Senior Director M&A and Commercial Business Development

Job Location: Hershey, PA

Ideal location for this position is East Coast with hybrid travel to Hershey.

Senior Director M&A and Commercial Business Development

The Hershey Company is seeking our next Senior Director M&A and Commercial Business Development.  The Senior Director M&A and Commercial Business Development works across the full lifecycle of mergers, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships, from helping to identifying opportunities to integration. This role is responsible for aligning M&A priorities with enterprise priorities, helping to evaluate potential commercial opportunities to strengthen the enterprise.  Developing and crystalizing value creation opportunities grounded in consumer, customer, and supply chain needs, with an eye to business model, brand, and category strengths and insights. The Senior Director drives commercial modeling and leads cross-functional due diligence and integration planning. They provide thought leadership on market trends and consumer dynamics, and bring agility to navigating complex, time-sensitive deal environments. This role involves managing executive-level stakeholders and influencing internal and external teams throughout the deal process.

Accountabilities:

• M&A Commercial Process Management: Strategic alignment on M&A priorities/hunting grounds, strategic evaluation of potential assets, development of value creation thesis, commercial growth modeling, cross-functional due diligence, deal process, integration planning, and integration 
• Commercial Thought Leadership and Execution: Lead commercial evaluation (consumer, brand, category, growth levers/potential) and primary consumer/brand research for high potential assets; apply transformational thinking to and develop and help drive execution of value creation thesis for potential deals and how the enterprise can maximize value from a potential acquisition or partnership
• External Perspective: Understanding of macro trends and evolving customer/consumer preferences and demands
• Agility: Ability to work well in high-ambiguity, time-constrained environment; agile approach to new business opportunities and potential acquisitions/partnerships
• People Leadership: Ability to influence large cross-functional teams (HSY and external partners) through deal process and integration
• Manage Executive level Stakeholders with credibility: Executive Committee, Board members, Founders, etc.

Qualifications:

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business or related discipline required. MBA preferred

Experience: 

• 12+ years’ professional experience in Marketing or General Management roles within CPG industry
• Broad commercial understanding/ experiences (demand creation, pricing, trade, route-to-market, etc.)
• Ability to provide structure to complex business challenges and easily move between the big picture and fine details
• Experience evaluating and framing strategic alternatives and building a compelling business case