Sr Brand Manager, Kit Kat Strategy & Growth
Location: Hershey, PA
Why Hershey:
At The Hershey Company, our culture is rooted in purpose and inspired by Milton Hershey’s enduring vision that business should create opportunity for others. Through our commitment to corporate philanthropy, we create positive impact by supporting communities, helping children thrive, and operating as a business for good. This includes our deep and long standing partnership with Milton Hershey School, where we invest in education, workforce readiness, and hands on engagement to help students succeed beyond the classroom. Supported by strategic grantmaking, product donations, cross brand collaboration, and strong employee volunteerism, Hershey offers a place to work where making a difference—locally and globally—is part of how we do business every day.
About The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company is an industry-leading snacks company known for making more moments of goodness through its iconic brands. With a strong portfolio across chocolate, confectionery, and salty snacks, Hershey delights consumers every day. Our beloved brands include Hershey’s, Reese’s, KitKat®, Dots Pretzels, Lesser Evil, Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers, Ice Breakers, and more.
At Hershey, we are committed to making a meaningful difference in the communities where we live, work, and do business. This commitment originated with our founder, Milton Hershey, and continues to shape who we are today.
Guided by our employee value proposition, Lead Today. Create Tomorrow, we empower our people to drive impact now while shaping what comes next. Our One Hershey mindset brings teams together across functions, geographies, and businesses, enabling us to operate with speed, collaboration, and shared purpose.
The Hershey Company is proud to be recognized as a top employer in the United States, reflecting our commitment to our people, culture, and purpose.
How will you fit in the big picture?
Kit Kat is one of the world’s most recognizable and distinctive brands, and this role will shape both what the brand stands for and how the business grows. As Senior Brand Manager, Kit Kat, you will be the vision maker and business leader for the brand, setting long-term ambition, strategic direction, creative expression, portfolio choices, and commercial growth agenda while protecting and strengthening brand health. You will serve as the creative tip of the spear, advancing Kit Kat through consumer-centric marketing, an insurgent mindset, and new ways of thinking that keep the brand relevant, distinctive, and impossible to ignore.
At the same time, you will own the performance narrative for the business, using rigorous tracking and analysis to identify opportunities, make clear choices, and drive action. You will offer portfolio oversight and influence the innovation pipeline, ensuring that near- and long-term growth opportunities are consumer-led, financially sound, and executable. You will serve as the brand voice in critical creative, media, portfolio, and investment decisions; lead the integrated agency team; oversee design evolution; and unlock incremental brand equity and demand through Away From Home, Seasons & Tentpoles, and other high-impact occasions. In close partnership with the Commercial team, you will ensure brand plans translate into compelling execution that converts at the moment of choice. This role calls for equal parts imagination, analytical rigor, and general management mindset: the ability to set an inspiring destination, mobilize the organization around it, and land the plane with disciplined execution and a keen sense of financial stewardship.
What will you do?
- Define and champion the long-term vision, growth strategy, positioning, and business direction for Kit Kat, translating enterprise priorities, consumer insight, and marketplace dynamics into clear choices for the brand
- Lead portfolio strategy and management, making choices across formats, pack-price architecture, and channels to maximize sustainable growth and brand coherence
- Own brand health and equity, establishing the learning agenda and turning consumer, cultural, competitive, and marketplace signals into strategies that strengthen relevance and distinctiveness
- Serve as the creative tip of the spear, setting the creative ambition and leading insurgent-mindset marketing across Masterbrand equity and growth initiatives that make Kit Kat more distinctive, relevant, and iconic
- Lead the integrated agency team and partner with Creative, Media, and other cross-functional stakeholders to deliver breakthrough, insight-led work that connects strategy to execution and expands demand
- Act as the brand voice in critical creative, media, portfolio, and investment decisions, balancing brand-building impact, commercial priorities, marketing effectiveness learnings, and financial stewardship
- Own the brand’s performance narrative through disciplined tracking, business analysis, and forecasting; identify drivers, risks, and opportunities and mobilize cross-functional action to deliver business objectives
- Collaborate closely with the Commercial team to translate brand strategy and annual plans into customer- and channel-relevant programs, ensuring execution pulls through to drive conversion at the moment of choice.
- Unlock incremental brand equity and demand through Away From Home, Seasons & Tentpoles, and other strategic platforms, with clear success measures and disciplined resource allocation.
Minimum Education & Requirements
Experience:
- 6+ years of relevant experience in Brand Management, Marketing, Innovation, Strategy, Media, or Creative
- Consumer Product experience required; food experience preferred
- Demonstrated experience building and deploying both long-term brand strategy and annual brand plans, grounded in consumer insights, market intelligence, and enterprise realities
- Experience leading brand activation initiatives, including consumer campaigns, creative development, media planning, and engagement programs
- Demonstrated experience owning business results and influencing cross‑functional teams
- Strong analytical, strategic thinking, and problem-solving capabilities with the ability to translate insights into action
- Proven ability to influence and collaborate across cross-functional teams in a fast-paced environment
- Excellent communication, storytelling, and presentation skills with experience delivering recommendations to senior leaders
Education:
- Bachelor’s degree required
- Degree in Marketing, Business, Management, Finance, or a related field preferred
- MBA preferred but not required
Benefits and Perks
At Hershey, we offer competitive pay and a comprehensive total rewards package designed to support your wellbeing, financial security, and life outside of work.
- Health & Wellbeing: Medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus wellness programs that support your physical and mental health
- Financial Security: Competitive pay, annual incentive opportunities, and a 401(k) with company match
- Time Off & Flexibility: Paid time off, company holidays, and flexible ways of working where applicable
- Growth & Development: Career development programs, learning opportunities, and internal mobility
Benefits may vary based on role, location, and eligibility.
The anticipated base salary range for this role is $156,080 to $195,100 per year. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of job‑related factors, including, but not limited to, experience, skill set, education, and training. In addition to a market-competitive base salary, our Total Rewards package includes performance‑based incentives and a comprehensive, competitive benefits package designed to support overall physical, mental, and financial well‑being (as applicable).
Learn more about Hershey’s benefits and all the resources Hershey provides to support our employees’ physical, emotional, and financial well‑being by visiting the Hershey Digital Employee Experience at www.askHRbenefits.hersheys.com
The Hershey Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The policy of The Hershey Company is to extend opportunities to qualified applicants and employees on an equal basis regardless of an individual's race, color, gender, age, national origin, religion, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other categories protected by applicable federal, state or local laws.
The Hershey Company is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Minority/Female/Disabled/Protected Veterans. You may request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access our online application process as a result of a disability.
You can request an accommodation via phone or email.To request an accommodation via phone, please call +1 877-804-1794 and leave a voicemail with your contact information. You may also email a request for accommodation to ApplicationHelp@hersheys.com. Please be sure to include “Accommodation Needed” in the subject line. This will ensure that your email is routed to the appropriate contact who will handle your request.
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Nearest Major Market: Harrisburg
