Commercialization Manager

Shearer's is a leading contract manufacturer and private label supplier in the snack industry in North America. Headquartered in Massillon, Ohio, Shearer's has 17 state-of-the-art, geographically diverse manufacturing facilities in Ohio, Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Iowa, Ontario and Alberta, Canada, including one of the industry's first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum LEED certified facilities in Massillon, Ohio. The Company is known for producing the highest quality snacks in assorted flavors and sizes, including kettle cooked potato chips, traditional potato chips, tortilla chips, cheese curls and other extruded snacks, and corn chips, as well as cookies, crackers, and wafers.

 

COMMERCIALIZATION MANAGER

Massillon, Ohio (Hybrid) 

 

The Commercialization Manager is responsible for leading customer centric product management initiatives and supporting customer business plans across an account portfolio.  The Commercialization Manager’s account portfolio will mainly include Core and/or Co-Man level accounts with the possibility of several Transactional customer accounts. Specifically, Commercialization Managers are accountable for the following:

Project Management/Stage Gate:

• Lead Life Cycle Management (LCM) / Stage Gate process for all assigned projects
• Commercialize business opportunities through a well-executed and timely Stage Gate and product launch process to meet revenue and profit targets while providing best-in-class service to our customers
• Manage priorities to realize Shearer’s Operating Plan Commitment (OPC) and support the execution of Shearer’s sales strategy

• Lead cross-functional project teams including Sales, Finance, Research & Development (R&D), Quality, Technical Processing and Packaging, Procurement, Manufacturing, Operations, and Supply Chain to drive projects forward in a collaborative environment
• Communicate project status to stakeholders and team members regularly, highlighting risks and ensuring mitigation plans and solutions are implemented

• Ensure 100% accurate part set ups by meeting internal (Shearer’s Stakeholders) and external (Customer & Supplier) partner specifications and product requirements
• Promote seamless project execution and handoffs by partnering with Supply Chain, Procurement, and Manufacturing to ensure case fill rate (CFR) goals are achieved
• Facilitate communication between Shearer’s, customers, and external supplier partners as needed for project execution

 

Product & Packaging Management:

• Partner with Quality and Regulatory to ensure compliance with customer product and packaging standards
• Engage with R&D and Technical Teams as the voice of customer to protect the integrity of the product and packaging; assist in scale up of products from prototype to full production

• Work with customers and external suppliers to solve challenges, overcome barriers, responsibly use resources, and contribute to Shearer’s commitment to continuous improvement
• Support plant trials, as required ensuring both Shearer’s and customer’s product, process, and cost goals are met

• Demonstrate strong working knowledge of industry, products, packaging, production lines, and the processes necessary to commercialize products across Shearer’s manufacturing network

• Manage and approve active product changes
• Coordinate product end of life obsolescence by monitoring in market performance including developing raw material liquidation plans
• Partner with Finance and Operations to identify and execute product and process standardization opportunities including SKU rationalization

 

Leadership & Customer Business Planning:

• Partner with Business Managers, R&D and Category Management to develop new business opportunities and customer assortment recommendations to realize Shearer’s revenue and EBITDA objectives

• Vet ideas and opportunities through the Stage Gate process; analyze and evaluate interdependencies with other active projects and Shearer’s current products and capabilities
• Serve as project lead to ensure cross-functional team members understand and work toward accomplishing the business vision, goals and objectives of the customer’s business plan

• Provide technical sales support to Business Managers

• Support creation of pricing models and quotes by coordinating inputs from cross functional teams and suppliers

• Attend select customer meetings with Business Manager to present innovation recommendations and project updates
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