Director Trade Optimization & Technology SRGM

Summary:  

The Director, SRGM Trade/Promotional Optimization and Technology will unlock extensive enterprise value creation opportunities for The Hershey Company by defining, developing, and leading all facets of US price-promotion strategy, guardrails, and guidelines, as well as the understanding and optimization of trade promotion performance across all business units, brands, and packtypes for a >$1 billion trade spend budget for the US confectionary and US salty business units. The Director will drive a long-term, continuous-improvement mindset across the enterprise as it relates to trade spend and enable its realization via development of processes and enhanced capabilities across and within key cross-functional teams and their respective leadership (e.g., Sales, Sales Planning, Sales Finance) to unlock Hershey’s Holistic Commercial Investment visions. The Director will also own development and deployment of advanced technology capabilities to optimize promotional strategy at scale. 
 

This is the primary US role accountable for facilitating achievement of annual US gross-to-net financial targets specifically through enabling and empowering the US Sales organization to understand granular promotional performance and to optimize forward promotional plans across thousands of price promotions executed annually at customer level. The Director achieves this by leveraging advanced analytics and bespoke post-event analysis tools as well as through successful implementation of a cutting-edge, next-generation AI-driven trade promotion optimization system, complete with multi-year roadmap for full technological integration with Hershey ERP and TPM systems. The role spans >$10 billion in annual sales across the Candy, Refreshment, Grocery, Warehouse Snacks and Salty Snacks categories. 
 

Given its strategic importance, the Director will regularly deliver insights-based recommendations to Hershey’s Sales and BU leadership teams, and work with Sales (and related functional) leaders at Director/VP level on a daily basis. This position leads the training, management, and development of the overall US SRGM Trade Strategy team, and has complete ownership of established analytical tools supporting promotional post-event analysis and trade KPI reporting and is accountable for driving continuous evolution of Hershey’s best-in-class tools and analytical approaches. This role requires strong leadership and strategic thinking skills, plus proactive collaboration with other key US functions including Sales and Sales Planning (frequently at Team Lead and VP/Chief Sales Officer level), Sales Finance, IS, Category Management, Commercial Planning, and Marketing, as well as the ability to drive change management across the breadth of the organization. Direct customer interaction (up to leadership levels) will also occur regularly.  This is an exciting leadership opportunity within Hershey’s best-in-class, Strategic Revenue Growth Management function.  This individual will lead a total team of 8+ full-time employees and have significant opportunities to influence up and out beyond the SRGM team to the highest levels of The Hershey Company. 
 

This position requires personal leadership and initiative, critical and strategic thinking skills, cross-functional collaboration, inspirational people management, ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines, and strong business and financial acumen.  This individual will drive key decisions among Hershey’s U.S. and Corporate leadership. 
 
 
Major Duties/Responsibilities

Summary of Major duties

Strategy development: Develops national and channel-level promotion strategies, performance-based trade architecture models, and guardrails & guidelines/BDPs by pack that minimize marketplace disruption and deliver on U.S. portfolio/brand business objectives, informed by insights from deep customer-specific analyses. 

Execution: Works directly with Sales teams and Sales Planning/Sales Finance to build and optimize event-level annual promotion plans, conducting regular in-year reviews of promotional effectiveness and recommending course-corrections for the delivery of increased ROI; Leads implementation & usage of TPO software system.

People management: Effectively leads and develops a high-performing team.

Leadership presentation: Creates/presents recommendations to senior leadership 

Minimum knowledge, skills and abilities required to successfully perform major duties/responsibilities: 

-Strong leadership skills and effective team/people management experience 
-Technical understanding of key tools and applications (e.g., Excel, Powerpoint / Thinkcell, Tableau, Alteryx), with proven ability to synthesize data into insights and strategy recommendations 
-Deep experience with econometric (elasticity) and/or financial modeling processes and outputs 
-Strong analytical skills and business / financial acumen 
-Strong collaboration and communication skills (incl. experience communicating to corporate senior management levels, field Sales teams, and Sales leadership) 
-Problem-solving mentality, intellectually curious, and strong critical thinking skills 
-Entrepreneurial skills and style 
-Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects, people, and initiatives simultaneously 
-Strong knowledge of syndicated data (e.g., IRI, Nielsen) and its nuances 
-Strong working knowledge of SAP and/or CPG TPM systems is a plus 
 

Minimum Education and Experience Requirements

Education:

BA/BS in Finance, Economics, Marketing, Business Administration or Equivalent 
Master’s degree preferred but not required 

Experience:

10+ years of business experience, with 3+ years of experience in FMCG trade strategy or other RGM roles strongly preferred 
Ideally, experience in Finance, Marketing, Sales, or other commercial / analytical functions (e.g., Category Management) 
Familiarity with FMCG industry customer base and working knowledge of retail merchandising and in store execution tactics strongly preferred 
People management and team leadership experience 

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