Vice President Media and Creative

Job description

***Have you ever enjoyed Arnold®, Brownberry® or Oroweat® bread? A Thomas’® English muffin or bagel? Or perhaps snacked on a Sara Lee®, Entenmann’s® or Marinela® cake or donut? If the answer is yes, then you know Bimbo Bakeries USA!*** ***More than 20,000 associates in bakeries, sales centers, offices and on sales routes work to ensure our consumers have the freshest products at every meal. In addition to competitive pay and benefits, we provide a safe and inclusive work environment that appreciates diversity, promotes development, and allows our associates to be their authentic selves.*** #LI-SO1 **Position Summary:** Bimbo Bakeries USA (BBU) is a leader in the baking industry, known for its category leading brands, innovative products, freshness, and quality. It is part of Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest baking company with operations in thirty-five countries. Grupo Bimbo is the seventh largest global food company. Not everyone is familiar with the Bimbo Bakeries USA name. However, everyone in the U.S. has enjoyed our many products. Some of our iconic brands and fresh products can trace their histories back to the late 1800s or early 1900s, when our traditions of freshness and value began. Bimbo Bakeries USA’s story started in 1994, when Grupo Bimbo purchased La Hacienda, a California-based tortilla company. The Company entered the U.S. bread market in 1997 with the acquisition of Pacific Pride Bakeries of San Diego. The company grew again in 1998 with the purchase of Mrs Baird’s Bakeries in Texas, which at the time was the largest family-owned bakery in the U.S. The combined operations were renamed Bimbo Bakeries USA. In 2002, BBU acquired the Western U.S. baking business of George Weston Ltd., adding such iconic premium brands as Oroweat®, Entenmann’s®, Thomas’® and Boboli®. In 2009, Grupo Bimbo purchased the remaining U.S. fresh baked goods business of George Weston Ltd., adding brands such as Arnold®, Brownberry®, Freihofer’s® and Stroehmann®. In 2011, BBU completed its largest acquisition to date: Sara Lee’s North American Fresh Bakery business. Adding Sara Lee’s bread business doubled BBU in size, enabling us to better deliver on our mission, vision, and values. Today, BBU operates more than 55 bakeries, employs more than 20,000 associates and distributes products through 12,000 sales routes throughout the United States **Key Job Responsibilities:** Reporting into the SVP of Marketing, the Bimbo Bakeries US Vice President of Media & Creative will be a dynamic, consumer-obsessed leader tasked with continuing the momentum against the marketing transformation journey we started in 2021. Specifically, this individual will oversee the development, implementation, and execution of full funnel media campaigns and leading-edge creative while managing a team of 30+ BBU associates, a cross-functional agency ecosystem, and measurement partners. The VP, Media & Creative will operate as a peer to BBU’s Category & Innovation leaders and drive the adoption of the marketing transformation vision that was established to enable the strategic vision for BBU’s portfolio of iconic brands. He/She will elevate the quality of consumer marketing within the company by providing strategic thought leadership and an enterprise-wide approach for marketing technical expertise across the media and creative landscape. Specifically, they will oversee a team of centralized subject matter experts across creative development, media planning, media buying, design, packaging graphics and social media strategy. This successful candidate will be charged with setting the bar for what world class marketing means in and outside of the company. The executive will measure the company's progress and identify issues and areas/opportunities to continue BBU’s momentum to go to the next level and develop the core fundamentals and plan necessary to achieve our transformation ambitions. **Specific responsibilities include the following**: - Continuously optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of BBU’s pull marketing investment and support the SVP of Marketing on brand-level investment across the portfolio. - Collaborate with the Omnichannel and RGM Leader on opportunities to balance short-term and long-term growth opportunities across the enterprise. - Build a culture of marketing innovation through creative effectiveness design and centralization and governance of a creative services team. - Ensure best-in-class brand assets are applied strategically across all consumer touchpoints. - Leverage Grupo Bimbo’s packaging design system best practices to ensure our products stand-out on shelf, and work with our pre-press partners to ensure our packaging meets our printing standards. - Strengthen paid, earned, shared, and owned social media strategy, execution, and measurement, including leveraging cultural agility. - Partner with our media agency of record to support brands in connections planning, flawless media execution, and joint business partnerships. - Oversee testing and adoption of new advanced analytics, marketing mix models and A/B testing environments. - The lead storyteller to evangelize BBU’s marketing value story throughout the organization. - Partner with BBU’s Category VPs as peers in developing and executing brand strategies, during annual planning, by providing ongoing insights and capability support and expertise. - Create and lead a team of marketing excellence professionals who serve to inspire and consult with the BBU community toward the creation of world class marketing initiatives. - Routine engagement in and contribution to Grupo Bimbo’s Global Marketing Leadership Team meetings (virtual + in-person). **Key Behavioral Competencies:** The ideal candidate will be both a Consumer-Packaged Goods Marketing expert with fundamentally sound marketing foundational skills as well as a thought leader in the dynamic evolution of marketing who has led and can lead breakthrough thinking and leadership in the new age of consumer marketing. The new VP Media & Creative will have a minimum of 15+ years of marketing experience in several dynamic and competitive categories and with several blue-chip companies recognized for consumer marketing prowess. The successful candidate will be a confident and highly experienced consumer leader with a track record of success who is eager to bring efficiency and standardization to BBU’s team to drive a high standard of marketing excellence across BBU’s business. At the same time, someone who has a proven track record of navigating change and developing vision carriers. This profile suggests that the new Vice President bring the following specific experience: - **Strong Functional Experience:** Proven, deep line brand management skills (in a relevant industry/category that demands speed and flexibility) and an outstanding marketer. A career path that clearly points to significant "business changing accomplishments." A track record around innovation and creativity in solving business problems. Broad experience in leading all aspects of the marketing mix (i.e., not limited to one area of subject matter excellence). Has effectively led external communication agencies to maximize business impact. - **Metrics-Driven:** Proven experience in identifying key business metrics and implementing a quantitative "dashboard" to evaluate performance against key measures. Enthusiastic about analytics, scenario planning, and tracking tools, as this executive will serve as a catalyst for creating an analytically oriented mindset for the entire BBU marketing organization. The ability to convert consumer insights and trend data into high impact marketing initiatives. - **Results-oriented:** Always focused on measuring results (e.g., ROI and related performance metrics) ensuring we extract the most value from BBU’s spend while balancing BBU’s short-term results with BBU’s long-term brand-building outcomes. - **Cross-Functional Collaboration/Alignment:** Can manage and influence a broad set of stakeholders, working collaboratively across departments to guide key cross-functional decisions. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated the ability to be seen as a key resource and partner to senior executives and line managers. He/she must have the ability to be a catalyst, shape thinking and gain support, influence others, handle rejections, build buy-in across the organization and positively manage conflict. He/she must be able to both drive and enroll the senior marketers to the frameworks, capabilities, and priorities he/she identifies, as well as deliver on needs identified/requested by the regions. - **Thought Leadership and Intellectual Curiosity:** The VP MTS will build and lead a team that is perceived internally and externally as providing best-in-class brand building direction and support for the BBU Category Teams. The desired outcome is for BBU to build stronger relationships/affinity between consumers and brands, thereby increasing brand health measures and accelerating revenue and profit growth. Value will be added by bringing innovative ideas, fresh approaches, and innovative technology to the table to be leveraged by the brand marketing teams. The individual must have the ability to assess the external environment, vision for the future, create capabilities and innovative approaches needed to win in an ever-changing world, and be a change agent to get those innovative approaches implemented across the organization. - **Team Orientation:** Given that the Media & Creative Team is a catalyst for change through the commercial/brand teams, they must be a true team player who establishes and fosters an approach to the business which stimulates effective communication, teamwork, and creativity in solving problems and identifying opportunities. This individual must proactively communicate and coordinate with members of the commercial teams and senior management in determining needs and requirements. - **A Superb Team Builder:** Known for building and leading high-performance teams, the successful candidate will have also shown the ability to prioritize and realign resources to best capitalize on strategy and market opportunities. - **People Development:** This team will be looked to for marketing inspiration around the (BBU) world, the vice president must build a world class team of talent. This will be accomplished by leading, motivating, and coaching the existing team, and selectively adding/upgrading the team, such that the Excellence group itself will be well positioned to cascade best practices throughout the global organization. Someone who also has a track record for growing future leaders. **Education and Work History:** - Bachelor's degree in marketing, or a related field *required* - a master's degree preferred. - 15 + years of relevant experience - minimum 5+ years of deep digital experience. - Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) experience is a plus. - Experience managing agencies across creative, packaging, digital, social, PR, and media. - Strong understanding of content production. - Experience co-creating with creators and influencers. - Experience with packaging design, aligned to best practices to stand out on the shelf. - Understanding of website functionality, architecture, user interfaces, and navigation to consult with brand teams when planning enhancements and launching new websites. - Ability and willingness to travel 25 – 30% of the time (US + Global). - The position is in office in Irving, Texas **Physical Demands:** The physical and mental demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an associate to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be requested to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. - Able to use a variety of communication methods frequently. - Use a notebook computer and standard office equipment printers, fax, phone etc. - Able to sit, stand, stoop and have use of hand motor coordination regularly. Bimbo Bakeries USA is an equal opportunity employer with a policy that provides equal employment opportunity for applicants and employees regardless of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, veteran status, any other classification protected by law. It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.