Manager, Premiums, Licensing, And Customer Quality
About The Position
Leads quality and safety programs for premiums and licensed products (merchandise and food), ensuring regulatory compliance, protecting brand integrity, and minimizing business risk. Serves as the central customer quality interface, providing technical expertise and issue resolution to support strong customer relationships. This is an in-office role based in our Battle Creek, Michigan Corporate Headquarters. 15–20% travel required, including international supplier and manufacturing site visits. Combination of office and manufacturing environments. Ability to support global programs across time zones and respond to urgent quality or safety issues as needed.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in a technical field (e.g., Chemistry, Packaging Engineering, Food Science) or equivalent experience.
- 7–10+ years of experience in quality, supplier management, product safety, or related technical field.
- Demonstrated experience in: Supplier qualification and quality systems, Product safety testing and compliance, Root cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions.
- Strong understanding of: Consumer goods manufacturing (e.g., food, toys, apparel, packaging), Global regulatory and safety requirements.
Nice To Haves
- Experience with premiums, licensing, or promotional products.
- Exposure to global manufacturing and supplier networks.
- Customer Focus, technical judgment in product safety and quality, risk assessment and decision-making, cross-functional influence without direct authority, regulatory interpretation and application, problem-solving and root cause analysis, effective stakeholder communication.
Responsibilities
- Own and lead global quality and safety programs for premiums and licensed products across all markets.
- Ensure consistent application of WK Kellogg standards and regulatory requirements.
- Primary point of contact for quality-related Customer complaints and document requests.
- Lead hazard identification, risk assessment, and mitigation strategies for premium products.
- Safeguard against product recalls and regulatory non-compliance through proactive risk management.
- Approve suppliers, manufacturing specifications, and testing protocols.
- Design and oversee laboratory testing programs to validate product safety and quality.
- Monitor results and ensure adherence to global regulatory and internal standards.
- Lead root cause analysis and corrective/preventive actions for quality and safety issues.
- Develop science-based solutions to drive continuous improvement and reduce risk.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for customer quality inquiries related to premiums and licensing.
- Responsible for managing documentation repository for Customers.
- Provide technical guidance to support resolution of issues impacting customer relationships and brand reputation.
- Triage customer quality requests and provide timely, appropriate responses.
- Manage safety testing budgets associated with promotional activities (approximately $50K - $100K annually).
Benefits
- Incentive Plan bonus eligibility
- Health, dental and vision insurance
- Savings and Investment Plan with Company match and contribution
- Paid Time Off (includes paid sick time)
- 11 Paid Holidays
- Life Insurance, AD and D Insurance and STD/LTD
- Tuition reimbursement
- Adoption assistance for eligible employees
- Employee recognition program
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
