Senior Manager, Growth Unit

TreeHouse Foods • Oak Brook, IL

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a Senior Manager, Growth Unit to join our team based in Oak Brook, IL. The Senior Manager, Growth Unit is responsible for leading category business performance, delivering financial commitments, and translating Growth Unit strategy into clear annual plans, commercial priorities, and executable growth initiatives. This role serves as a category P&L owner and cross-functional business leader, partnering closely with Commercial, Finance, RDI, Supply Chain, Operations, Procurement, and Food Safety & Quality to deliver net sales, margin, service, innovation, productivity, and customer commitments. The Senior Manager will use category, customer, competitive, operational, and financial insights to define category ambition, identify value creation opportunities, prioritize initiatives, remove barriers, and ensure disciplined execution against the annual operating plan and long-term strategic plan. This role also develops talent, leads cross-functional category tables, and builds operating rhythms that improve accountability, speed, and decision quality across the business.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, Food Science, or a related field required
• 7+ years of progressive experience in business management, category management, commercial strategy, general management, finance, supply chain, or related roles required.
• Demonstrated experience managing business performance, financial targets, commercial plans, and cross-functional execution.
• Strong P&L, financial, analytical, and strategic thinking skills with the ability to translate insights into action.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams, influence without direct authority, and drive decisions in a matrixed environment.
• Strong communication, executive presence, problem-solving, and change leadership skills.
• Ability to manage complexity, prioritize competing needs, and deliver results in a fast-paced environment.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office and business analytics tools required

Nice To Haves

• MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• Experience in food, beverage, CPG, manufacturing, private label, or related industries preferred.
• experience with ERP, syndicated data, financial planning, or business intelligence tools preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own category business performance, including profitability, growth, operational priorities, and achievement against annual targets.
• Set and execute the category strategy, ambition, and growth plan aligned to enterprise and Growth Unit priorities.
• Translate category strategy into a prioritized pipeline of growth, productivity, pricing, portfolio, and customer initiatives.
• Analyze category data, customer needs, consumer trends, competitive activity, and operational performance to identify growth opportunities, defend market share, and improve margin.
• Define portfolio, pricing, bid, contract extension, and customer strategies in partnership with Commercial, Finance, and functional partners.
• Manage assigned category P&L performance, including net sales, gross margin, volume, pricing, mix, productivity, and operating assumptions.
• Lead target setting, budget guidance, annual operating plan inputs, forecast reviews, and business performance routines for assigned categories.
• Identify and close value gaps where margin erosion, service issues, cost pressures, capacity constraints, or execution risks are impacting performance.
• Partner with Finance to evaluate initiative economics, customer profitability, pricing actions, bid decisions, risks, opportunities, and trade-offs.
• Monitor results and develop contingency plans to ensure delivery of financial commitments.
• Lead category tables and cross-functional teams to establish priorities, drive accountability, resolve gaps, and deliver annual and strategic plans.
• Collaborate with Commercial, Operations, Planning, Procurement, Corporate Engineering, RDI, and Food Safety & Quality to execute initiatives, support capacity planning, and enable commercialization.
• Drive disciplined project execution by aligning scope, timelines, financial expectations, resource needs, risks, and customer commitments.
• Ensure strong communication across functional teams, so decisions, trade-offs, and escalations are timely, transparent, and action oriented.
• Identify opportunities to improve service, quality, cost, productivity, working capital, capacity utilization, SKU health, and portfolio effectiveness.
• Use business insights and performance metrics to simplify work, improve decision quality, and accelerate execution across the Growth Unit.
• Lead business reviews, initiative reviews, bid reviews, strategic planning discussions, and recurring operating rhythms for assigned categories.
• Drive adoption of consistent processes, tools, and governance that improve accountability and help the organization deliver with speed and discipline.
• Develop, coach, and manage direct reports and cross-functional partners to strengthen business ownership, commercial acumen, and execution capability.
• Build succession strength and create clear development plans for team members supporting assigned categories.
• Model TreeHouse Foods values by fostering accountability, collaboration, transparency, inclusion, and a continuous improvement mindset.
• Create clarity around priorities, decision rights, performance expectations, and measures of success.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and benefits program with no waiting period
• 401(k) program with 5% employer match and 100% vesting as soon as you enroll
• Comprehensive paid time off opportunities, including immediate access to four weeks of vacation, five sick days, parental leave and 11 company holidays (including two floating holidays)
• paid training, tuition reimbursement and a robust educational platform – DevelopU – with more than 10,000 free courses
• An inclusive working environment
• Opportunities to build on our team-oriented culture, such as joining one of our Employee Resource Groups
• Access to our wellness and employee assistance programs

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior