Joining King’s Hawaiian makes you part of our `ohana (family). As a family-owned business for over seventy years, we respect our roots while thinking about our future as we continue to grow and care for our customers and the communities we serve. Our `ohana members build an environment of inclusivity as they freely collaborate, pursue learning through curiosity, and explore innovation as critical thinkers. Beyond that, we are also passionate about supporting the long-term health and well-being of our employees and their families. If you’re excited to rise with our team, come and join our `ohana!

Summary:

As CMO at King’s Hawaiian, you are the #1 consumer advocate. Everything you do is driven by a desire to bring happiness to millions of consumers across the country, sharing the irresistible experience of King’s Hawaiian with them. This experience is based on our unique product, as well as the feeling that the King’s Hawaiian brand evokes in people. As a brand, King’s Hawaiian brings people together to bond and enjoy time with each other. To laugh together. To celebrate together. And ultimately, to share the taste of pure happiness together.

To build this irresistible brand feeling and image, you and your current team of 20 passionate marketers will lead consumer communication across a full suite of Marcom vehicles (ranging from TV to PR, to digital, to advocate programs, and more). With this communication, you will inspire consumers across the country to want to join the King’s Hawaiian brand, not just buy our product. In order to develop this image, you must be adept at demonstrating strong consumer insights and data that can advise you to understand and capitalize upon consumer motivations.

You will lead four expert teams;

• A base brand team being responsible for all current products in both retailers and food service outlets. With this brand marketing team, and in conjunction with our sales force, you will create campaigns that will empower consumers to go to stores to find our products, as well as persuade our retailers to highlight King’s Hawaiian product in significant ways within their stores.
• A newly created digital/social advocate-focused team providing powerful tools to help you build consumer demand.
• A new product development team to bring new King’s Hawaiian products to store shelves, allowing consumers to enjoy our brand in all new ways. You will position, package and market these new items in such a way that peaks consumers excitement for what is new, while at the same time drawing upon all that they know and love about the King’s Hawaiian brand.
• A research team who applies a host of new and established insight tools to help collect and implement insightful ideas.

Through inspiring marketing, extraordinary merchandising, and new products, we have high aspirations for continued brand growth. We have experienced a CAGR of over 10% for the last 10 years and are looking to continue this positive trend.

In addition to owning the marketing organization, the CMO is a valuable member of the King’s Hawaiian leadership team, made up of yourself, the CEO, President, CFO, COO, CIO, CPO, Head of Engineering, and President of Sales. Your influence on the leadership team will extend beyond marketing boundaries, as you will be expected to be an organizational leader, not just a functional one. As such, your impact and influence will be significant, helping take our overall organization to new heights.

Who We Are Looking For

In the CMO role, we seek a driven leader who can inspire their team. Someone who wants to learn and grow. Grow the business. Grow the team. Grow themselves. Someone who is curious, collaborative, and thinks critically. Someone who strives for excellence in all that they do and pushes their team to do that same. Someone, who despite always wanting to win, never sacrifices dignity for success.

We need a leader who is ready to continue building key capabilities within the marketing team, in route to developing the marketing department into one of the best-in-class organizations within the industry. Currently, our focus is on building the following four capabilities:

1. Gaining & Utilizing a passionate Understanding of our Consumers
2. Championing Consumer Fulfillment of the King's Hawaiian Brand Promise (to deliver an irresistible experience to consumers everywhere, every day)
3. Being the Most Innovative and Effective Consumer Communicators in the Industry
4. Developing Fanatical Brand Advocates

We need a leader who has shown an ability to optimally market brands through tried techniques, but who is also willing to question the limitations and try new things too in order to stay on the forefront of consumer communication. As a private company, we are willing to take chances on new things (and spend money on them), as long as we quickly learn from our experiences, and either double down when things are working, or quickly adjust away when they are not.

We seek a leader who always has a point of view and is willing to speak up to share their thoughts. While we highly value experience and instincts that guide viewpoints, we also expect leaders to advise their opinions with data and insights to deliver a well-balanced and informed outlook.

Above all, we need a leader who is passionate about the King’s Hawaiian business and is excited to come to work each day to help build the future of this company.

Technical Qualifications

• 15 years of confirmed experience in marketing or related fields, with at least 10 years in a leadership role
• Minimum of 5 years of demonstrated experience leading creative agencies (or internal equivalents)
• A minimum of 5 years of demonstrated experience working in the food industry is preferred. With or without food industry experience, a passion for food is a requirement
• Strong analytical, decision-making, and communication skills
• Strong project management orientation, including proficient abilities to establish clear objectives aligned with strategic goals; identify, secure, and empower talent; and communicate regularly and effectively with major partners
• Experienced ability to establish relationships and work with all levels of individuals internal and external to the organization.
• A strong combination of packaged goods standard methodologies and an entrepreneurial attitude
• High emotional intelligence
• MBA strongly preferred

King's Hawaiian is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for our ohana.