Kansas Works Jobs

Job Description

Function as a dynamic leader who plays a crucial role in driving DFA’s commercial business forward by crafting and executing strategic marketing initiatives and support plans that elevates the DFA brand, our ingredients, products and services, connects with our customers and differentiates our solutions to provide value back to our farmer-owners. The ideal candidate is passionate about supporting innovation and meaningful customer engagement and understands that their work is central to ensuring the DFA brand and connected customer strategy resonates with our customers, supports our growth and helps DFA remain and grow as a leader in the industry.

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide oversight of and develop marketing plans that support the go-to-market execution of commercial network / connected customer strategies, helping enable achievement of sales goals and financial targets

• Provide leadership in creating a vision and executing how DFA communicates and demonstrates capabilities and services to customers, anchoring DFA’s brand position across marketing materials and messaging

• Partner with Sales, R&D, and the Insight teams, as well as other cross-functional partners, to create customer first strategic communications, selling tools, presentations, etc.

• Embed as an extension of and key partner to cross-functional teams to gather, capture, and analyze category/customer insights and understanding that inform strategic marketing and communications planning, ensuring alignment with industry trends, customer needs, and consumer behavior to capitalize on opportunities for growth and improvement

• Develop and maintain an acute knowledge of strategic customers business, their customer / consumer and the communications / marketing landscape. Demonstrate leadership in identifying trends, opportunities, issues, and best practices across B2B and consumer marketing to drive culturally relevant customer experiences

• Aggressively pursue opportunities aligned to trends and insights that intersect with customer needs that simultaneously aligns with DFA business goals and objectives

• Develop and foster peer relationships with customer marketing counterparts to further support customer needs and opportunities

• Seek ways to personalize and optimize customer engagement and the way they experience the DFA brand based on deep understanding of the customer / category and opportunity at hand

• Supervise and own the day-to-day plans and execution of marketing activities for customers, ensuring strategic focus and prioritization

• Lead strategy and rollout plan specific to how marketing, sales, R&D and other cross-functional partners access the appropriate information and resources that supports their communication and selling efforts, ensuring the DFA brand position and guidelines are consistently upheld

• Across all relevant channels, create compelling stories and ideas that align to where the customer needs DFA, rooted in our deep understanding of their consumer truths, needs and insights

• Provide strategic oversight and leadership in trade show strategy across the commercial network, ensuring DFA brand position and guidelines are adhered to, helping to weigh and drive partner deliverables with a clear alignment on purpose, goals and target audience messaging

• Lead and manage the B2B marketing team, providing guidance, support, and professional development opportunities

• Drive sales training as necessary, considering needs across the commercial network and how to connect our products and services with unique needs across the sales teams

• Monitor food trends on social media, news, ecommerce outlets, traditional grocery outlets, food influencers, chefs, restaurants that are related to our focus and capabilities

• The requirements herein are intended to describe the general nature and level of work performed by employee, but is not a complete list of responsibilities, duties, and skills required. Other duties may be assigned

Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing/business or related (or equivalent combination of education and experience)

• 10+ years of marketing/communications experience that includes recognized leadership experience (project or team)

• Previous experience working for a company within the dairy, food manufacturing, ingredient or flavor house industry required

• 2+ years people management experience

• Experience developing marketing activation plans

• Certification and/or License – N/A

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Working knowledge of dairy ingredients and technologies

• Able to unify and develop teams (including ones not directly managed) around common goals and values through leadership, functional expertise, and people management skills

• Executive presence to work with the C-suite; strong ability to collaborate with senior leadership and other internal and external partners across multiple teams and disciplines

• Strong analytical, decision-making, influence, presentation and communication skills

• Proven ability to build relationships and interface with all levels of individuals internal and external to the organization

• Able to translate insights and data into strategic opportunities and imperatives

• Demonstrated capability to make tough, informed decisions quickly to keep performance on track

• Excellent organizational and project management skills with ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously

• Able to lead through personal integrity and diversity of thought

• Action-oriented with the ability to think and react quickly to changing circumstances

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint) applications and databases

• Proficiency with managing marketing insights databases

• Must be able to read, write and speak English

An Equal Opportunity Employer