Retail Portfolio Manager

Job Description

The Hospitality Enablement group at Aramark includes several different teams – Retail Strategy & Brand Partnerships, Culinary & Menu Enablement, Operational Excellence, Safety & Risk Solutions, Brand & Creative Communications and the Business Resource Center. The teams work in close collaboration with our Line of Business partners and operate with a single mission – enabling our field operations and growth teams to be successful.

Through repeatable business models – and the ability to address unique situations with creative problem solving – we offer subject matter expertise and resources that contribute to delivering profitable growth in the areas of building base business, winning new business, and retaining current business by providing concepts, programs, products and processes for line of business stakeholders.

Job Responsibilities

In this role, you’ll be a key member of the Retail Strategy & Brand Partnerships Team within the larger Hospitality Enablement Group. The Retail Portfolio Manager will be responsible for supporting field teams in the assessment of overall retail portfolio performance and the identification of concept opportunities that address customer expectations and unique client location needs, as well as becoming a subject matter expert on the tools and resources that drive these efforts. The role must be familiar with both our Aramark-owned portfolio of Proprietary Brands – and the critical role they play in our overall brand offering – as well as our market-leading portfolio of 3rd Party partners that provide locations access to nationally recognized concepts.

In addition to understanding current retail concepts in Aramark’s portfolio, when working on brand placement strategies it will be important to keep the pulse on market trends and emerging concepts. The role will support sourcing, contracting, training, and fostering relationships with new partners. This includes communicating the brand position, non-traditional offering and program value to internal teams. The Retail Portfolio Manager will understand and participate in the administrative process by which brands are identified, requested and approved via the Brand Dashboard & Activation Portal.

This position will employ a customer-centric approach to working with various lines-of-business and key functional groups to understand unique challenges, focus on key priorities, present data-driven recommendations and collaborate on final solutions. While Collegiate Hospitality accounts for the majority of retail portfolio work to date, other lines of business are also accounted for including Workplace Experience, Healthcare and Destinations to name a few.

The Manager will need the capacity to build relationships with both internal (operations, marketing, growth, legal, finance) and external (clients, brand partners) stakeholders while providing the highest level of customer service to our field-based account teams. The position requires strong business acumen and an ability to clearly communicate opportunities and recommendations with supporting data and market knowledge.

Qualifications

• Portfolio Management: Understand details of Aramark-owned Proprietary Brands, 3rd Party Brand Partnerships and Agreement Types, as well as the role each plays in the portfolio. Contribute to the development of key retail program resources such as the retail portfolio snapshot, category financial summary, new partner highlights / positioning, partner and process case studies and brand news communications.
• Retail Assessment Deployment & Execution Support: Participate in the development and management of the Retail Assessment / Retail Optimized Campus (ROC) project pipeline, schedule and field communications. Support all phases of the ROC process in collaboration with Enterprise, LOB and field teams to ensure timely and efficient execution
• Retail Assessment Tool Development / Enhancement: Understand the ROC process, tools and application. Contribute to account assessment tool improvements, including the adaptation of Collegiate Hospitality-focused resources in support of Healthcare, Senior Life and Workplace Experience. Own the 3rd Party ROC tool and champion ongoing development / evolution in support of Collegiate Hospitality needs – including evaluating if ROC tool administration can eventually be brought in-house. Collaborate with LOB marketing and finance to more directly include footprint mapping and the financial implications of suggested retail updates and modifications within the process.
• Retail Optimized Campus Subject Matter Expertise: Partner with the Director, Retail Brand Placement & Emerging Partnerships to become a subject matter expert in conducting a Collegiate Hospitality Retail Optimized Campus project from start to finish