participate in monthly demand forecasting to ensure accuracy and alignment to brand and business goals.
• Lead development and execution of annual brand plans; translate brand objectives, marketplace trends and consumer insights into actionable strategies that will engage consumers and win with customers.
• Lead development of annual financial plans through bottoms-up volume builds, articulating growth strategies and proven KPIs.
• Lead development and execution of go to market strategies for innovation platforms including scale up growth, planning to ensure volume growth and profit objectives are met. Recommend A&CP, trade plans, distribution assumptions and goals in partnership with innovation and sales. Translate go to market strategy into actionable brand and marketing plans to ensure successful launch into the marketplace.
• Understand the customer retail environment and how to win at key customers. Lead inputs into pricing, promotional strategy, and assortment through the lens of driving brand performance relative to competition. Develop strong selling decks in partnership with category management.
• Implement portfolio strategy and lead development of annual line extensions including building business case from trends, marketplace data, research, P&L analysis, promotional plans, and/or running launch teams. Identify future white space in the category in partnership with Innovation team that could become new product territories for future development.
• Be a change agent – partner with leadership to drive team health and improved cross functional ways of working towards overall company culture objectives.
• Demonstrate leadership, working with cross functional teams such as R&D, Operations, Finance, Sales, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Consumer Insights to deliver business results.

Position Requirements: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodation may be provided to enable individuals qualified with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Demonstrated passion for the consumer.
• Possess a strong bias for action, results, and demonstrated accountability, along with a natural attention to detail.
• Flexible and able to handle changing environment and priorities, comfortable with ambiguity.
• Self-motivated – high level of energy, able to set priorities, meet deadlines and manage multiple and often competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven experience developing winning marketing and product strategies within a CPG experience.
• Exceptional analytical skills and quantitative strength, experience turning insights and analysis into actionable strategies and initiatives.
• Experience in analyzing financial data and proven understanding of P&L drivers.
• Experience leading marketing communication projects including digital media and integration with Brand Experience team.
• Clear demonstration of organizational savvy, communication, interpersonal skills – influencing, resolving conflict, and creative problem-solving skills.
• Ability to develop effective working relationships with KCO internal employees and external partners including sales team, R&D, finance, PMO, agencies, internal creative/designers.
• Proven leadership and effective written and oral communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to create environments that encourages and rewards teamwork and collaboration, both internally and externally.
• Proven problem solver, implementing solutions to solve root cause problems.
• Proficiency in MS Office applications, with an emphasis on PowerPoint and Excel as well as data (IRI).
• Ability to travel 10% of the time.

Education and/or Experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Business Administration or similar fields required.
• MBA preferred.
• 5-7 years brand management experience in a consumer-packaged goods organization.

Get to know us: Learn more about our Corporate Office and Culture.

Hybrid Work Model: At The Krusteaz Company, we have in-office "core days" of Tuesdays and Wednesdays where all corporate employees are expected to be onsite. Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays are flexible remote days to allow for work/life balance. You may be asked to come in outside of a core day from time to time, based on business needs. We have found aligning our scheduled in-office days provides an opportunity for employees to build connections and collaborate together.

Benefits: We are proud to offer generous benefits including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance (starting at $105/month for employee-only coverage on the PPO Plan or starting at $45/month for employee-only coverage on the HDHP), 401(K) matching, 4 weeks of paid vacation, 10 paid holidays, 1 paid personal holiday, company provided life insurance and disability insurance, flexible spending account, healthcare saving account, voluntary accident insurance, voluntary critical illness insurance, and tuition reimbursement. Learn more about our Benefits.

Salary Information: An employee in this position based out of Washington State can expect a salary range between $122,100 and $189,201. We typically pay out between $132,000 and $168,000. The actual salary offered will be carefully considered based on a wide range of factors, including internal equity, experience, education, certification, training, and location. All positions are eligible for additional incentives based on business performance.

Physical Demands & Work Environment:
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear, and use hands and fingers to operate a computer and telephone along with reaching. Specific vision abilities include close vision requirements due to computer work. Moderate noise, ability to work in a confined area, and ability to sit at a computer for extended periods of time.

The policy of Continental Mills, Inc. dba The Krusteaz Company is to hire, train, and promote all persons in all job groups in accordance with law, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital or military status, national origin, gender identity, the presence of any sensory, mental or physical disability, genetic information, or any other status or characteristic protected by local, state, or federal law.

The Krusteaz Company is not sponsoring new applicant employment authorization at this time, and please, no third-party recruiters.