Innovation Senior Brand Manager

​

Position Title: Innovation Senior Brand Manager

Position Type: Regular - Full-Time ​

Position Location: Toronto HQ

Requisition ID: 33679

​

​

About McCain.

At McCain, we're feeding the world: from French fries to cakes, we contribute to the important role food plays in people's lives. That's why we're dedicated to ensuring our core values—Family, Authentic, Trusted, and Quality—shine through every day. As a privately owned family company with over 60 years of experience, a presence in more than 160 countries, and a global team of 22,000 people, our values and culture are at the heart of everything we do. We believe that we can work together, along with our business and community partners, to bring sustainable growth and positive change today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. Join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain!

Why join the McCain family.

• Your Life - we're here to help you fulfil your potential, flourish, and thrive in work and life.

• Your Success - work alongside passionate individuals who are committed to supporting your career ambitions, drive, and success.

• Your Impact - we want you to make a meaningful, lasting impact for you, for your colleagues, and for the business.

McCain is a place where you can grow from the ground up, so join us and see how you can MAKE IT at McCain.

About the role.

In every role, McCainers are ambitious, curious, and interested in helping each other create good work experiences. We think about the customer and make doing business with McCain easy.

The Innovation Senior Brand Manager is a critical member of the Appetizers Innovation Team at McCain who leads a strategic disruptive growth platform and one direct report. This individual is responsible for building and executing a multi-year platform strategy to unlock profitable growth and drive more of the menu as part of the 2030 business unit strategy. Reporting to the Innovation Director, the Innovation Senior Brand Manager will lead end-to-end commercialization of breakthrough innovation across all channels and segments, including Foodservice and Retail across USA & Canada. Responsible for driving scalable innovation from ideation to market readiness that delivers the company strategy, enhances the brand market position, builds competitive advantage and fuels momentum for continued business growth. Leveraging market trends and intel to identify opportunities and unmet needs, this role will define propositions and drive initiatives from ideation to launch readiness in collaboration with cross-functional partners (brand marketing, Insights R&D, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Go to Market Hub, and Agriculture).

Leadership Principles.

Our principles, each with related practices, guide our actions across the organization. Together, they address how McCain interacts with our customers and employees, and how we work as individuals and collectively to find success. While each role adheres to the Leadership Principles, individual roles may focus more on a specific principle or principles.

We are customer obsessed. Customers are our starting point. By understanding their needs and leveraging data and consumer insights, we drive mutual success.

We think big and plan ahead. Through ambition, curiosity, and smart risks, we can accomplish goals, refine processes, and innovate to scale success.

We bring out the best in our people. We create safe spaces for our people so that trust and empowerment come naturally. Inclusion is about listening first, showing humility, and working together.

We act like owners. Together, we clear obstacles and do the work that makes us all successful and proud to be part of McCain.

Accountabilities.

• Deliver compelling disruptive innovation platform strategy, based on consumer, customer and category insights, and market trends, grounded in the McCain long range plan objectives (where to play, how to win, growth targets), category, brand, portfolio strategy and demand space framework
• Deliver a 3-year disruptive innovation pipeline, inclusive of product and packaging innovation, with a focus on new environments, new occasions and new platform capabilities, with clarity to horizon pathing and pacing of workstreams
• Lead global and regional projects from opportunity to insight to proposition development and validation, through to launch readiness, leveraging the Navigator process, liaising with the insights, marketing teams and go to market hub. Manage projects to agreed budgets, timelines and KPI's
• Accelerate the company's innovation process and disruptive innovation planning, lead big bet sizing and pipeline sufficiency (reporting into PPGR) to meet our growth objectives and building best practices for how we innovate that unlocks collaboration and feeds desirability, feasibility and viability
• Champion innovation process improvement, enhancing process agility while delivering on quality of launch
• Define the role of innovation in the portfolio and P&L, with clarity to product mix, positioning, pricing and margin profile to drive growth across channels and demand spaces
• Act as a hub of communication to ensure stakeholders are fully integrated in key disruptive innovation activities
• Engage cross functionally with go to Market hub and externally with customers to align disruptive innovation and pave the way for new products in the market that will meet market needs
• Participate in industry events to understand market trends and developments that can be leveraged by the company
• Champion innovation by actively learning and sharing best practices, keeping a pulse on the competitive environment and identifying rising trends and capabilities
• Champion an insight led and demand centric growth culture, putting insights at the heart of our disruptive innovation plans and strategy
• Manage and develop a Manager/Associate Manager, providing guidance to drive successful product commercialization
• Support global platform innovation strategy & governance, creating strong global partnerships, sharing best practices and leveraging synergies and influencing with global & cross-regional teams

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree required; MBA preferred
• 7+ years of Marketing or brand management, with a minimum of 3 years in an innovation role
• A proven track record developing new-to-world and new-to-company innovation, white space development, new occasion or new environment penetration
• Track record in championing new ideas and initiatives while creating an environment that supports innovation; leveraging fresh perspectives and new paradigms to create value within the market.
• Strong project management expertise with experience balancing big-picture with day-to-day execution
• Strong people management and leadership skills with high EQ with 2-3 years of experience managing direct report(s)
• Strong ability to influence people and build strong relationships with both internal and external stakeholders and customers.
• High degree of tenacity and persistence to get actions completed on schedule with a hands on approach when needed.
• Proven track record in delivering several complex projects at a time

Skills:

The successful candidate will have natural curiosity and the ability to generate breakthrough "what if" thinking. They will thrive in ambiguity, translating emerging trends, market analysis, and insights into groundbreaking product concepts. They possess a strong commercial acumen and the ability to lead cross-functional teams to success, overcoming challenges to drive profitable growth for the brand and the business.

Strategic skills

• Be a thought leader, bringing fresh ideas forward to drive the business, embracing change, and helping us become more future ready
• Lead with strategy and challenge the status quo in pursuit of breakthrough new to company/new to world ideas
• Drive product/brand portfolio growth via distinctly positioned innovation targeted to customer/consumer needs.

Insights led

• Champion a consumer first mentality and culture, ensuring both innovation strategy and decision making are grounded in compelling insights.
• Leverage data and analytics to inform strategic decisions and identify opportunities for growth; be comfortable synthesizing data from multiple sources and tolerating ambiguity when systems and information are limited.

Strong people development and relationship-building skills

• Demonstrate the ability to coach and develop a direct report, inspiring them to stretch and learn. Set clear objectives, provide feedback, address gaps and drive accountability.
• Inspire trust and followership through influence, charisma, passion, and drive. Be able to manage stakeholders at all organizational levels to gain "buy in" and adoption.

Drive results

• Establish and work toward goals while overcoming obstacles and/or planning for contingencies. Demonstrate a strong passion for winning, strong prioritization and project management skills, and an ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Promote an entrepreneurial spirit and start-up culture within a multinational environment

The McCain experience.

We are McCain: this statement is about our power collectively and our importance individually—your impact is a significant part of the business. Our winning culture focuses on authenticity and trust so we can always bring out the best in our people. Here, you have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive while being yourself. Join our team to see why we're better together.

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.

The health and safety of McCain employees and their families has been our number one priority since the start of COVID-19 pandemic. With vaccination restrictions easing across the globe we do not currently require employees to be vaccinated, but we reserve the right to change this mandate in line with health guidance and regulations in each country.

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 Privacy Policy

Job Family: Marketing
Division: NA Appetizers
Department: ​Innovation New Environments & Occasions ​
Location(s): CA - Canada : Ontario : Toronto || US - United States of America : Illinois : Oakbrook Terrace

Company: McCain Foods USA, Inc.