Commercialization Manager

Winland Foods•Oak Brook, IL

4d•$93,000 - $138,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Commercialization Manager leads cross-functional teams from project definition through successful launch, connecting strategy to execution and ensuring projects remain on track. The role coordinates product innovations, reformulations, and graphic refreshes, including high-complexity projects involving direct customer engagement. It translates ideas and requirements into project plans, timelines, and deliverables; identifies risks and develops solutions; and supports process optimization, cost savings, and continuous improvement. The manager serves as a central point of coordination and accountability, facilitating communication, resolving conflicts, motivating teams, and supporting data-informed decisions. The position is hybrid: Fridays are remote, while Monday through Thursday are in the Oak Brook office.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required.
At least 2 years of experience leading cross-functional teams in a CPG or food manufacturing environment.
At least 5 years of commercialization, R&D, Supply Chain, or Operations experience.
Strong communication, facilitation, and influence skills.
Proven ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
Strong decision-making, conflict management, and communication skills.
Experience with Microsoft Project or similar tools.
Ability to manage multiple priorities, communicate clearly, influence without authority, work with data across multiple systems, and collaborate to solve problems and improve efficiency.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in Business, Project Management, Supply Chain, Operations, Food Science, or a related discipline.
Experience with SAP, PPM, and data visualization tools.
PMP certification.

Responsibilities

Lead commercialization projects through the established stage-gate process, ensuring deliverables, decisions, and approvals are completed at the appropriate milestones.
Develop integrated project plans that define scope, objectives, milestones, dependencies, deliverables, owners, and due dates.
Maintain a reliable single source of truth for project status, milestones, risks, decisions, and outstanding actions.
Coordinate activities across R&D, Operations, Supply Chain, Procurement, Packaging, Quality, Regulatory, Finance, Sales, Marketing, and other functional partners.
Provide visibility into risks affecting launch timing, customer commitments, cost, or execution, and develop contingency plans with cross-functional input.
Partner with operations and technical teams on plant trials, production qualifications, equipment or process requirements, capacity considerations, and manufacturing readiness.
Partner with business and functional leaders to support prioritization of commercial activities.
Motivate and influence cross-functional team members to achieve project deliverables.
Prepare concise, executive-ready updates summarizing project information, decisions, risks, and actions.
Manage commercialization projects across innovations, product reformulations, and graphic refreshes, from concept through launch.
Translate ideas and requirements into clear project plans, timelines, and deliverables.
Optimize processes, drive cost savings, and champion continuous improvement.
Use project and data tools to track progress, measure results, and support data-driven decisions.
Facilitate communication across teams and organizational levels to ensure alignment and transparency.