Commercial Operations Lead

Job Title: Home Care UKI Commercial Operations Lead

Work Level: WL2C

Location: Kingston, Unilever Sunlight House

ABOUT HOMECARE

Home Care UKI sits at the heart of Unilever’s purpose to make every home a better world and every world a better home. Guided by the Clean Future ambition, the business is reimagining Home Care through superior products, bold innovation, purposeful renovation and a lower environmental footprint. Home Care UK&I is a dynamic and fast-paced market where consumer understanding, brand building, category strategy and commercial excellence need to come together to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. The team works across some of the UK and Ireland’s most loved Home Care brands, with a clear focus on innovation, executional excellence and long-term value creation.

Commercial Operations is critical to navigating this complexity. The role will provide senior leadership across performance management, commercial decision-making and organisational capability, working across Commercial, Customer Development, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain and Demand Planning.

ROLE PURPOSE

Lead the Home Care UKI Commercial Operations agenda to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. As the strategic performance partner to the Home Care UKI Commercial Lead, the role sets direction for performance governance and integrated commercial planning; converts customer, channel and financial insights into clear choices; and builds the organisation, capability and talent required for consistent execution.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the Home Care UKI commercial performance agenda across turnover, market share, underlying sales growth, gross margin, trade investment and key delivery risks.

• Lead performance governance and integrated planning, ensuring a single, reliable view of results, forecasts, risks, opportunities and corrective actions.

• Partner with Customer Development, Finance and Demand Planning to strengthen forecast accuracy, in-month delivery and timely intervention when performance is off track.

• Translate customer, channel, category, consumer and financial insights into clear strategic choices, resource priorities and recommendations for the Home Care UKI Commercial Lead and senior leadership team.

• Align Commercial, Customer Development, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, R&D and Demand Planning on the priorities and trade-offs that create the greatest value.

• Represent Commercial Operations in senior cross-functional forums and lead the resolution of complex commercial issues.

• Lead the Commercial Operations organisation, with accountability for team performance, engagement, capability and succession.

• Define and deliver the commercial capability roadmap, establishing clear decision rights, governance, tools and ways of working that improve execution and reduce complexity.

• Coach and develop WL2 and WL1 talent, strengthening succession depth and organisational resilience.

• Build a culture of accountability, commercial discipline, constructive challenge and continuous improvement, leading change through ambiguity while maintaining focus on the priorities that matter most.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

• Delivery against agreed turnover, market share, underlying sales growth and gross margin targets.
• Forecast accuracy, in-month delivery and speed of corrective action.
• Quality and speed of commercial decisions and cross-functional alignment.
• Adoption and effectiveness of commercial governance, tools and decision standards.
• Strength of team performance, critical-role succession and commercial capability across the business.

ALL ABOUT YOU

Essential Experience

• Experience in Customer Development, Commercial Operations, Category Strategy or Customer Business Management within a complex consumer goods environment.
• Strong commercial leadership experience with direct exposure to P&L management, performance governance and value creation.
• Proven ability to use customer, channel and financial insights to shape commercial priorities and decisions.
• Proven track record of influencing senior stakeholders and leading cross-functional commercial decisions.
• Experience leading teams, developing talent and building capability in a fast-paced matrix organisation.

Desirable Experience

• Strong understanding of the UK customer, channel and category landscape.
• Knowledge of, or experience in, Net Revenue Management, including pricing, promotion, mix, trade investment and profitability.
• Experience leading commercial transformation, new governance models or capability programmes.

Skills and Capabilities

• Strategic commercial leadership and business partnering.
• Strong analytical judgement and ability to convert complex insight into clear decisions.
• Strong P&L understanding and performance management discipline.
• Senior stakeholder influence, communication and cross-functional leadership.
• Organisation development, coaching and talent building.
• Change leadership, simplification and bias for action.

Leadership Behaviours

• Care Deeply
• Focus on What Counts
• 3 Steps Ahead
• Deliver with Excellence

WHAT WE OFFER

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all. 

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities and growing together for better business performance. We embrace diversity in our workforce. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. We are also more than happy to provide reasonable adjustments during our application and interview process to enable you to be present your best self. To find out more, including about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (unilever.com).

RECRUITMENT FRAUD

Cyber criminals advertise fake job adverts with prestigious employers as a way of stealing information or even defrauding individuals out of money. In the most sophisticated cases, they will set up fake websites, which have a similar address to companies like Unilever. They even conduct fake telephone interviews and then offer candidates a role with the proviso they pay a fee for background checks or to cover work visa costs.  These types of attacks are becoming more common as more people are looking for employment in the economic climate.

How is Unilever tackling this?

Many of Unilever’s recruitment sites publish a warning to candidates about recruitment fraud. The Cyber Security team also proactively scan for signs of people setting up fake Unilever sites and act to close them down.

What can I do?

If you become aware of potential recruitment fraud, spot fake Unilever recruitment adverts or fake LinkedIn profiles, report them via Una Live Chat.

Unilever does not accept responsibility or liability for any candidates who are financially impacted by recruitment fraud. Your vigilance is key!