Sr Director Discover Lead, Snacking

Mars

94d • $190,607 - $262,088

About The Position

Mars Snacking is building an internal entrepreneurship engine to develop, incubate and scale the next big innovations in Snacking. This role leads the Discover Team, an agile front-end innovation unit focused on identifying and addressing priority consumer pain points. This leader will drive external partnerships to bring fresh ideas and capabilities into the organization, and partner with internal entrepreneurship pods to co-create marketable propositions in current and new categories. The role reports to the Global VP of Portfolio Strategy & Innovation and will have direct visibility to the One Demand Leadership Team.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Design or a related field.
• Minimum of 10+ years of experience in CPG innovation (preferably in Packaged Foods), with a strong track record of creating and commercializing new products, services, or business models.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional teams through the front end of innovation, from identifying insights and trends to concept development and early-stage validation.
• Experience working with or within entrepreneurial environments (e.g., startups, venture studios, incubators, or corporate innovation teams).
• Strong background in consumer research, human-centered design thinking and agile methodologies.
• Proven ability to build and manage external partnerships with startups, research institutions, and other innovation partners.
• Experience presenting to, inspiring and influencing senior executives and entrepreneurs.

Nice To Haves

• MBA or equivalent degree.

Responsibilities

• Lead and inspire a cross-functional innovation team (Marketing, Research, Design, Science & Tech) to address key consumer pain points, fostering a startup mindset for agility and experimentation.
• Own global Consumer Platforms, ensuring innovation starts with meaningful consumer problems, using design thinking and rapid experimentation.
• Transform consumer insights, snacking trends, and emerging technologies into high-potential business concepts, collaborating across internal and external teams to develop and iterate ideas.
• Partner with Intrapreneurs to co-create and refine propositions, communicate insights to senior leaders, and build a strong internal network to deliver solutions and key learnings.
• Build and maintain relationships with external collaborators (labs, universities, startups, consultancies) to enhance capabilities and accelerate innovation.
• Use technology, customer-buyer-regional connections and AI to monitor emerging trends and behaviors, enabling early recognition and fast-follow concept development.
• Track platform performance, align with enterprise strategy, and use KPIs to measure and improve innovation speed, efficiency, and value.

Benefits

• Best-in-class learning and development support from day one, including access to our in-house Mars University.
• An industry competitive salary and benefits package, including company bonus.
• Medical and dental benefits.
• Participation in 401k plan.
• Paid time off benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees