M

Mars

Global confectionery, food, and petcare company

Value Creation Business Partner

Corporate Finance & FP&AConfirmed live in the last 24 hours
Full-timeChicago, IL, USAHybrid

About the Job

Requirements

  • 10+ years of progressive Finance experience, ideally with significant experience in cost transformation, productivity, value creation, or performance improvement.
  • Demonstrated experience across the Directs ecosystem, encompassing direct materials procurement finance, raw and packaging materials, R&D/formulation optimization, Design-to-Value, and Bill of Materials cost architecture.
  • Substantial background in Consumer Packaged Goods, Food & Beverage, or FMCG manufacturing environments where recipe, packaging, and factory conversion are central to cost structures.
  • Demonstrated experience translating operational productivity opportunities into validated, sustainable financial savings, with a strong understanding of manufacturing cost drivers and the ability to distinguish structural savings from volume, mix, inflation, foreign exchange, and other financial effects.
  • Strong grasp of recipe costing, ingredient functionality trade-offs, packaging specifications, yield and scrap dynamics, and conversion economics.
  • Familiarity with teardowns, Design-to-Value principles, clean-sheet pricing, and supplier margin analysis.
  • High proficiency in complex business cases, discounted cash flows, switchover investment paybacks, and synergy stage-gate tracking.
  • Deep understanding of cost of goods sold, standard costing variance including purchase price variance and usage variance, profit-and-loss flow-through, and inventory valuation.
  • Ability to distill large datasets across enterprise resource planning systems and bills of materials into clear financial drivers and actionable business decisions.
  • Ability to probe assumptions made by procurement buyers and technical developers and ensure targets are robust.
  • Ability to operate in dynamic integration environments while balancing strategic vision with granular operational execution.
  • Ability to influence and mobilize cross-functional global partners without direct authority.
  • Ability to communicate technical and financial complexities clearly to senior executive audiences.

Responsibilities

  • Act as the primary Finance Business Partner to the global Spend Better program.
  • Partner with the Spend Better team to translate overall synergy ambition into an actionable, prioritized portfolio of initiatives across commercial directs, including strategic sourcing, supplier terms, and clean-sheet costing, and technical or operational directs, including recipe reformulations, ingredient harmonization, specification optimization, lightweighting, and scrap or yield improvement.
  • Drive urgency, accountability, and transparency across the global program.
  • Challenge the organization to identify additional opportunities and accelerate delivery.
  • Establish a consistent global approach to identifying, quantifying, and tracking value creation.
  • Partner with Supply Chain, Manufacturing, R&D, Procurement, Marketing, and other functions to identify cost-reduction and productivity opportunities.
  • Assess opportunities using financial and operational analysis, including cost drivers, baseline economics, implementation requirements, and risks.
  • Translate formulation changes, packaging redesign, manufacturing productivity, logistics optimization, and Design-to-Value initiatives into measurable financial outcomes.
  • Champion Design-to-Value and total cost of ownership frameworks, converting technical and operational proposals into verified financial value.
  • Stress-test business cases to ensure reported savings represent economic value rather than timing, volume, mix, or accounting effects.
  • Help teams prioritize initiatives based on value, feasibility, speed, and sustainability.
  • Define and embed methodologies for establishing baselines, calculating savings, and measuring financial impact.
  • Distinguish identified, validated, implemented, and realized savings.
  • Ensure initiatives are reflected appropriately in financial forecasts and actual results.
  • Partner with regional and functional Finance teams to reconcile initiative-level savings to profit and loss and other financial measures.
  • Identify gaps between operational savings claims and financial outcomes and drive resolution.
  • Establish mechanisms to prevent double counting and ensure clear ownership of benefits.
  • Develop a fact-based view of Spend Better performance across regions, functions, and initiatives.
  • Build dashboards and management routines that highlight delivery versus ambition, risks, opportunities, and required interventions.
  • Provide analysis to senior leadership and governance forums.
  • Surface emerging risks early and work with initiative owners to develop recovery plans.
  • Prepare financial and business insights for SteerCo and other senior leadership discussions.
  • Work with Finance Business Partners across regions and functions to align global program governance with local execution.
  • Build relationships with senior stakeholders across Supply Chain, Procurement, R&D, Manufacturing, Marketing, and Finance.
  • Influence without direct authority and drive consistency across a matrixed organization.
  • Share best practices and replicate successful value-creation initiatives across markets and categories.

Desired Qualifications

  • Experience operating in large, complex, multinational organizations.

About the Company

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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