Kinder’s is seeking an experienced Brand Manager who is passionate about being part of a team of hard-working people focused on bringing the future of flavor to consumers everywhere.

We are a fast-growing company working hard to bring amazing flavor solutions that are as exciting and delicious as they are simple to use to our consumers whether they are experienced cooks or first-timers in the kitchen. We are obsessed with quality and are 100% committed to being the most innovative company in any market we serve. Our mission is to bring awesome flavor to consumers whenever and wherever they are looking for it and whatever for they are looking for it in (seasonings, sauces, gravy, marinades, or anything else we can come up with). We have experienced tremendous growth over the last 5 years, but we think we are just getting started. We love our consumers and are fired up to be part of their flavor journey. And we need more great folks to help us continue to raise the bar for what they think is even possible in their own kitchens.

Today, we have over 100 products sold nationwide at retailers including Costco, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Kroger, Safeway and many more. While we have been around for over 75 years, we have experienced explosive growth in the last 5 years and are now a top 5 brand in the U.S. in multiple flavor categories including seasoning blends, BBQ sauce, and wing sauce. To keep our momentum rolling, we need more passionate flavor advocates and builders to come and join our team and help us reach every kitchen across the U.S. and maybe even the world.

How you'll have an impact at Kinder’s: The Brand Manager will be responsible for a BU’s portfolio strategy, performance tracking & reporting, and close-in innovation planning to drive brand growth. You will partner with the Director of Brand Management and the EVP of Marketing to build a strong, universal understanding of business performance and lead recommendations on ways to manage and grow your part of the portfolio.

What are the Key Responsibilities of this Role

• Business Planning and Strategy

• Develop short and long-term business plans, identifying objectives, strategies, key initiatives and performance measurements.
• Provide ongoing business analysis to identify opportunities by utilizing data-driven insights.
• Become expert in your business through ongoing analysis, trends, insights, and knowledge of category dynamics and competition.
• Support pricing strategy by providing regular competitive benchmarks analysis and proposals for price adjustments.

• Marketing Planning

• Develop brand-building marketing plans to support the annual business plan, including seasonal strategy & activations, starting with the agency briefs (e.g. content, packaging, merchandising, media, consumer promotions, etc.) through to execution and KPI measurement.
• Partner with Sales team to develop and deliver highly effective marketing tactics and strategies to spur growth across channels (club, convenience, food/drug/mass, eCommerce).

• Product and Portfolio Management

• Drive holistic and detailed understanding of portfolio product assortment in context of the consumer, the category, our customers, and our company to make strategic recommendations for innovation, renovation, activation, or rationalization.
• Drive category innovation planning including insight development, concept positioning, pricing, analyzing and forecasting size of prize, and incrementality /cannibalization analysis.
• Build innovation launch plans, from strategy (e.g. positioning, pricing) to execution (i.e. integrated marketing planning).

• Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with a cross-functional team to overcome executional and logistical hurdles to meet aggressive in-market timing and coordinate product and packaging solutions that lead the market.
• Lead alignment on the brand initiatives with key functions, including Product Development, Finance, Operations and Sales
• Development and presentation of activities and strategies to senior management

What You Bring to the Table

• Education / Experience

• Bachelor's Degree required, MBA preferred
• 5 years relevant work experience in traditional CPG brand management. Innovation and/or product development experience is a plus
• Proven strategic thinker and complex portfolio manager
• Cross-functional team leadership
• Strong analytical & quantitative acumen with deep knowledge of key syndicated data (IRI preferred) and experience developing business cases
• Strong project management skills and understanding of new product development process from ideation to execution
• Track record in agile creative thinking, generation of new marketing ideas, and working with internal and external creative partners

• Personal Characteristics

• Business builder who owns and drives results
• Growth mindset with an excitement to learn (and teach)
• Thrive in a dynamic, lean, and agile environment with proven record of completing projects on time in full through excellent cross functional team management, leadership, communication and influence
• Self-starter who takes initiative and speaks their mind
• Excited to be part of a fast-moving team with the ability to be a leader and a follower
• Enjoy making decisions and finding ways to say ‘yes’ as often as possible to impactful and important priorities

Things About the Way We Work

• No two days here are the same
• We try to be good team members and good communicators, but we don’t live by hierarchy and structure – everyone is a difference maker here
• We make a lot of decisions in the face of incomplete information – our team embraces ambiguity and tries to make good decisions fast rather than great decisions slow
• We believe our job is to take smart risk, not to eliminate risk
• We believe in growing our skills and becoming a better company with more managerial expertise, but we are an entrepreneurial company at heart
• We aren’t trying to be average – we want to do exceptional things and we are willing to work hard to achieve them

Location & Travel

The position will be based out of our 20,000 sq. foot office in Walnut Creek, CA. We strongly believe in the power of culture and community and have a hybrid work structure with 4 days in the office on a weekly basis to encourage collaboration and personal connections that will allow us to better serve our customers and consumer and to have more fun. Fridays are flex days with employees having the opportunity to choose to be either in the office or to work from home based on what makes most sense for them.

Some travel will be required for this role on a periodic basis. Typical travel includes industry conferences and key customer visits.