Senior Business Manager
The Senior Business Manager role is responsible for managing and growing strategic customer relationships while driving profitable growth, operational excellence, and successful execution of key customer initiatives. This role serves as the primary day-to-day business lead for assigned high-growth and strategic accounts, acting as a trusted advisor to customers and a key partner to internal cross-functional teams.
The Senior Business Manager owns customer business performance, pricing strategy, forecast alignment, project prioritization, and commercialization efforts while ensuring customer needs are balanced with company objectives. This position partners closely with team leadership to develop and execute customer growth strategies, lead business reviews, and drive long-term value creation.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Account Management:
- Serve as the primary day-to-day business lead for assigned strategic and high-growth customer accounts.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with customer stakeholders and internal cross-functional teams.
- Act as the primary point of contact for customer requests, prioritizing and directing inquiries to appropriate stakeholders.
- Develop and execute account strategies that drive profitable growth and achieve sales and margin targets.
- Own pricing strategy and profitability management, including customer pricing recommendations, margin optimization, and P&L analysis.
- Lead tactical customer meetings and coordinate follow-up actions to ensure timely execution of commitments.
- Prepare and lead Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), annual business planning meetings, and other customer-facing presentations.
- Lead customer RFP responses, coordinating cross-functional team inputs and ensuring compelling, competitive submissions
Project Leadership:
- Oversee key customer initiatives from concept through execution, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer expectations.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to scope, prioritize, and manage customer-related projects, partnering with the commercialization team when projects are ready for launch.
- Drive projects through established stage-gate processes while monitoring timelines, risks, and deliverables.
- Facilitate effective handoffs to commercialization teams to ensure successful product launches.
- Evaluate customer capital investment opportunities and provide recommendations that support growth, efficiency, and profitability.
- Ensure cross-functional alignment among Sales, Operations, Supply Chain, R&D, Finance, and Commercialization teams.
Planning, Forecasting & Reporting:
- Collaborate with customers to develop near-term and long-term demand forecasts.
- Partner with Supply Planning teams to align customer forecasts with production and inventory plans.
- Work cross-functionally to proactively address schedule changes, supply constraints, inventory concerns, delivery challenges, and other operational issues.
- Measure and track account performance using established business systems, metrics, and reporting tools.
- Analyze sales, volume, profitability, forecast accuracy, and production performance data to identify trends and opportunities.
- Develop and present account performance reports and business insights to customers and leadership teams.
- Support the annual planning process, budget development, and sales forecasting activities.
Key Competencies:
- Strategic account management
- Customer relationship management
- Cross functional leadership
- Self-starter
- Project leadership
- Supply chain collaboration
- Data analysis and reporting
- Pricing and P&L management
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, supply chain, marketing, management, or related field.
- 5+ years of experience in business management, account management, sales, commercial operations, or related roles.
- Experience within food manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, ingredient solutions, or related industries is a plus.
- Excellent interpersonal and written communication skills required.
- Demonstrated success leading cross functional teams and managing complex projects.
- Highly proficient in MS Office suite
- Detail orientated & highly motivated
- Critical thinking and problem-solving skills
- Planning and organizing skills
- Ability to travel 25% - 30%