Director of Marketing & Business Development

THE COMPANY

Our client, a leading food processing company, is seeking a highly driven Marketing Executive to contribute to their vision and strategy to build new markets and sell their products. The Company is a Mission Driven organization focused on consistently achieving the highest level of customer satisfaction in the most cost effective and sustainable manner. Even though they are the World Leader in their ingredient category, they still maintain a strong entrepreneurial spirit. They operate four processing facilities, as well as transplanting, growing, and trucking operations. They employ over 500 colleagues year-round and 2,000+ seasonal colleagues and have annual revenue of over $1 billion. 

THE MISSION

• “Understand our marketplace”, its drivers, customers, products, production capabilities, suppliers, economies, and competitors.
• Design and Develop Commercial Strategies (tactical and long term) to advance the operational and financial performance of their enterprise.
• Implementation & Execution. Coordinate with sales Colleagues to sell current products and identify sales opportunities for new products, and to be a key energizing and liberating force to advance their execution.

THE POSITION

• Understand the global market for their products & services: production economics, demand, supply, inventory, and pricing.
• Global competitor evaluations
• Complete understanding of their:
  • Production processes, capabilities, and economics.
  • Supply chains.
  • Sales processes: sales, ordering, shipping, customer services, invoicing, etc.
  • Organizational structure.
  • Strategic businesses, partnerships, relationships, and contracts.
• Develop new products and solutions that take advantage of their core capabilities.
• Generate market intelligence to communicate with other relevant colleagues.
• Define the marketing and sales strategies for relevant business units.
• Provide training, materials, processes, and structure to implement and monitor strategies.
• Long-term contract negotiation and pricing with sales colleagues
• Analysis and recommendation for market pricing
• Monitor customer satisfaction.
• Determine the number of colleagues desired to accomplish goals (sales, brokers, customer service, etc.)
• Report and review on all relevant KPIs and market data:
  • Marketing.
  • Customer Satisfaction.
  • Customer strategy and Data Base status.
  • Sales metrics.
  • Financial performance per business unit.
• Participate on the Ag Supply Chain Council & Food Processing Council.
• Maintain and advance the Company’s brand, values, and reputation.
• Represent the company at industry events to develop new business opportunities and enhance relationships

THE IDEAL CANDIDATE

The Company was founded and is still owned and operated by such founder who desires to advance the company’s talent base to ensure operational and financial sustainability. It is expected that the candidate will absorb several activities of the founder through exhibited competencies. The enterprise has always had a strong entrepreneurial bent. The person who will be successful in this enterprise will have strong values, work ethic and will have already materially fulfilled their drive for self-esteem such that they can concentrate their energies toward contributing to performance versus politics.

• Values: Passion, Integrity, Humility, Strong Work Ethic, Curiosity.
• High level of Emotional Intelligence & Influencing Skills
• Financial Acumen & Business IQ
• Self-directed and highly accountable
• Entrepreneurial Mindset
• 5+ years of Executive Leadership in Marketing ideally within the Food & Ag industry
• Solid experience collaborating within a mid-size organization ($250 million – $2 billion) with a track record of driving profitable growth.
• Demonstrated ability to motivate and guide their team to reach performance goals.
• Advanced degree in marketing is desirable, however character and competency will trump formal education.