General Manager, EMEA, Champion Petfoods

Job Description:

General Manager, EMEA, will be responsible for five key areas. The first area is delivering double digit growth for $165M USD P&L across diverse EMEA region (20+ countries) with an advocacy and digital mindset first through independent pet, e-commerce, and strategic key accounts. The second area is to ensure there is a fit for purpose team in line with the growth and OVHD delivery by developing current associates and anticipate future required capabilities like connected commerce and develop Build and Buy strategies to fit. The third area is partner and leverage cross functional and matrix teams to deploy winning, share building portfolio strategy and category winning activities that align the existing brands and new brand propositions, brand strategy, price value equation, and product offering to be most successful across multiple markets by leveraging pet parent insights and understanding key category trends. The fourth area is to lead and flex between push & pull business and customer models while accelerating into E-Commerce & Digital first businesses in the focus markets such as Benelux, UK, France, Spain and Germany while building key strategic customer and external relationships. The fifth area is to be an active member of the Champion leadership team and broader community by role modeling the 5 Principles and ELT behaviors. This role reports to the Champion President and will sit on a team of cross functional leaders.

Location

Amsterdam, Netherlands (on-site); 30% travel; applicants must live or be willing to relocate to Amsterdam, Netherlands.

If relocating, any applicant must commit to being in location by January 1st 2027.

What are we looking for?

Functional/Technical Qualifications

• P&L leadership: freedom to invest, drivers of margin growth, DIB. A&P management, full P&L leadership
• Brand Building and Innovation Deployment: Brand Building, Consumer Centricity, how brands grow, consumer targeting (strategic target), purpose, driving winning innovation
• Portfolio Leadership: Strategic Customer & Category Management, Creating Compelling Strategies, Making Bold Choices, Portfolio Leadership, scale, simplification, brand roles within a portfolio strategy.
• Digital experience at Senior Level: either D2C, Dcomm, DDM. Demonstrating an understanding of data & analytics & digital-first growth mind-set.
• Pricing & SRM: pricing strategy, pricing floors, PPA, pricing governance, optimising price & promotions, SRM, modelling.
• Market Strategy & deployment: go to market strategy, channel strategy, activation principles.
• Negotiating: understanding break points, identify common ground, and build long term customer strategies that benefit Champion and the customer

Leadership Competencies

• Delivers Exceptional Results: consistently achieving results even under difficult circumstances; handles conflict effectively and operates with composure even when the outcomes are unclear
• Influencing and dealing with senior stakeholders and managing complexity
• Strategic Mindset: Seeing ahead to the future possibilities and translating them into breakthrough strategies
• Organizational Navigation: Effectively builds formal and informal networks across Champion and MARS as well as externally
• People Smart: Hires top talent, develops top talent, and builds effective cross functional teams within the cost envelope provided
• Commitment to Personal Development: Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels
• Business Insights & Tech Savvy: Applying knowledge of business and marketplace to advance organization’s goals; anticipating and adopting innovations in business building digital and technology applications
• Strong preference for European leadership experience across multiple European countries

What will be your key responsibilities?

Building the Brand & Customers:

• Lead Joint Business Plans with strategic customers in independent pet, e-commerce, and strategic accounts to achieve mutual, long-term targets supported by cross functional resources; Actively engage the key accounts and distributor networks to build relationships and foster support for Champion brands.
• Develop and execute a distributor network strategy to ensure accountability, mutually beneficial goals and targets and adequate tracking and measurement
• Partner closely with global marketing to set and monitor market strategy, tactics and plans by leveraging brand performance through KPIs
• Utilize quantitative and qualitative data and insights to understand customer and category needs to drive channel strategies that proactively build a roadmap of double-digit growth
• Collaborate with internal teams to integrate brand and marketing support in all strategic initiatives and drive in-store and ecommerce velocity.
• Drive advocacy and digital business model through key partnerships to ensure we are growing the business through a push and pull model.
• Proactively utilize data and analytics to drive insights that inform key drivers of the forecast and year ending estimates and adjust business plans as necessary to deliver operating plan. Responsible for quality inputs to drive 98% customer service level.

Leadership Skills

• Entrepreneurial/Start Up Mindset: Bias for Action (Velocity over Perfection), Radical Resourcefulness (The "Player-Coach" Dynamics), Thrives in high-volatility environments and high ambiguity situations; able to pivot strategies based on market shifts without losing momentum or team morale, desire and bias towards a lean organization and rolling up your sleeves to deliver results.
• Strategic Visionary & Operational Delivery: The ideal candidate possesses a track record of driving high growth by developing long-term strategies for either business units of large companies or independent businesses. S/he should have demonstrated an ability to solve complex problems from both a strategic and operational perspective. S/he should have the ability to develop strategy incorporating trends in the industry, competitive issues and all other external factors, including acquisition opportunities. S/he should have also demonstrated the ability to transform their vision and strategy into business initiatives and priorities that are compelling.
• Results Orientated Demand Driver: The ideal candidate will have demonstrated the ability to consistently deliver outstanding operating and financial results in a high growth environment. S/he will have introduced substantive improvements to processes, operations, or practices throughout a large portion of his/her business. S/he will also have demonstrated a track record of creating unique value for customers and satisfying customer needs while delivering superior financial results. The candidate will also have created new approaches to existing problems that have had a significant impact on his/her business and will have implemented world-class and leading-edge performance standards. The ideal candidate will possess strong commercial acumen in dealing with and developing customers in an omnichannel ecosystem and have a highly customer-centric business philosophy.
• Inspirational Team Leadership: The ideal candidate will continue to build deep organization strength to impact the future growth and profitability of the business while fostering a strong purpose-driven culture. S/he should be focused on coaching and mentoring his/her senior leadership team and consistently bring in best-in-class performers to ensure continued growth and success of the business. The ideal candidate will possess the ability to effectively motivate others to achieve goals and objectives and maintain and build upon the Team’s high-performance culture.
• Outstanding Influencing and Partnering Skills: S/he must be highly perceptive and able to understand the needs and priorities of core stakeholders/customers and integrate or influence each to drive towards action. The individual must show gravitas and be a confident and persuasive communicator who can motivate across all levels of the organization as well as with external partners.

What can you expect from Mars?
Work with diverse and talented Associates, all guided by the Five Principles.
Join a purpose driven company, where we’re striving to build the world we want tomorrow, today.
A strong focus on learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.