Kraft Heinz - Chicago, IL
posted 3 months ago
The Kraft Heinz Company is seeking a Lead, Supply Chain Development to join our innovative team at the Kraft Heinz Not Company, a joint venture focused on creating superior plant-based products. This role is pivotal in leading technical and supply chain readiness to support commercialization activities. The successful candidate will apply various tools to prepare the supply chain and manufacturing facilities for successful start-ups, ensuring that we meet our ambitious goals in delivering high-quality plant-based alternatives to our customers. In this position, you will be responsible for optimizing growth, capacity, supply continuity, and cost-out initiatives, including the optimization of manufacturing assets. You will provide regular updates to leadership, platform leads, project teams, and vendors on key initiatives, including progress against goals, cost management, and next steps to alleviate any roadblocks. As a liaison between the business team and co-manufacturers, you will support business and manufacturing systems initiatives and lead continuous improvement efforts in the commercialization process through collaboration with key partners and sharing best practices. Additionally, you will manage and develop growth and innovation pipeline requests in partnership with marketing and sales, ensuring that financial and capability hurdles are met. You will pilot the manufacturing elements of commercialization related to new product developments (NPDs) and cost-out changes while providing cross-functional support to agile pods and platform teams. Your role will also involve driving NPDs at co-manufacturing sites and providing input and solutions during commercialization meetings regarding manufacturing solutions. You will support the Supply Chain Commercialization team during project prioritization to align on minimum order quantities (MOQs) for materials and production, thereby mitigating supply chain losses. Partnering with EM Quality, you will ensure compliance for any targeted NPDs. The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in manufacturing, business development, or related fields, with at least 8 years of experience. A Bachelor's degree in engineering, Operations Management, Food Science, Chemistry, or a related field is required. Experience in a consumer food company, particularly in a startup environment, is preferred, along with a minimum of 2 years in plant manufacturing. Strong problem-solving skills, negotiation abilities, and excellent communication skills are essential for success in this role. You should be agile, adaptable, and thrive in a dynamic environment, with a high level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, especially Excel. The role requires the ability to travel at least 50% of the time.