Manager, Trade Finance

Job description

### BUILT ON FLAVOR. FUELED BY PEOPLE. What’s it like to work at Kinder’s? Well, there’s a lot of snacking and geeking out over what we all cooked over the weekend. Beyond that, there’s also plenty of hard work. Because we don’t just like flavor, we’re obsessed with it. With over 100 products sold nationwide, we’re now a top-five brand in multiple flavor categories at Costco, Walmart, Whole Foods, and more. We’re not your typical CPG company. Privately held and founder-led, we like to think of ourselves as a pirate ship in a sea of cruise ships. Our crew is adventurous and fearless. We chart our own course and chase big ideas to make food unforgettable. As we expand globally and approach $1 billion in revenue, we need more smart-and-scrappy, flavor-obsessed people to come aboard. If you’re looking for a place where you can see the real impact of your work... **this is it!** Every day, you’ll be part of a journey to add flavor to millions of meals and lives. ### About the Role The Manager, Trade Finance will serve as the primary partner to the Director of Trade Finance, driving the day-to-day accuracy, analysis, and reporting behind Kinder’s trade investment. This role will partner closely with Sales, Sales Operations, Accounting, Customer Finance, and Sales Strategy & Planning to bring more rigor and visibility to how promotional dollars are spent and what they return. This is a highly analytical, technically demanding, builder-oriented role for someone who can operate with real ownership in a function that is still being stood up. Advanced technical and data management skills are core to this role, not a nice-to-have — you’ll be the one building and maintaining the reporting and automation infrastructure this function runs on. You’ll manage trade accrual and reporting and build promotional ROI analysis, helping the organization make sharper decisions even when the available information is incomplete. The ideal candidate combines technical expertise, financial rigor, business judgment, and the ability to communicate effectively with both financial and nonfinancial partners — and is comfortable being one of the first people to build a process rather than inheriting one. ### What You’ll Do #### **Reporting, Automation & Data Management** - Own the analytics and reporting architecture for trade — dashboards, automated reports, and sales-facing communications — as the volume and complexity of that data grows. - Build and maintain scalable, automated tools using advanced Excel, Power Query, Power BI, VBA, and approved AI-enabled tools to reduce manual effort and improve accuracy. - Extract, transform, reconcile, and load data from the TPM system, syndicated data, and other sources into a single, reliable reporting source. - Set the technical standard for how trade data is structured, validated, and maintained; identify and fix data-quality issues at the source rather than working around them. #### **Process Improvement & Cross-Functional Enablement** - Collaborate with adjacent functions — Sales, Sales Operations, Customer Finance, and Sales Strategy & Planning — to simplify workflows and develop scalable reporting solutions. - Identify and implement enhancements that improve reporting accuracy, efficiency, and usability across trade processes. - Train cross-functional partners on trade processes, reporting tools, and relevant financial concepts. - Help establish consistent processes and best practices as Kinder’s trade finance capabilities continue to be built out. #### **Trade Accrual, Reporting & Controls** - Own the monthly trade accrual process, including true-up against actuals, in partnership with Accounting/FP&A. - Build and publish the monthly trade performance reporting package: spend vs. plan, ROI scorecards, and driver commentary. - Monitor spend-rate tracking vs. plan/budget by customer and channel; investigate variances and communicate risks and opportunities. - Maintain a clean, auditable trail from promo plan through accrual, actual spend, and deduction; support audit and year-end true-up processes. #### **Trade & Promo ROI Analysis** - Build and maintain baseline vs. incremental volume models by customer, channel, and event. - Calculate ROI by promotional event, customer, and brand/SKU; produce pre-event projections and post-event scorecards. - Maintain the shared library of ROI benchmarks by promo types and translate findings into optimization recommendations for Sales. - Partner with the Senior Manager to identify underperforming programs and bring specific, actionable recommendations to Sales. #### **Trade Optimization, Guardrails & Planning Support** - Support development and maintenance of trade rate guardrails by customer tier. - Support development of promo lift/volume guidelines that Sales Planning uses to build the promo calendar. - Build scenario models for trade rate proposals, price-increase trade-offs, and mechanic mix shifts. - Support broker/distributor settlement validation and help resolve deduction and settlement disputes. #### **Retailer Compliance & Cross-Functional Partnership** - Support monitoring of pricing and promotional execution against contracted retailer terms. - Partner with Sales Operations on trade promotion management (TPM) system data quality to ensure accurate accrual and ROI reporting. - Partner with Customer Finance to reconcile the trade spend view by customer each month. ### Required Qualifications - Five or more years of experience in trade finance, sales finance, commercial finance, revenue management, or a related analytical role, ideally within CPG. - Advanced expertise in Excel, Power Query, and Power BI, with hands-on experience building and maintaining VBA-based automation — comfortable owning a full reporting and data pipeline end-to-end, not just building individual reports. - Experience extracting, transforming, and reconciling data across multiple systems (e.g., TPM, ERP, syndicated data) into a single reliable reporting source. - Demonstrated experience owning a trade or promotional finance process end-to-end — building it, not just running it — with minimal oversight. - Comfort setting and enforcing financial guardrails that Sales must work within, including the ability to hold a position under pushback. - Demonstrated experience building baseline/incremental volume models and calculating promotional ROI. - Ability to organize, reconcile, and analyze large datasets from multiple sources. - Understanding of financial reporting, forecasting, accruals, and variance analysis. - Demonstrated ability to translate complex analysis into clear, practical recommendations for nonfinancial audiences. - Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting findings or training cross-functional partners. - Ability to manage multiple priorities, adapt to changing business needs, and exercise sound judgment in an evolving environment. - Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and commitment to following work through to completion. - A collaborative, service-oriented approach and the ability to build effective relationships across functions. - Curiosity and willingness to use automation and approved AI-enabled tools responsibly to improve productivity and analytical capabilities. ### Preferred Qualifications - Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, economics, business, data analytics, or a related field—or equivalent relevant work experience. - Experience in the consumer packaged goods industry. - Experience with trade-promotion management, enterprise resource planning, or financial planning and reporting systems. - Experience developing or maintaining VBA-based automation. - Familiarity with trade deductions, customer programs, and retailer promotional activity. - Experience in a growing or private-equity-backed CPG company building financial processes from scratch. - Experience with SQL or database querying, and building Power BI data models (DAX) rather than report-level visuals only. ### **Location and Travel** The position will be based onsite in Walnut Creek, CA. We strongly believe in the power of culture and community and have a hybrid work structure with 4 days in the office on a weekly basis to encourage collaboration and personal connections that will allow us to better serve our customers and consumer and to have more fun. Fridays are flex days with employees having the opportunity to choose to be either in the office or to work from home based on what makes most sense for them. ### **Pay Transparency** The expected starting salary range for this role is $135,000- $155,000 per year. The salary range posted for this role reflects the good-faith base pay range Kinder’s reasonably expects to offer at the time of posting and may vary based on the location of the role. Individual compensation within the posted range will be determined based on factors such as relevant education, experience, qualifications, skills, and business needs. ### SEASONED FOR SUCCESS: - No two days here are the same. - We try to be good team members and good communicators, but we don’t live by hierarchy and structure – everyone is a difference maker here. - We make a lot of decisions in the face of incomplete information – our team embraces ambiguity and tries to make good decisions fast rather than great decisions slow. - We believe our job is to take smart risk, not to eliminate risk. - We believe in growing our skills and becoming a better company with more managerial expertise, but we are an entrepreneurial company at heart. - We aren’t trying to be average – we want to do exceptional things, and we are willing to work hard to achieve them. ### BENEFITS THAT BRING MORE TO THE TABLE: We offer a range of total rewards that may include paid time off, 401k, bonus / incentive eligibility, equity grants, competitive health benefits, and other family-friendly benefits, including parental leave. Kinder’s benefits vary based on eligibility and can be reviewed in more detail during the interview process. ### OUR RECIPE FOR BALANCE: We believe great culture starts with people. We’re a people-first company built on connection, collaboration, and balance. Most of our work happens in the office to spark creativity and community, but we also offer flexibility so team members have the autonomy to work outside the office when needed to support their work-life balance and personal commitments. ### WHERE EVERY INGREDIENT MATTERS: Kinder's is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, gender, citizenship, marital status, religion, age, disability, gender identity, results of genetic testing, veteran status, as well as any other legally-protected characteristic. If you have a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act or similar law, and you need any accommodation during the application process or to perform these job requirements, please reach out to us at [careers@kinders.com](mailto:careers@kinders.com)