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Mars

Global confectionery, food, and petcare company

Portfolio Health & Optimization Manager

Corporate StrategyUpdated on Nov 2
Full-timeChicago, IL, USA

About the Job

Requirements

  • A bachelor's degree in marketing, business, strategy, finance, or a related field is required; an MBA is preferred.
  • At least 4 years of progressive experience in consumer packaged goods, ideally in portfolio strategy, brand management, category management, strategic planning, or finance/revenue growth management.
  • Strong strategic and analytical capabilities, including the ability to translate complex consumer, market, financial, and portfolio data into clear business recommendations.
  • Experience assessing portfolio performance, innovation pipelines, assortment productivity, or long-term growth plans.
  • Strong Excel and presentation skills.
  • Previous forecasting experience.
  • Ability to influence and align stakeholders across highly cross-functional, matrixed organizations, and comfort working with senior leadership.
  • Curiosity and a forward-looking approach, including the ability to challenge assumptions and connect portfolio choices with growth ambitions.
  • Ability to navigate ambiguity and balance consumer opportunity, business performance, strategic priorities, and operational considerations.

Responsibilities

  • Lead portfolio inputs into long-term planning by translating enterprise growth ambitions into clear portfolio actions, opportunities, and risks.
  • Assess the future portfolio against strategic growth objectives and identify where shifts in portfolio mix, innovation, assortment, or investment may be required.
  • Integrate consumer, category, competitive, brand, financial, and operational perspectives to develop a holistic view of future portfolio health.
  • Identify emerging portfolio gaps and opportunities and translate them into actionable recommendations for long-term portfolio evolution.
  • Define clear measures of portfolio health and monitor progress against long-term strategic ambitions.
  • Evaluate innovation against identified portfolio gaps and strategic growth spaces to determine where additional innovation or intervention may be required.
  • Partner with brand teams, insights, finance, research and development, and other cross-functional teams to connect innovation plans with future portfolio needs.
  • Evaluate innovation performance and translate learnings into recommendations that strengthen future pipeline decisions.
  • Provide a portfolio-level perspective to identify potential gaps, overlaps, or imbalances across brands, segments, growth spaces, and innovation horizons.
  • Lead ongoing assessment of portfolio and assortment health, including stock-keeping unit rationalization, to identify opportunities to strengthen productivity, relevance, profitability, and sustainable growth.
  • Analyze portfolio performance, gaps, duplication, fragmentation, underperforming stock-keeping units, and opportunities to scale larger parts of the portfolio.
  • Work with cross-functional teams to assess the strategic role of products within the broader portfolio, balancing consumer and shopper needs, brand strategies, financial performance, and operational complexity.
  • Drive a consistent approach for evaluating portfolio additions and exits to ensure assortment choices strengthen the overall portfolio rather than add unnecessary complexity.
  • Create clear portfolio narratives and recommendations for senior leadership to support strategic prioritization and decision-making.
  • Establish consistent portfolio health reviews connecting long-term ambition, innovation sufficiency, current assortment performance, and future portfolio actions.
  • Act as a strategic connector across functions, ensuring portfolio decisions are fact-based and aligned to long-term confectionery objectives.

Desired Qualifications

  • An MBA degree.
  • Experience in consumer packaged goods, ideally across portfolio strategy, brand management, category management, strategic planning, or finance/revenue growth management.

About the Company

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Mars

Global confectionery, food, and petcare company

Mars makes confectionery, food, and petcare products and also operates pet health services through networks like Banfield, VCA, BluePearl, and Royal Canin. Its products are marketed under familiar brands such as M&M’s, Snickers, Milky Way, Skittles, Dove, Orbit, Pedigree, Royal Canin, Whiskas, and Cocoavia, sold globally to consumers and pet owners. The company differs from competitors by combining a broad, diversified portfolio with a global, family-owned structure guided by the Mars Principles (Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency, Freedom), which drives its operations and partnerships. Mars aims to help communities prosper and to grow its business while improving social and environmental outcomes, using its scale to support responsible practices across the world.

Company size
10,001+
Company stage
Debt Financing
Total funding
$27B
Headquarters
McLean, VA
Founded
1911

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