Country Marketing Lead

**Position Title**:Country Marketing Lead - Learning & Development
**Location**:Brampton, ON***
**Reports to**:General Manager, Canada

**Position Overview**:
The Country Marketing Lead, Canada will manage the P&L for the Canadian Team and develop strategies to support the business while being an integral part of Canadian Leadership team. He/she will need to strategically utilize knowledge of the Canadian consumer and customers to develop the market’s profitability and ensure global strategies are executed locally, while elevating our go-to-market execution and activation for both short and long-term growth. He/she will need to maximize the sales potential and profitability of existing products as well as develop business plans to localize the global brand strategy.

The Country Marketing Lead, Canada will lead a cross functional team which includes country marketing, activation, category development and customer strategic planning. Focused on developing the go-to-market strategy, he/she will work with the sales teams to set joint business plans with retailers. He/she will work collaboratively with global teams to provide local insights to the global product funnel, pricing and promotional strategies.

**Key Responsibilities**:
This leader will be the Canadian local steward for the Global Brand Strategies and lead and develop a high performing team to develop and deliver strategic profitable growth plans:
Marketing & Activation:

- Localize Global Brand Strategy into relevant country category/customer plans
- Champion the best possible experience for the Canadian consumer by providing data driven insights/decisions regarding in-country SKU portfolio, pricing, innovation and activation
- Partner with global teams on the 3-year brand strategy (Canadian perspective)
- Manage Canadian P&L for Learning & Development segments, sharing responsibility for its performance with Canadian Leadership Team peers (Sales, Direct, Supply, Finance)
- Ensure monthly and yearly volume, net revenue and margin targets are met, closely monitoring the P&L and owning the financial latest estimate and production forecast
- Lead the development of local marketing activations through social, paid and customer channels - maximizing ROI
- Drive local product/category strategy and launch plans in collaboration with global direction, but giving local direction, including distribution priorities and pricing recommendations
- Support global and local brand initiatives through creative in-market activations

Category Development:

- Build and publish an annual Canadian category 101 centered around driving a customer/category 3-year strategy
- Elevate category leadership through category selling stories and providing strategic category recommendations to maximize customer engagements (Line Reviews, Joint Business Plans and Top to Tops)
- Provide a deep understanding of competitive landscape and opportunities by retail environment
- Produce actionable insights, suggest recommendations and influence the direction of the business by effectively communicating findings to cross-functional groups
- Form perspective on multi-channel purchasing behaviors (e.g., site to store, store to site, etc.)
- Monitor channel shifting and the associated trends reflected in the marketplace

Customer Strategic Planning:

- Share knowledge of customer/channel insights and perspective of the various channel dynamics on assigned categories and retailers
- Deliver local assortment strategies, which drive investment decisions and activation plans to methodically increase topline, bottom and market share
- Build in-store and dotcom requirements for successful go-to-market launches
- Partner cross-functionally to drive local strategies across the customer base - ensuring pricing and promotional principles are implemented and managed in the market
- Outline and deliver strategic growth plans by customer/channel annually, tracking progress and providing corrective actions as performance evolves

**Qualifications**:

- Bachelor’s Degree required, preferably in Marketing, Advertising or Business Administration; MBA preferred
- 15+ years strategic brand marketing/management experience required, at least 2 of which must be in a senior manager level role leading a high-performing team; evidence of consistent progression in responsibility required
- A CPG background is strongly preferred but would be open to non-traditional CPG experience
- Experience managing P&L and budget required
- First-hand experience of retailer engagement and developing exciting in-store experiences
- A demonstrated ability to take a wide view; must be able to create, execute and manage a sound marketing plan
- Ability to lead cross-functionally and influence up, down and across the business
- Adept at leveraging data analysis to generate business solutions
- Leadership capabilities to tactfully motivate and influence, while fostering strong relationships globally
- Deft presentation skills to share