Senior Brand Manager, Prepared Foods

The Opportunity

Pilgrim's and JBS are among the largest protein companies in the world. We also built Just Bare, a billion-dollar brand and the #2 brand in frozen fully cooked chicken, in about five years.

That's the proof. Just Bare is moving into new proteins and new forms, and we have conviction about where it can go. Behind it sits manufacturing scale across nearly every protein, the retail relationships, and a commitment to build a house of brands across prepared foods.

What we don't have yet is the answer to what those brands should be, who they're for, and why anyone should choose them over what's already on the shelf. Somebody gets to decide that. We're hiring that person.

This is not a role that inherits a brand and optimizes it. There is no playbook here yet, and that is the point. You'll work across our category and marketing teams to identify the opportunities worth pursuing, build the case for the bets worth making, and carry the approved ones from concept through launch and into a real business. You build it, you launch it, you grow it. Nothing gets handed off to somebody else once the hard part is done.

The distance between the thinking and the decision is short here. You'll make your case directly to the people who decide what we fund, and if the thinking is good, it moves. That's unusually direct exposure for a role at this level, and it's deliberate. We're at a stage where the quality of the argument matters more than the layers it travels through.

What You'll Own

Bringing the bets to life

•       The full retail innovation pipeline, across every brand including Just Bare. Much of what you build will carry Just Bare, our biggest brand, as it moves into new proteins and new forms.

•       Where we play gets set with the Head of Marketing, and you're in that room with a real point of view. Once the direction is set, the build is yours.

•       Turning a consumer insight into a concept. You'll partner with Category Development and our Center of Excellence to shape the questions worth answering, then turn what comes back into a concept with a sharp tension and an explicit reason it wins. This is the non-negotiable part of the job.

•       The business case, and the recommendation to advance, hold, or kill every opportunity in the pipeline, with the reasoning on the record. You make the call you believe in and you defend it. Knowing what to walk away from matters as much as knowing what to chase.

Getting them to market

•       The selling story and sell-in materials that get our sales teams into the room and out with a win.

•       The packaging creative process, from brief to shelf.

•       The launch, driven through our stage gate process with R&D, Culinary, Packaging, and Operations, and out the door with Commerce Marketing and Brand Activation.

The brands

•       Every brand in our retail portfolio except Just Bare, which has its own dedicated owner. Today that's Pilgrim's, Country Pride, and Principe, and it grows as the portfolio does.

•       Pilgrim's is the meaningful piece. We're rebuilding the brand, including through licensed equity platforms starting with Flamin' Hot, and you'll own how that comes to life.

•       Brand strategy, positioning, and guardrails for what's in your scope: who we're for, what we stand for, what good looks like.

The craft

•       How a brand looks, feels, and sounds. Packaging, design, creative, and every surface a shopper actually sees.

•       You have a point of view on design and creative and you can defend it. You'll work with our creative team and our agencies to get there.

•       Agencies do the building. You set the direction, write the brief, and judge what comes back.

True Ownership

•       Priorities shift, opportunities emerge, and challenges need owners. You'll step in where needed, take on additional responsibilities, and help move the business forward.

How You'll Work

Our businesses run on separate P&Ls by protein and category. Our brands don't. Just Bare already crosses categories and more of the portfolio will follow, which is why brand ownership sits with Marketing rather than inside any one business.

Marketing owns the brands, the innovation pipeline, and the work of building them. The P&L owners run the businesses. That means your ideas travel on the strength of the case behind them, and the people who do well here can walk into a room with a business leader, Category Development, Sales, R&D, and Operations and leave with all of them bought in.

•       P&L owners run their businesses and own their numbers. You're their brand and consumer partner. The bar is that they can't imagine running it without you.

•       Category Development and our Center of Excellence bring where-to-play, category and consumer strategy, analytics, and research, and they help build the brand strategy with you. You shape what they work on and turn it into something worth deciding on.

•       Our Senior Director of Brand Marketing leads the retail brand portfolio, setting portfolio architecture and strategic guardrails across it. You'll bring a point of view to that. Within those guardrails, you own the strategy and positioning for your brands. When your work touches a brand you don't own, that brand's owner is your partner.

•       Agencies do the building: research, design, creative. You brief them, direct them, and hold the bar on what comes back.

•       PMO, R&D, Culinary, Packaging, Operations, Sales, Commerce Marketing, and Brand Activation are how things actually get made and sold. You'll know all of them well.

Where This Goes

The marketing organization is growing, and the ambition is bigger than what's been built so far. Right now this role is weighted toward building. As what you build becomes real business, the scope grows with it.

We're telling you that up front because it's the honest shape of the job and because it's the good part. Most people inherit brands. You'd be growing into a portfolio that exists because of decisions you made.

What Success Looks Like in Year One

•       A pipeline with a real point of view on where our brands play, sequenced and defensible.

•       Opportunities brought to clear go or no-go recommendations, with an argument strong enough to decide from.

•       P&L owners who treat you as a genuine partner in their business, not a service desk.

•       Pilgrim's, Country Pride, and Principe running on clear strategy and clear guardrails, executed well by agencies, without you sitting in the campaign flow.

•       A working relationship with Category Development and the Center of Excellence that produces better decisions than either group would reach alone.

Who We're Looking For

You'll need

•       Brand building beyond line extension and renovation. We want someone who has entered a new category or launched a new brand and can talk about what it actually took.

•       The ability to turn a consumer insight into a differentiated concept and explain, out loud, why it wins.

•       A track record taking products from concept all the way through in-market execution. Not managing a stage of it. All of it.

•       A real point of view on brand craft: design, packaging, and creative, and how a brand should show up across every medium.

•       6+ years of progressive brand management or marketing experience in consumer packaged goods, including meaningful ownership of a brand or business.

•       The ability to lead cross-functional teams and agencies without direct authority, in places where the process was still being invented.

•       Working fluency across consumer research, packaging development, commercial execution, and business case and P&L principles. Enough to direct partners and judge their work, not to do it yourself.

•       Communication that holds up in front of executives.

•       Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field.

•       Can perform the functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation.

•       Willingness to travel as business needs dictate.

During the process, you'll be asked to pressure test a real concept and a real business case, and to say what you would kill.

It helps if you have

•       Formal brand management training at a blue-chip CPG organization (P&G, General Mills, Conagra, or equivalent).

•       Food, protein, frozen, or prepared foods experience.

•       Experience standing up an innovation process, not just running one that already existed.

•       Foodservice or private label exposure.

How We'll Know It's You

•       Brand builder at heart. You love what makes a brand tick and how it comes to life. You have taste, you have opinions about food, and you care how the work looks and feels.

•       Sleeves rolled up. The team is lean and the hierarchy is limited. You're as comfortable getting into the details as you are setting the direction.

•       Self-direction. You develop a point of view and a path forward without waiting for a process to tell you how.

•       Decision quality. You make sound calls with incomplete information and stand behind them.

•       Comfort with ambiguity. You do your best work where roles and processes are still forming.

•       Influence and collaboration. You get results through people who don't report to you.

•       Consumer orientation. Your recommendations start with a real human need, not a manufacturing capability.

•       Commercial acumen. You hold brand ambition and business case discipline at the same time.

About Us

The applicant who fills this position will be eligible for the following compensation and benefits:

•       Benefits: Vision, Medical, and Dental coverage begin after 60 days of employment;

•       Paid Time Off: sick leave, vacation, and 6 company observed holidays;

•       401(k): company match begins after the first year of service and follows the company vesting schedule;

•       Base salary range of $140,000 - $160,000;

•       Incentive Pay: This position is eligible to participate in the Company’s annual bonus plan, the amount of bonus varies and is subject to the standard terms and conditions of the incentive program; and

•       Career Development: Our company is dedicated to supporting professional growth by offering continuous learning opportunities and a focus on career growth through various learning and development programs.

For individuals assigned and/or hired to work in states where it is required by law to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation for any given position, compensation ranges are specific to those states and takes into account various factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to a candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiencies for the role.

The posted salary range represents the Company’s good faith estimate of the compensation that the Company reasonably expects to pay for this role at the time of posting. Actual compensation will be determined based on factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, skills, qualifications, tenure, internal equity, market data, and may vary accordingly.

This position does not have an application deadline. We will continue to recruit until the position has been filled.

The Company is dedicated to ensuring a safe and secure environment for our team members and visitors. To assist in achieving that goal, we conduct drug, alcohol, and background checks for all new team members post-offer and prior to the start of employment. The Immigration Reform and Control Act requires that verification of employment eligibility be documented for all new employees by the end of the third day of work.

About us: Pilgrim’s is a leading global food company with more than 62,000 team members worldwide. The company processes, prepares, packages, and delivers fresh, frozen, and value-added food products for customers in more than 100 countries. Pilgrim’s operates protein processing plants and prepared foods facilities in 14 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, the U.K, the Republic of Ireland and continental Europe. Pilgrim’s is headquartered in beautiful Greeley, Colorado, at the JBS USA corporate office where our 1,200 employees enjoy more than 300 days of sunshine a year.

Our mission: To be the best in all that we do, completely focused on our business, ensuring the best products and services to our customers, a relationship of trust with our suppliers, profitability for our shareholders and the opportunity of a better future for all of our team members.

Our core values are: Availability, Determination, Discipline, Humility, Ownership, Simplicity, Sincerity

EOE, including disability/vets

Unsolicited Assistance: JBS and its companies do not accept unsolicited assistance from any recruitment vendors for any of our open jobs. All resumes or candidate profiles submitted by recruitment vendors or headhunters to any employee at JBS and its companies or via the applicant tracking system, in any form without a valid written request and search agreement previously approved by HR, will be solely owned by JBS and its companies. No fees will be paid should the candidate be hired by JBS and its companies because of an unsolicited referral.