Director of Commercial Strategy and Continuous Improvement

A Place Where People Matter. 

Start your career journey with Univar Solutions!  Here you can make an impact on the world around you and accelerate your career in areas that energize and excite you. 

 

 

The Director of Commercial Strategy and Continuous Improvement serves as a central architect of Univar Solutions’ mid- to long-term growth agenda within the Ingredients + Specialties (I+S) business. This role focuses on identifying, shaping, and accelerating the initiatives that will fundamentally change the trajectory of the business—including go-to-market evolution, market expansion, commercial capability development, and portfolio transformation. 

 
Operating as a conductor of a broad growth ‘orchestra,’ this role brings together commercial, product, marketing, operations, and external partners to align around a cohesive set of strategic priorities. While business leaders remain focused on running the current business, this role ensures the organization is continuously building the next wave of growth with rigor and focus. 

 
The role owns a portfolio of forward-looking initiatives—defining opportunities, building business cases, and mobilizing cross-functional teams to deliver. Success requires moving seamlessly between strategy and execution while maintaining momentum across multiple initiatives. 

 
Reporting to the SVP, Growth, Innovation & Strategy, the role sits at the center of the I+S growth agenda. The ideal candidate combines analytical rigor with strong commercial instincts and the ability to influence across a complex organization. 

 

 

Growth & Commercial Strategy (Primary Focus) 

 

• Identify, prioritize, and shape mid- to long-term commercial growth opportunities across the I+S portfolio, including pricing optimization, customer segmentation, channel mix, private label strategy, cross-sell/upsell, and supplier partnership expansion 

• Own a dynamic portfolio of forward-looking growth and transformation initiatives end-to-end, managing scope, schedule, budget, risk, and interdependencies through structured PMO governance 

• Develop enterprise-grade business cases that frame strategic choices and quantify value creation including ROI, risk assessment, and change readiness for each initiative. Develop hypotheses and build plans based on performance drivers, whitespace, and wallet share expansion – with particular focus on complex decisions involving multiple teams with downline P&L impacts. 

• Build and pressure-test business cases for growth initiatives, specifying value accelerators, investment requirements, management plans and how/where outcomes will hit the I+S P&L 

• Partner with commercial, product, marketing, and FP&A leadership to evolve go-to-market models, product leadership, and commercial operations to design and implement commercial process improvements  

• Develop forward-looking, data-driven frameworks for customer and product profitability analysis across specialty verticals, informing resource allocation and strategic prioritization 

• Identify where advanced analytics, AI, and digital capabilities can accelerate growth 

 

Continuous Improvement & Operations   

 

• Map current-state business processes with emphasis on decision quality, cost-to-serve, and operational bottlenecks across the value chain 

• Lead cross-functional teams to design future-state operating models that integrate people, process, and enterprise technology 

• Estimate financial value and operational impact of cost and efficiency initiatives, clearly linking outcomes to EBITDA bridge and value tracking 

• Plan change management activities required for value capture, including communications, training, and technology cutovers, working alongside business/functional owners in their execution 

• Flex across supply chain, procurement, logistics, or SG&A work streams as priorities shift 

 

Program Management & Executi